Musing on Stereotypes

I was thinking the other day about stories (what else is new?) and their characters (still not a shocker), when it dawned on me that as humans, we expect certain traits to belong to specific types of fictional people. When characters go against the stereotypes, it can be uncomfortable for readers to try and understand someone that is so abnormal.

I believe stereotypes persist because a character’s personality must be relatable to a large percentage of people. As such, writers tend to stick with what is socially normal as these people are easy to connect with and visualize. And even if you don’t connect with everything about the character, there’s surely a point or two about them that you can understand. However, this doesn’t offer much variety. More often than not, these discrepancies revolve around the differences in sexes. How women should act and behave one way while men another. I would love to see more characters who break these gender types.

At the heart of it all, what should make the character believable is not their sex, but rather their actions and reactions to the story around them and how in sync that behavior is with their personality. If the character is timid and shy, they aren’t likely to go hunt down a killer but rather call the police, however if the character is headstrong and reckless, they might very well chase after the killer.

My point is there are several base personality types, but they can vary and change depending on the person and thus could essentially produce hundreds or thousands of combinations. What defines people and more specifically male and female characters is not so black and white.

Personally, I don’t think stereotypes are something writers should continue to encourage. I believe writers should showcase a variety of people, especially if they break social norms and challenge the reader to rethink their assumptions. If you’re still a little confused about my rant, here’s an example:

Jordan- A strong, confident individual who likes to take control of a situation and lead by example.

Alex- A soft-spoken, compassionate person who likes helping others and solving problems.

Now this is where you come in. These characters could be normal or abnormal depending on how you view them. So I’m wondering what you think. Which one of these people is a male character? Which one is a female character? And why? Could you imagine the genders being swapped?