Five Most Common Female Character Stereotypes
When someone says that your character is “common”, it is not a good thing. It means that your character is a copy that’s been copied over much too many times. That you’ve probably seen it in books yourself— you may have even based it off a book character. Or you may have ripped it directly from a stereotype without even thinking about it.
It happens to the best of us when we’re absent about development. However, that does not make it okay. Common characters must be eradicated as soon as they start sounding bland.
The post on male characters will serve as follow-up tomorrow. If you think this one’s a tad brash, just wait for that one. Juuust wait.
5- Brave chick who has utterly no personality besides oh, look she can shoot stuff pretty good can I leave her there.
Somehow, the trend seems to be going that in order to have a female protagonist, we must rid ourselves of every trace of interesting traits and make her the equivalent of a mindless arrow-shooting vixen who’s cold on the outside… and on the inside… and is generally cold… and bland…
A female protagonist can and should be utterly hardcore with the weaponry and all that— I am completely down with that and in fact encourage it— but don’t sacrifice her depth for it. She can be both gun-savy and a memorable character.
If you’re questioning that your character might be a part of this group, check to see what her main traits are. “Good with ammo” is not a trait. “Trained in judo” is not a trait. “Can do sarcastic comebacks but otherwise is still as a sock” is also not a trait.
Dig deeper into her personality, bring her out, let her delve deeper, gosh darn it.
4- Overly supportive mother/grandmother/aunt.
Kudos to your character if she has a mother who cares. Overly supportive mother, however, cares a bit too much. She seems to live in constant peril that any sign of discipline she enforces over her daughter will make her unlikeable, and that making herself a limp noodle— albeit a sweet limp noodle— will earn her daughter’s respect.
Common phrases from her mouth are: “Whatever you want, honey”; “Hello! I made dinner! Do you want a smartphone with that?.”; “But officer, I don’t care about the evidence— my child is golden!”
This is one of the more distressing common tropes. Think of your own mother— you respect her, don’t you? It probably wasn’t because she let you do whatever you want. Mothers aren’t passive, and the fictional ones shouldn’t be. And if she is passive, she better not be portrayed as the perfect role model for every teenage girl. You’re just a-shoeing for both a terrible character and a warped perspective for the next generation.
3- The weird girl who all the guys love even though she sniffs her feet in public.
You can see them through indie fiction in droves, this wave of “different” girls whose only case in point seem to be acting uncommonly weird. The sort who shy guys hook up with presumably so he can poetically narrate her wandering off bridges because she was staring at the clouds. Creating a girl with quirks is one thing— creating an offbeat girl is also great. Creating a psychopath with “cute” abnormalities like licking walls and taking baths in ketchup every Saturday— exaggerating a bit here— is not cute.
Frankly, it’s a tad psychotic and uncanny to the extreme.
The thing with characters is that no matter how weird they are, they still have to be human. You must provide a viable reason for her bathing in ketchup, not just because she has an excusable-because-she”s-eccentric.
I can’t find any excuse for your character to like bathing in ketchup unless she also likes burning down orphanages and mutters to herself in public while clinging to a shopping cart.
Again, if your character’s a bit eccentric, that is alright. But keep her reasons for being eccentric within reason— too many novels go overboard with this bit.
2- “I’m going on an unnecessary spiritual adventure and will describe it to you with looooots of adverbs.”
See if this sounds familiar: “Here is Sally. She is in her mid-thirties. Sally is bored of the never-ending rut her successful job and well-meaning friends give her, so with soundtrack accompaniment by an inspiring instrumental, she gives up all her possessions and somehow manages to pay on a trek around the globe.
Here she meets offensively stereotypical side characters, encounters stereotypical events, and manages to meet an addendum on the meaning of life in a stereotypically philosophical way, also accompanied to an imaginary soundtracks.
And a brick ton of adverbs.”
Literary escapism is so hot right now. If we were to believe the charts, every middle aged business woman is currently on an adventure in deep deep {foreign country}, where she is building houses and outraging every reasonable person she meets with her ignoramus comments.
The best way to root her out is to decide if her jaunt or move has purpose besides “discovering what she’s all about.” If no, tweak with caution until everything she says isn’t a one-liner from the great philosophical internet.
She is also often a victim of trope number three, so beware. And if she’s ditching her job for Bulgaria in no reason besides she’s always wondered if Bulgaria hides the secret to happiness, careful. You might have this trope on your hands.
1- The begrudgingly-blank teenage girl.
"Hello, honey!" said overbearing relative character, beaming as she gave me a mama bear hug. She always does that because I’m her golden child even though I constantly backsass her. "How was your day at school."
”Uhh, fine mom,” I mumbled, shoving her out of the way. She was in front of the refrigerator. This is the life of a teenager. “Do we have any milk?”
”Milk,” said my playful-but-clearly-unhip father, creeping out from the pantry. “I am going to make a sarcastic comment about milk and ruffle your hair, kiddo.”
”Ummm, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes. What a hopeless goofball. “Very funny, dad.”
You don’t tend to see this in published teen lit fiction; perhaps there’s a reason for that. Not only is it dull to create a character who goes around saying “umm” and mentally abusing people, it’s also inaccurate. Find the rudest teen queen you can think of, with the most perfect live who rejects it all for angst, and I guarantee you she’s nothing like this character.
For starters, she has a viable personality.
This is the most forgettable stereotype—the top of the overtly-stereotypical family pyramid— and therefore is the most vital to avoid. Your character needs to have a more complex base than this.
I don’t care what that base is, but find it. Find it before you figure out your character is an insult-spewing adolescent zombie.
