Typing Tips: Ten Common Characters to Avoid

Through television and movies, some people have become ordinary characters. That means everyone knows and will recognize them.

Unfortunately, that also makes them almost unusable in written fiction unless you’re postmodern and ironic. Here, with the tongue occasionally on the cheek, there are a few to avoid.

– The square jaw action man with stone eyes

Think of Doc Savage, Superman, or Tarzan. This one was very popular in times past, but modern readers look for a bit of depth and vulnerability in its heroes. If you’re introducing a strong, quiet guy, try giving him a weakness, such as passing out at the sight of blood, or a hobby that emphasizes his feminine side, such as sewing.

– The Careless and Spectacled Scientist in a White Coat

This guy is more common in movies, the best recent example being Brent Spinner on Independence Day. But sometimes they appear in fiction, either as a madman hell-bent on world domination or a nerd spouting gibberish. The main reason people believe stereotypical scientists is because they know almost nothing about science. or what scientists do. Take time to learn about science. Meet some scientists. Then you can write about a sloppy person in glasses and in a white coat and know that you are writing about a real person.

– The cake with a heart

A role that was once monopolized by Shirley McLaine, and very popular in pulp detective stories. They still appear in Hollywood, but less in print. These days, if you write about a prostitute, it usually means that there is some intense sex on the way or some extreme violence. If you can’t offer anything beyond the stereotype, the publisher won’t be interested. Take the time to learn about prostitution. Meet a few … on second thought, it may not be wise to take your research too far in this case.

– The Fighting Writer

Long loved by the writers themselves, the “portrait of the struggling artist” is a perennial favorite. Writers are good because they aren’t going to work like normal people, so you can get them out of the house and into action quickly. But if you have them agonizing over their work and developing mental / alcohol / drug issues, then all you are showing is your own distress. Don’t bore an editor with your psychological complexes.

– The university professor who sleeps with his students

It is no wonder that it is very popular with professors and university students. This character has a long pedigree, but most of the plots involving him have developed. Once upon a time appeared in books that won literary awards. Now he’s more likely to be a murder suspect in a lazy whodunit based on a beer-drinking chief inspector in Oxford.

– The bored housewife who runs away with the handsome stranger

Or Shirley Valentine as she is better known. It appears in romantic fiction all the time. Nice escapism for other boring housewives, but unless you can put a unique twist on the plot, you will never sell the story, not even to a women’s magazine. And why aren’t bored husbands running off with beautiful strangers? The answer is probably that it happens too often in real life for it to work in fiction.

– The man of God who lost faith.

It’s a staple of both soap operas and horror movies. Either he regains his faith just in time to avoid committing adultery, commits adultery, or is bitten by the monster. A similar character is the man of God blinded by his faith, a good example of which is attacked by invading aliens in George Pal’s 1955 science fiction classic, War of the Worlds.

– The smart kid who is bullied.

Or, if you’re being postmodern and ironic, Stephen King’s geek boy. They are most often used in revenge plots or teenage boy-girl-at-the-end fantasies. Either way, they tend to say more about the writer’s own childhood wishes than anything else, and an editor will see hundreds of them in a year.

– The overworked doctor

It pops up everywhere: in medical dramas where you make a fatal mistake on a dose, in war stories fighting rising casualties, and in murder cases that tell police they can’t talk to the sedated figure in the bed. With the popularity of hospital dramas, and the emergency room in particular, it will continue to exist for a long time. But try to give him something more than to say that “The next few hours will be crucial.”

– World’s Tired Crime Fighter

Why are all cops cynical, smoke or drink too much, and have ongoing relationship problems? Recently, different police departments have been searched, resulting in a large number of pathologists, crime scene investigators, and psychiatrists. The obvious result of all this was the paraplegic crime scene investigator Denzel Washington in “The Bone Collector.” And yes, he was cynical, authoritarian, and had ongoing relationship problems.

So there you have it. Ten people who appear over and over again in fiction, just under different names. Use them at your own risk.

And finally, I will tell you a secret. Seven of them have appeared at some point in my fiction, so I don’t always practice what I preach.