Haven’t I Met You Before?
Our last post dealt with women being typecast in reoccurring roles. But this one will be a bit more general. I’ve complied a list of a few characters that will fast track you to the rejection pile. They always have the same obstacles, and they slip in and out of our minds without leaving a mark.
The Struggling Writer. We all love writing here at FFO, and if you’re reading this I’m guessing you do too. Most of us are fiction writers just like most of you. And guess what? We’re all struggling. Yep. And I have it on good authority that even successful writers struggle. Why? Writing is an emotional grind. If you aren’t struggling then you aren’t doing it right.
So reading a story about a misunderstood author who waxes poetic about sunsets and sidewalks makes me want to scream! They should spend less time at the beach and more time with their butt in the seat.
The Shy Nerd. Confession: most of us here are nerds. And I’m guessing we all look at Revenge of the Nerds and see a battle cry that launched the revolution. But that was in the 1980’s. It’s a different world now. Nerds are successful. And now there is enough social media and conventions to form your very own gang of geeks in an hour. So writing a story where a shy nerd has to overcome an obstacle to demonstrate their value isn’t relevant any longer.
Try a story about shy jock with performance anxiety then we might get somewhere.
The Existential College Student. I attribute this to an excess of academic writing classes. At the time you’re probably discovering Franz Kafka and Ralph Ellison, it’s hard not to fall in with that crowd. We’re all a bit insecure with our place in this world. We all have the why-are-we-here questions.
You know what else we have? We still have Ellison and Kafka to fill that need.
Fiction today, at least the kind we’re looking for at FFO, needs to focus on entertainment. You can go deep, but you better have a solid conflict to have us hooked by then.
Death Bed Declarations. I think this one is so popular because the deathbed is a hotbed for conflict. But you can also substitute car accident, bullet to the vitals, suicide, or any number of life ending scenarios. Inevitably these always have to do a lot of backtracking to make us care. They rarely hit that emotional core.
Why? Because other than an apology there isn’t much you can do on your deathbed to resolve anything. We read fiction to see people change, and if they change two minutes before death it comes across as pointless.
Reluctant Hero. This seems to be the new hero archetype in our culture. We see it all the time in books and films, usually done for comedy. And I confess that Matrim Cauthon, the epitome of a reluctant hero, is one of my all time favorite fictional characters. I don’t think this works in flash though. For a reluctant hero to work, they need to have enough redemptive values to balance their callous side. I can’t remember seeing it done effectively in just a thousand words. There simply isn’t enough time so the hero comes off as a jerk.
One last thing. I encourage you to use each one of these characters! Didn’t see that coming did you? But please, for the love of our sanity, take them in new directions.
Show us characters that break the mold!