JUNE, MAY, 2020
THEY SHALT NOT BORE US—
CHARACTERS WE HAVE SEEN TOO OFTEN
By: Alice Orr
I once made a wish
that I‘d never be
bored. When life turns
chaotic, I sometimes
think better of that
wish. Nonetheless,
boredom is something few people enjoy,
especially not our readers, especially not
boredom with our story characters.
Cliché characters kill reader interest.
The character we‘ve read too many times
already. More a type than a person. Monotonous
to the max. Imagine how true
that is for an editor or agent, confronting
submission after submission, deadened
by hackneyed characters at every turn.
A story‘s spark is dulled by functionary
characters; a cliché does even worse.
The crusty, but benign older gentleman.
The doddering, but foxy grand dame.
The good-hearted prostitute. The downat-the-heels
detective with a bitter edge.
Feel free to add more dullards to the list.
These are types, generally known for
a pair of characteristics. They always behave
according to this two-dimensional
signature. They possess limited life and
no real emotional depth. Any appendage,
a cat or broken-down car or endless
peeve, is an extension of the signature.
The sole purpose of these characters
is to impact your hero in some limited
way. Beyond that, they have no meaningful
story significance. This may sometimes
work for a gifted novelist, but most
cliché creators end up with a story populated
by stick figures.
The alternative is to give each character,
however minor, a soul. He lives
beyond his few scenes in your story. You
may portray only brief moments of that
life, but they can be real moments, enriching
your story and deepening the
complications surrounding your hero.
Know who each minor character is.
Feel her as a living, breathing being.
Then, slice off a wedge of that life to
insert in your story, at a juncture where
she encounters the conflicted circumstances
of your protagonist and affects
those circumstances in a truly crucial
way.
Occasionally, a minor character turns
out to be more significant than you
planned. He takes on an intriguing essence
of his own. So, consider giving him
a book of his own. In this era of successful
sequels, spin-offs and series, what a
marvelous storytelling gift that could be!
On the other, non-marvelous hand,
meet Lucy the airhead. Worse than outof-date
in today‘s take-charge woman
world, she‘s cardboard, too often overly
sexy in a wide-eyed, supposedly ingenuous
way. She blunders into one catastrophe
after another, waiting for her bacon
to be saved, usually by a man. Like I said,
she‘s out-of-date, especially in strong
storytelling terms.
Another character in need of an update
is Cal the Commitmentphobe.
We‘ve definitely seen too much of this
guy, especially in romance fiction. His
character signature is that he refuses to
get into a meaningful relationship, no
matter what. He‘s been burned in the
past, blah, blah, blah. He loves his freedom,
blah, blah, blah. Cal is a cliché.
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