August 2024 …
In February this year I submitted a short story to a competition. The story had been submitted to another competition six months earlier but just missed the cut to be long-listed. After receiving feedback from the publisher associated with the first competition I reworked the story into a much stronger form.
I had high expectations with the second competition. However, it failed to be listed among the top forty of 291 entries. The official feedback from the second competition was positive and encouraging. The highlighted weakness was that judges felt that the characters were old stereotypes.
This was surprising since no-one else had hinted that that was a weakness. I wasn’t too disappointed by this comment and used it as an opportunity to understand an aspect I hadn’t previously comprehended.
To my mind, we all fit into some sort of stereotype, whether we like it or not; stereotypes exist because they represent characteristics of large numbers of people. When writing a story, the hint of a stereotype is unavoidable and is a means for sketching a character at the start of a story. It’s a way to connect the reader with a plausible, familiar person. The hook is made when the reader assumes they know details and behaviours about the character.
The role of the storyteller is to remove or change some of those stereotype behaviours, or at least the initial perceptions, to reveal a new and unique person. The revealed character changes the reader’s perspective of the stereotype and opens the possibility for the reader to recognise that the behaviours of people they know may be due to the possibilities raised in the story.
One piece of analysis of the official feedback was that the ‘dramatic’ female in my story was an old stereotype. The publisher noted that modern stories are trending towards featuring stronger, more complex women.
As it happens, the novel I am drafting features four strong, complex women and one complex man. It wasn’t a conscious choice when I commenced the draft, but it became a very natural feature of the story as the draft developed. Unlike Trials of Henry, it has a modern contemporary setting in Australia. For me, writing about four unique strong female characters did not require any effort; it emerged through a logical natural, plausible telling of the story. I wasn’t consciously trying to follow a trend but I’m excited to think that, in this respect, I am creating or extending new stereotypes.
Stereotypes seem to be everywhere but if you look hard enough you will discover those individual facets and flaws that make us all shine in our unique way.