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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44273
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44273
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

There is a difference between stereotypes and simply not fleshing a character out.

For example, your main character goes into a coffeeshop, orders, and sits down to read. At the next table are two women he works with. What are they talking about?

Mind you, you're not going to get into their heads. The narrator won't give background about them or tell their point of view. They may or may not speak to the MC (if they do, it is probably quite brief). The reader doesn't know their hopes and dreams, and doesn't care.

Some gender-based stereotypes could be that the women have secretarial/clerical positions, aren't really into the work, and their favorite conversation is gossip about other women they know or their husbands/boyfriends.

Some women (and some men!) have one or more of these characteristics, and that's okay. It's a stereotype when most of the women in your story fall into this or another trope, with or without some ["girls who are not like the other girls."](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/44254/avoiding-the-not-like-other-girls-trope/) These aren't the only gender-based stereotypes. The women could be young, scheming professionals, who are gorgeous and fashionable. Just to name one of many possibilities.

Take a minute to think of them. In real life, what sort of women might sit together at a coffeehouse during lunch (or before or after work)? Of course, the possibilities here are endless. Choose any one of them. Maybe one is the owner of the company who is grooming her daughter to take over when she retires and they're talking about problems with a client. Perhaps they're analysts with cubicles next to each other and they're talking about taking their kids together to the upcoming county fair. Or they could work in the company cafeteria and go to the coffeehouse so they don't have to make their own coffee, thank you very much, and one is inviting the other to watch her race motorcycles that weekend.

It doesn't really matter what you choose because they're not important characters. They're background, like the coffeehouse. I didn't describe the place but you already know it's the type of coffeehouse with chairs and tables where people can spend time chatting or reading. Say I make a comment about the MC being glad that the pie of the day was peach, so he got a slice with his iced mocha. Now you know the place is local, not a chain, caters to the modern whim of different coffee choices (so not an old-fashioned diner), and, yes, it's probably late summer.

With characters it's the same thing. Choose a couple details and suddenly the reader has an image in her/his mind. (Whether it's the same image that's in your mind is not important.)

A way to do this with stereotypes is to make all the non-primary characters fit neatly into tropes and other expectations, then make the primary characters ones that don't fit the mold.

The better way is to see non-primary characters as the same diverse individuals people in real life are and throw in details to match. You don't need much for background characters, like the women at the next table. Secondary and tertiary characters will have names, descriptions, and roles in the MC's life. But they have their own lives and they don't just exist to further the MC. Write that in.

Original score: 27