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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44281
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I feel that Cyn and Sara Costa have explained how to avoid using stereotypes in the design of your story. My answer is to explore how to avoid using stereotypes in your prose itself:

**Don't tell me someone fits a stereotype, let me draw that conclusion myself.**

> My uncle is your stereotypical depressed alcoholic has-been. He was a total mess, sat in his chair. He looked no better than when I last saw him a week ago. He'd been watching the game earlier, obviously it had upset him. He was shouting and raving about how it unfair all was, that he'd have done so much better if he was in there.

vs

> My uncle sat, the smell of half a dozen cans of beer on his breath - like always - wearing his old team jersey, which he'd had on the last time I saw him a week ago, with the same mustard stain on it, too. He'd been watching the game earlier, obviously it had upset him. He was shouting, "I coulda done it! If I was in there, I'd have done it fine!"

Both of those take roughly the same amount of "space", but while one draws on a stereotype, the other **focuses on the character** themselves.

**A reader may not know** what a 'stereotypical depressed alcoholic has-been' looks like. Maybe my vision of a particular stereotype is quite different to yours. Maybe it would summon the wrong mental image. They may have their place in culture, but **stereotypes are an unreliable source of information** at best.

The important part is to **isolate what traits of a stereotype you want to use** and use them. Maybe the uncle in my example is also a stereotypical opera singer and I want to mix that into his description as well? Suddenly the first description would feel odd, but the second description I could easily work in a mention of him having a large jaw and booming voice.

It must be said though, it depends on who your audience is. Maybe referring to a stereotype is the right thing for what you're writing, especially if you establish what that stereotype actually means beforehand.

Original score: 13