Bittercon: Limits and Stereotypes - Do they stifle, or spur creativity?

[pameladlloyd]

My eldest son and I were talking this afternoon and he brought up the issue of limits, such as censorship, which can sometimes have the effect of increasing creativity, rather than decreasing it, as writers (and other artists) find creative ways around and through the censorship. He commented that he sometimes wondered if such concepts as stereotypes, or archetypal characters, might not opperate in much the same way, by spurring us to find new ways to make "old" characters "new." It was such a wonderful, thoughtful comment, that I decided to add it to Bittercon if there were no similar topics. Finding none, I will host this one.

What are your thoughts?

Can we see stereotypes or archetypes as limits? And, if we do, do those limits hem us in, making writing more difficult, or do they push our creative buttons?

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Some things that people describe as stereotypes I can accept in certain stories--for example, the wizard with the long white beard that sartorias described. I'd be fine with a wizard described differently, but if a story contains a wizard who conforms to the wizard stereotype, it doesn't necessarily bother me, any more than having apples ripen in the fall bothers me. Apples do ripen in the fall, and I can let myself enter a world in which wizards have long white beards if that's the way the author sets up the world. But I'm happy, too, to be given a world in which wizards are different.

That makes me wonder about the notion sartorias brought up about the stereotyped (or clichéd) situation. I think I'm *less* cool with that. It begins to approach the situation some comedian described, in which a family tells the same jokes so often that they don't, in the end, even bother telling them--they just refer to them by number. When clichéd scenes pop up in a story, i feel as if the author might as well just give me the number (insert plot scene no. 17 here).

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Yes. Reading your first paragraph got me thinking about some of Barbara Hambly's work. She's had both kinds of wizards and made them all work. :)

I think, for me, the reason that stereotypes don't work is that they are lacking in dimensionality. It's not just whether the wizard has a long white beard, but whether he's just like every other wizard with a long white beard. If you put him in jeans and suspenders, suddenly he's new and different. Then, you're telling me that you're aware of the stereotype and playing with it a bit. It has to go farther than that, of course. The wizard in jeans and suspenders might get my attention, but it's only when he sits down at his computer and pulls up his favorite opera songs while he browses the internet for spell ingredients that I begin to be certain that he's going to take on flesh and be an interesting character.

I'm not so sure about your second point, because I think that in the right hands, the clichéd can become fresh again; a corollary, if you will, to the old adage that there's nothing new under the sun. But, it's certainly very hard to do and not something most beginners will handle well. And, I may be totally off course, here, because my mind is a complete blank when I try to come up with a good example of this.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I want to meet that magician you describe--he sounds fun.

I think if you were to make a clichéd situation fresh, it wouldn't feel like a cliché anymore, right? Certainly I don't mind situations that are fresh takes on old themes!

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I had fun coming up with him for that post. I'm not sure what his story is, just yet (although I'm beginning to get inklings of where he lives), or even if I'm going to write it at all, but, well, yes. I had fun with him. :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do hope you end up writing something with him in it! I know a world with him in it will be an interesting world. I already know I like how you put magic in a modern setting :-)

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

*blush* Thank you.