Defying Stereotypes

I am excruciatingly bored with walking stereotypes. Everytime I see a character who does nothing but be a stereotype, I am immediately turned off and lose interest. I cannot possibly see how anyone would find them entertaining or interesting. Naturally, this means that I will never write a character like that intentionally, unless I'm parodying that stereotype. I don't care if "there's some truth in every stereotype". I will not write them. I hate those characters.

It's possible of course to write character who suits a stereotype and have them be a well-written and interesting character.  I do not automatically hate every gay character who is flamboyant, or every female character who is weak and needy. It's a good opportunity to examine that stereotype and how it affects people and their perceptions of others, or how it affects those that are being stereotyped. People rarely do it right however.

Probably a good test to see whether or not your character is well-written is to see if you can sum up everything people need to know about that character in a single phrase. If you can, your character needs more work.