Non-stereotypical

You know you're an odd duck when your husband asks you when the Super Bowl is...

Such is life in my house. I am far more interested in football than my husband, although he seems to "get" the game more than I do.

Last night, we were eating dinner, and TMOTH looked at me (while I was stuffing my mouth with pizza) and said, "The Super Bowl is next week?"

I held up two fingers, and after I swallowed, told him, "Two weeks, Honey."

After thinking about it for a bit, it made me think about how much of the time, the characters I read about are a bit stereotypical. Sure, there's some exceptions, but most of the time, the girls are the shopping-freaks, and the guys can't understand anything else when anything with a ball is on the TV.

As a writer, I hope my characters are never cookie-cutters cut-outs. The main character in one of my projects absolutely HATES shopping, and is very likely to show up somewhere wearing a Kansas City Chiefs jersey (whether it's appropriate or not.) The hero in the same story is as comfortable cooking alongside his girl (the main character) as he is taking his car apart and changing its oil.

If you're a writer, do you find you rely on stereotypes of the genders a bit too much? If so, is there a legitimate reason you do?

If you're a reader, do you notice when characters are stereotypes?


Until next time,



P.S.--I drafted this last night... while I was watching the Giants/49ers go into overtime...