The Ditchwalk Book Club is reading and discussing Rust Hills’ seminal work, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. Announcement here. Overview here. Tag here.
The full title of this section is Type Characters, as against Stock Characters. It’s a continuation of the previous section, in which Hills makes a further distinction:
Let us say that a stock character is one we have grown too familiar with, through having seen him over and over in films and in novels and stories and on TV, always performing the same role or function in the plot.
Hills defines the stock character as a plot cliche, while the type character discussed in previous sections is a cliche of characterization. It’s a rather tidy analysis, and I think he’s right about the distinction. [ Read more ]