stereotypes & clichés are everywhere! —

There’re plenty more but those are the ones that are on the top of my head. And I’m sure you can tell which ones are seriously overused. Do yourself a favor and when you write try to avoid cliché lines. They’re getting older by the day and people don’t realize how easy it is to replace a cliché with something more unique.

Using something other than clichés may be bothersome because you may have to expand your sentences but at least it’s something different for once! Try out these two examples out for size …

All hell broke loose when Jinki couldn’t find his KFC coupon.

Now that could turn into something more original …

It was utter chaos when Jinki discovered that he couldn’t locate his missing KFC coupon.

And mentioning Jinki, aka Onew of SHINee, this leads us to back to stereotypes. This may not seem to relate but do you know what a fanship is? If not look it up or even better I’ll do it for you. I used Urban Dictionary, being that fanship is not an actual defined word, can be described as indirect interaction between fans and celebrities.

Our Korean idols are infamous for their fanship habits. We’ve been able to conjure up couples of our fantasies (i.e. JongKey, 2Min, TOPbom, DaraGon, JunSeob, JunSeung) over time because of these things. Sadly, it is such fanships that have caused the many stereotypes that we read about in stories today. Does it sound familiar? It does to me.

Take a quick look at the popular tags on Asian Fan Fics real quick in another tab. The top one is SHINee isn’t it? I’m sure we’ve all read our fair share of SHINee stories being that Shawols are all over the place. I mean, c’mon their concert in France sold out at a drop of a hat (how cliché of me!).

Let’s take a general look at what stereotypes have been in store for the men of SM Entertainment …

Onew: loves chicken, is a klutz, oblivious despite his position (leader) and age

Jonghyun: womanizer, player, strong

Key: extremely feminine, gay, weak

Minho: manly, strong, an athletic guy that normally plays soccer and soccer only

Taemin: innocent, banana milk loving kid, pure

Heechul: a cross dresser, vain

Yesung: an obsessed turtle lover

Siwon: religious things, the Bible, church

Kyuhyun: gamer

Jaejoong: flirtatious, Kingka material

Changmin: eats a lot

Now in every band, the male one at least, we all seem to name certain personas for each member. There’s always the umma-like character who has an appa-like figure alone side him (or possibly her), the cold one who is most likely the rapper, the diva, the completely ripped or buff one, innocent (visual) maknae, and more depending on the number of members the band has.

As a suggestion when writing chapters do it in Microsoft Word first. It doesn’t always catch all your errors but it will show where you have fragments, which can be an issue with people at times. There is a reason for me bringing this up though.

In a Word document if you spell something wrong a red line appears underneath it to show it is spelt wrong. Once you are positive you’re spelling a word correct (i.e. the word hello in Korean is Romanized as annyeonghaseyo) right click over that misspelled word and click ‘Add to Dictionary’. That way when you spell that word later on if you do misspell it on accident the spell check it catch it and alert you so that the number of typos is decreased.

However, as much as I’d like to ramble on about this stuff about saving new words into your computer’s dictionary, I can’t. Take my advice and do this …

When writing about bands with so many common stereotypes right when you get to something that is the perfect spot for a stereotypical cliché to appear, switch it up and shock your audience.

Jaejoong didn’t even look at the girl, keeping in mind that she wasn’t popular like him. He strode into the lunch room, heading over to the table where his friends were sitting, surrounded by girls. Chuckling to himself, he took his seat and glanced down at the box of food that a girl had offered to him gratefully in the hallway.

“I’m not going to eat all of this. Does anyone want some of this?” he asked his friends. Changmin wasn’t paying attention so he nudged the maknae. “Do you want some of this?”

Normally, Changmin would jump all over an opportunity to eat food. But you now have to keep in mind that you’re trying to set yourself apart from all the other authors on this website. You don’t want to do the same old same old like everyone else.

“Ani hyung, I had my fill.” Changmin answered, smiling.

That’s something that nobody will expect. There’s no law that says you can’t use these general stereotypes that have been adapted over time, but don’t overuse them. It makes them seem overrated and boring after seeing it so many times. It’s like the ‘Scream’ or ‘Saw’ movies, after you’ve seen so many of them as their numbers increase it becomes boring and dull.

Here’s a hint for those who don’t want to give up those cliché, overused stereotypes that we see in almost every typical story: use a thesaurus. For those who don’t have a single clue about what that is, it’s similar to a dictionary. It almost has the same purpose but it shows purely synonyms to words, as well as antonyms. That way you can find different words for the common ones used to describe the es of whoever you’re writing about (i.e. Zico and Hello Kitty).