One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#51: Status Quo

I am not the first person to bring up the common literary cliché of a constantly consistent status quo. Many people, readers and non-readers, have talked about this issue before. TV shows such as Full House are mentioned as bad examples of a constantly consistent status quo. In every episode, even if the subject manner involves memory loss or explaining the death of a loved one, in the end no one develops as a character. Every single cast member never changes in personality at all, making the conflict pointless. The setting will always stay the same. It is like a nightmarish version of Pleasantville where the main characters fail to bring color into their 50's setting. A strong story needs character development in order to keep the plot going. Without it, the audience is prone to getting bored of the same old thing happening again and again. Status quo is like writing the same love song fifty times with the only different thing being some of the lyrics. Both the song and story just stay stuck on the same routines. No one likes that. This is the common argument towards the usage of a status quo in fiction.

So why mention the status quo cliché despite the subject manner being talked about in other editorials such as this one? In my opinion, status quo is not just about the story staying static. Status quo can apply to the way characters are written in fiction as well. With status quo, characters are constantly grouped into several types of stereotypes. These status quo stereotypes include but are not limited to the mean popular girl, the clueless father figure, and the emotionless loner. Somehow with these stereotypes the characters created are still expected to stick out despite other characters like them existing constantly in other forms of media. It just will not work.

Subverting the stereotype is what you should do in order to avoid characters that follow a status quo. Instead of a mean popular girl, how about creating a popular teenager who is not at all vain and uses their popularity in order to help their peers. How about instead of the father figure being reduced to another Homer Simpson, the character is turned into a goofy but very realistic thinking person who does not have a brain the size of a walnut. With the emotionless loner, turn them into a young teenager internally fighting their self hatred of their lifestyle choices by not going to the high school party and instead stayed at home watching a movie. All three examples here have the basic blueprint established by the common stereotype they would normally follow. However, their characterization is expanded upon to make them more relatable and human to the target audience. They no longer are coloring inside of the lines. Instead they are scribbling all over the paper. Theses types of characters will be the ones remembered by audiences.

As for the more common use of the status quo mentioned earlier, try changing things up a bit. Consistency in the story is nice, but changing the plot formula from an always happy ending to a rare bittersweet ending once in a while helps. Even if you have your setting and characters set in stone, do not be afraid of completely inverting both elements to create a more dynamic plot. Who has won an award for just writing another cheesy love story on an exotic island? Nobody.