Yesterday, we began our discussion of stereotypical characters in romance novels. I’ll be the first to admit that with some writers, I don’t mind them. As I’ve already mentioned, I cut my teeth reading Garwood, Deveraux, and Coulter in the 1980s—and there are certain novels of theirs that I still enjoy reading, because they’re good storytellers. But we’ll get into that later.

There are two more types of characters I want to talk about before we move on to the next topic. (What will it be? I’m not sure. I’ll find out tonight when I sit down to write tomorrow’s blog entry.)

The Caveman
Have you ever read a romance novel in which the main male character was so brutish and stubborn that you wondered if he’d skipped back a couple of steps on the evolutionary ladder? (Even if you don’t believe in evolution?) This is the MMC who’s so thickheaded and set in his ways that his only internal conflict is whether or not he’ll give up his caveman ways and finally admit that he loves the romantic interest (usually a female main character). He doesn’t care about anything other than food and entertainment, whether that entertainment is fast cars or going to war on the clans who are his enemies. While the FMC might become part of that entertainment, she’s definitely outranked by the pre-existing forms of entertainment (cars/clubbing his enemies over the head with his big sword). She’s merely a distraction. A gnat. A mosquito. Something he’ll protect because, in his caveman mentality, she now belongs to him (whether they’re married or not).

No, if your reading has been limited to stuff published in the past ten or fifteen years, you probably haven’t seen a caveman hero—or at least, not a true caveman. Just like the short-lived TV show based on the Geico commercials, the caveman of the new millennium has changed. He has feelings just like everyone else (sort of). But just like those Geico cavemen, he’s better left to 30-second clips (secondary role) than being given his own show (MMC).

I’ve read enough newbie authors’ writing to know that in the dark recesses of the vast troposphere of unpublished (unsubmitted, unedited, unrevised, un-everything) work most of us have done, we’ve written a caveman, whether we set out to do it or not. On one side, the caveman character appeals to those romance writers who are the kind of women who find themselves drawn to the “bad boy” character. The rebel without a cause. The one with the devil-may-care attitude who leaves a trail of broken hearts behind him. Somehow, these women believe they can “fix” these bad-boy cavemen. So they write romance novels in which some fiery, spunky, red-headed, green-eyed vixen tames the caveman. Makes him turn from his bad-boy cro-magnon ways and become the ideal Homo sapien.

On the other side, how many episodes of Maury, Jerry Springer, and Ricki Lake does it take for people to realize that our caveman will always be a caveman?

Please, please, please . . . don’t let your MMC be a caveman. Give him some spark, some inkling, that makes his turnaround at the end of the book believable as a lasting change.

Edited to add, 2024
Caveman Red Flags:

• Bullying or belittling others.
• Ignoring his own emotions and emotional wellbeing.
• Refusing to acknowledge or show others that he has feelings.
• Gaining compliance through the threat of (or actual) physical violence.
• The world revolves around him and what he wants / he thinks the other characters exist only to serve his needs.
• Blaming others for his own faults/shortcomings.
• Mansplaining.
• Any kind of in¢el/red Þíll behaviors.

The TSTL Heroine
If you’ve never seen this acronym before, I know you’re dying to know what it means. This is my biggest pet-peeve when it comes to characters: the TOO STUPID TO LIVE female main character. The TSTL heroine is the one who cannot defend herself. Who has to rely on the big, strong, oh-so-manly, I-may-faint-if-he-smiles-at-me hero to save her from every little problem that comes her way. The one who, when kidnapped, cannot even begin to think of own escape plan—or, worse yet, the one who ignores everyone’s warnings and puts herself in harm’s way leading to the kidnapping. The kind who is headstrong and goes against every social norm of her era or environment (whether historic or contemporary) and yet is lauded and applauded by those around her who, in real life, would scorn her. (This is usually done by an author as a means to generate conflicts for the character.)

The TSTL FMC is problematic because she usually exemplifies stereotypical behaviors that display or betray misogyny on the behalf of the author and/or the intended audience, whether intended or not. Every year, we see lists of how poorly female characters have been written in fiction (with their boobs bouncing boobily). But that’s not the most insidious version of the TSTL FMC. Even authors who have been considered feminist icons can fall into this trap, writing an FMC who epitomizes everything the author finds annoying in women they feel fall short of their own ideals, beliefs, and internal codes of behavior. They may think they’re writing this kind of character as a warning to readers not to be this way. But it never works out; the character just becomes unlikable and unbelievable—and doesn’t reflect well on the author. These kinds of characters play upon the worst stereotypes that exist in the societal zeitgeist and reinforce them, setting the fight for equity and equality back decades, if not centuries. (end soapbox)

We see a lot of TSTL FMCs in romantic suspense. She’s the one who runs into the basement in her underwear when she’s home alone and hears a noise down there. She’s the one who opens the door when she knows there’s something dangerous on the other side of it (have you ever seen The Birds?). She’s the one who runs upstairs to get away when she knows there’s no way to get out of the house upstairs. She’s the one who follows the bad guy into the dark woods to find out what he’s up to when she’s unarmed and has no tracking/stealth ability or training (and usually ends up getting captured by the bad guy, who is almost always a caveman).

I also see a lot of TSTL FMCs in historical romances. In fact, I began reading a book that came out a couple of years ago in which the entire premise of the story was built upon the FMC going somewhere where she knew she shouldn’t have been, where she didn’t need to be, and where a woman in her situation of life would never have gone during that time period. Then, once she was in the dangerous situation, she—a headstrong woman of rank and wealth—couldn’t figure out how to prove her identity or buy her way out of it.

TSTL heroines have a tendency to shriek, scream, weep, wail, flail, faint, stamp their feet, and get lost A LOT.

There’s a big difference between TSTL heroines and those who are just ditzy. Ditzy FMCs are usually smart but lacking in common sense. TSTL heroines lack both. (And ditzy just for the sake of humor is borderline TSTL.)

The worst part of TSTL heroines is that it’s not always the character’s fault that she comes across that way—it’s the totally unbelievable situations the author puts her in. (See the example I gave above about the published book I read!) Usually a TSTL heroine’s plight is made even worse by the author putting her in one inane situation after another just for the sake of having the hero come in and rescue her.

Please, respect your female main characters more than that. Even in romantic comedy, don’t make your FMC ditzy or silly without giving her a strong intellect and the capacity for getting herself out of conflicts. Don’t have her make the same mistake over and over and over without facing consequences and learning from it. And don’t have her rely so heavily on the MMC to rescue her that she ties herself to the train tracks and lets the train roll right over her.

She doesn’t have to be an Alpha female and go in with guns blazing to save the MMC (unless you really want her to). She can be soft and demure and meek without being stupid or silly.

For Discussion:
Have you ever read a romance which featured a caveman or a TSTL heroine? (published or unpublished) What are some qualities you could give to a caveman or TSTL heroine to break them out of that mold? Is there ever an instance where a caveman or TSTL heroine is the best choice of character?