: Re: How useful are stock characters in fiction? I am writing a realistic-fiction novel set in the USA during the Great Depression. I intend to use some stock characters to make the story colorful

@Megan928

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"Stock characters" are shortcuts to creating characters. As such, you want to limit their use to secondary characters that nevertheless play important parts in one or more scenes.

Doctors are examples of stock characters. They may play an important role in saving the life of the hero or heroine, for instance. But they do this in their roles as physicians, and not as human beings. So you want to portray them as generally competent, very knowledgeable in their chosen field, and reasonably sympathetic, but you don't need to give a lot of background details about their private lives or likes and dislikes for them to "do their job" in your story. That is, when people hear "doctor," it's easy for them to make the connection to "life saver," and that's all they need.

It's different with your primary characters, particularly hero and heroine. Here, you don't want "stock" characters but rather fully developed ones because they dominate the story. The doctors (usually) don't.

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