Be the Spanish Inquisition. At least you’re unexpected.

At a superficial level we expect others to think — and react — like us. At a slightly more complex level we expect them to think and react like the stereotypes of what we think they are.

I know, with the former, I have got myself into a lot messes because I assumed (wrongly) that bureaucrats would see the position they were in as untenable and fall back to some kind of compromise, less painful for everyone. Eventually, I learned: they are not intelligent enough to understand ‘untenable’ – they cannot think beyond the current position and extend that into consequences, let alone second and third order consequences. What seems obvious to me to me, is not to them. They can be beaten (I did) — but you have beat them. It’s slow, painful, counterproductive, and they learn nothing – even if you extract a price from them. For the writer: their only value is as stupid villains.

The second is… more interesting. Stereotypes only exist because… at least in part, enough people live up to that set of characteristics. People, of course are exceptionally rarely that ‘stereotypical American/Texan/Islamist/Mad Scientist… ‘ but the stereotype traits are often typical of that group to recognize at least some of. Where this becomes ‘interesting’ is when one group assumes that the way their group think and react is true of another stereotypical group. And then you have the inverse: where one group sees the stereotypical behavior of another… and although it is alien to them, understands it will work the other group, and exploits it (I have written a fair bit of this into my books). Suicidal empathy -as Gad Saad put it, is the outcome. We expect people to cherish, value and protect women and children. The other group — who stereotypically don’t — use them as human shields. Such shield, if used by their opponents would delight them — because they know killing them would hurt their enemies.

Of course: sometimes these stereotypes are deceptive, in that outsiders perceive only a part of the picture. The assumption, for example, that kindness is sign of weakness – which it is one culture, and the inverse in another.

It’s quite hard to display this accurately (I think I did a fair job of it in SLOW TRAIN TO ARCTURUS). It is something I understand a little better than sheer stupidity, inability to think and lack of logic. I can imagine ‘different’ but logical more easily. It is essential to writing a good believable story to be read by anyone outside your ‘bubble’ (Believe me: my bubble is tiny). It’s why so many of the modern sf/fantasy by trad pub fails to appeal to anyone outside their NYC champagne socialist bubble (their bubble is not as tiny as mine, but it is way smaller than the potential audience). You will never get ALL of the audience, but knowing as much as you can and portraying at least that segment, playing to their weaknesses, and strengths works better than sticking to your own prejudice and bubble positions (say of NYC publishing) and then being puzzled that the rest of the country are not very receptive. Study your target audience, try to understand them, or be part of them. Where you can, get into their heads. Where you can’t use traits that they are likely to find recognizable in your characters. (I had many people tell me the characters in JOY COMETH WITH THE MOURNING could be small town US… because those are small town people traits).

You need to meet their expectations in order to sell, not yours. Your provide satisfaction to you, maybe, but not necessarily sales.