Writers Block: Character Archetypes Based off Beautiful Creatures

Hey, welcome to a new type of post you should see about every thursday.  I no I'm no bigshot writer with any work published and probably don't have any right telling you how to write, but I have been doing it for a while now and thought I could share some advice because, personally, I'm always looking for some myself.  In Writer's Block I'll post anything I find useful, basically tips and tricks.

This week I was thinking about why authors tend to create similar characters (archetypes) and what really got me thinking about this was Ridley from Beautiful Creatures so I thought I would sort of base the post around the characters from the Castor Chronicles.  No worries, no spoilers here, but if you haven't read the books you might be a bit lost.  See the movie, it's close enough character-wise and much shorter.

Ridley
Character's like her are fun to dress up.  An author can out anything on one of these characters and get away with it because anything looks good on them and the bad-ass attitude can rock any conversation because they are the equal amount humorous and kick-ass.

Link
The stable best-friend is something everyone wants, especially female writers.  They create comic relief and a companion who means a lot without being romantically involved or has familial-ties with the protagonist.  Expendible, but heart-breaking.

Boo
An animal is hard to resist, especially a really cool animal you could never have in real life.  Really, these are just characters created out of selfish reasons.

Macon
Ah.  It all started with the wisest mentor of all- Obi Wan Kenobi (OK, it started before him).  A father-figure/teacher, common among stories with orphans and paranormal romances, help introduce a character into the world and/or magical powers, vampires, werewolves, dragons, lightsabers, castors, take your pick.

Ethan's Father
The missing parent.  If they aren't playing a role like Macon, adults tend to be missing from YA fiction.  Why?  Simple, teenagers don't want to escape into a book where the parents are bossing the kid around like in the real world.  If a parent is present, they A) don't care, or B)the kid fights the man and ends up winning.

That's it for now.  If you enjoy this, please comment and say so!  I really hope it helps.  P.S. Did you see the book trailer for Clockwork Princess?