Cliches that should be avoided

[SerCambria]

One of my main concerns is cliches, in my own opinion, great scenarios can be destroyed by cliches we've seen a hundred times over.

So what cliches would you guys recommend avoiding?

One cliche i really want to avoid is the last minute "reinforcements save the day" routine.

 

[TheRedPrince]

One I personally don't like is the farm boy (or non noble character) being the heir to the throne. Umm "the chosen one" can be annoying but can be done well. Some one being revived via the love of some one else should be avoided at all costs in my opinion. Some cliches do work if they're done with some element of originality. Not sure if this helped or not but I hope it did.

 

[Feo Takahari]

This sort of thread tends to turn very personal, with each poster mentioning the cliche they dislike most. There may be some value in seeing what cliches tend to be mentioned repeatedly, but it's a pretty small sample pool, and in any event, many readers may like the cliches other readers criticize.

I was going to be a hypocrite and say what cliche I dislike most, but I realized I wasn't thinking about cliches specifically, I was thinking about storytelling failures--misapplications of tropes I'd otherwise be fine with. I'll save that for another thread, I guess.

 

[Terry Greer]

It can be fun taking a cliche and subverting it. Joss Whedon is particularly good at this - just see how he handles what you're expecting to become a recurring treat/nemesis in the episode 'Train job' to see how well he can set up cliche expectations and then trash them.
His film 'Cabin in the woods' is another excellent example of taking a well recognized trope (teen horror) and playing with it.

I think the thing is to be aware of what potential cliches you are using and find ways of twisting them to give the reader something new.

Farmboys who are the potential heir to the throne are cliche - but what if:

The farmboy never finds out and is murdered to keep the secret? (i.e. the plot revolves around two factions one trying to keep him safe, another to destroy him and the bad guys win)

or

The farmboy knows who he is but nobody will believe him? (i.e he will NEVER be believed).

or

the farmboy is the heir to evil in some way and has to be kept ignorant of that fact (e.g. in the novel 'The boys from Brazil' about the cloning of hitler).

I think there's lots of ways you can go with any cliche to make it fresh.

 

[Scribble]

So long as the writer subverts my expectation, I can go along with most clichés. Maybe I'm too jaded, but a straight-faced "chosen one hidden as a farmer boy" story has me rolling my eyes... mostly.

Clichés follow predictable story patterns, to the point where they've lost much of their original power. I don't recall where I heard this writing advice about being surprising, but here it is:

When you are planning your character's reaction to what is happening, throw out your first three ideas.

Seems like a good trick to avoid them in general. However, can we fully avoid using story/character archetypes?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

When you are planning your character's reaction to what is happening, throw out your first three ideas.

Seems like a good trick to avoid them in general. However, can we fully avoid using story/character archetypes?

Archetypes are there for a reason, just like concepts some might consider cliche. They resonate with readers, throughout time.

The trick, I think, is to mash them together or dissect them into characters & ideas which feel original & fresh. This practice, when employed by an author who's perspective may differ from the reader's, while at the same time sharing a common anchor in general human experiences, can result in powerful creations.

 

[Snowpoint]

"Is it possible to love someone so much they can't possibly die?" ---GAG! #NameThatMovie

I heard that in a trailer and though it was so silly.

 

[skip.knox]

A cliche is merely an archetype poorly delivered.

Don't worry about cliches. Write well and prosper!

 

[Mythopoet]

As I've said before, a cliche is an expression, idea or element that has been overused to the point of losing its meaning or significance. Given this definition, I would propose that there is no such thing as a cliche in storytelling.

Readers and writers tend to apply the term "cliche" to any element that has become trite or irritating or overused to them personally. But a "cliche" is supposed to be something that has lost its effectiveness generally, not just to a subset of readers or writers. When a group of readers no longer want to read about, for instance, beautiful woodland Elves this does not mean that beautiful woodland Elves are cliche because there are certainly plenty of other readers that really want to read about beautiful woodland Elves. It just means that some people don't like beautiful woodland Elves. It's not a cliche, it's an opinion.

You can be certain that this is true because all the time there are new people born and new people learning to read and new people discovering fantasy and new people reading their first book about beautiful woodland Elves for whom they couldn't possibly have lost their significance yet. Because there is always a constant supply of new people to experience new stories nothing can truly become cliche.

Another example is how the publishing industry declared the Western genre dead and then the Western genre enjoyed a healthy resurgence as soon as authors were free to write and self publish their Westerns.

Writers shouldn't give so-called cliches a second thought. They should simply focus on writing stories full of the things that interest them confident that there are plenty of readers out there who will be interested in the same things. Know what kind of story you want to tell, identify your target audience, market your stories to them.

 

[Feo Takahari]

In some ways, this is very dangerous advice to keep giving, because the flipside of people not recognizing your clichés is that you no longer have a grandfather clause. The things that were acceptable because everyone was doing them can become odd or even insulting because not everyone's doing them now.

I recently read an article in which a critic who'd never played a King's Bounty game before gave his first impressions of the new one. King's Bounty has been doing exaggerated parody of fantasy fiction for a long time, and without a background in how sexist fantasy used to be, he was politely baffled at the characterization of the female characters. Folks who were fans of the series savaged him for this, of course, because they were used to those tropes and saw them as all in good fun, but folks who were new to the series were likewise confused. Those tropes no longer have the excuse of "everyone's doing them, but we can at least mock the hell out of them." (Just imagine the reaction if you tried to play that level of sexism absolutely straight!)