Hey everyone! We’re back here once again for another post on another lovely Saturday. For those of you in the United States I hope you enjoy your memorial day. I will try to get my post out properly next Saturday, but it might be a bit late because I am busy Thursday through Saturday in the coming week, but I will try my best. This week’s post is something else I find really interesting. So, without further ado…
Prose: Clichés
Clichés. We hear about them all the time in writing. Parts of writing that at one time were original and are now something given in writing. Prose has many clichés, seeing as how prose itself has been around for a large part of human history. I want to discuss some of those clichés today.
First of all, I don’t think clichés need to always be avoided in writing. Some clichés can enrich your writing while others can detract from it. (To clarify this is from my own personal opinion. The generic definition of cliché means something that is uninteresting and dull, but I want to use it in the wider sense of things that are overused or common in writing). Understanding which clichés do which isn’t something I think I can state directly since it depends on your audience, your genre, and your writing style. So, in this post I want to discuss three types of clichés: Writing tropes, common phrases, and character stereotypes.
Writing Tropes
I am often told when discussing this subject that a trope is not a cliché. While I agree on a definition level (the definitions of cliché and trope are different) I think on the level for this post they are similar and the way I choose to explain it, tropes do fit under the wider umbrella of cliché.
For those unaware, a trope typically refers to a commonly occurring situation or plot point in fiction. For example, there are different tropes in the romance genre such as the ‘only-one-bed’ trope in which the protagonists find themselves at a location where they want to rest but there appears to be only one bed and they have to share that space. There is also a trope among fantasy and some sci-fi novels called ‘Chosen-One’. This trope is pretty self-explanatory in which the main character is the chosen one who is foretold either in a prophecy or by something similar and they are the one who is supposed to save the world/country/galaxy etc.
Tropes can sometimes be really good. There are some tropes that are common because they are popular and actually well-liked and so they tend to stick around like the ‘enemies-to-lovers’ trope that some people find very fun. However, the danger of a trope is that if it is used too often it can be quickly overused leading to disinterest and dislike in the trope. This can be seen several years ago in the sudden loss of interest in the ‘chosen-one’ trope.
So, if you do choose to use a popular and maybe semi cliché trope in your writing such as the ‘time-travel’ trope from science fiction try to write that cliché in as unique a way as possible to avoid the possible pit falls and overdone areas of the trope.
Common Phrases
Common phrases in writing can refer both to actual sentences and phrases that are overused in writing but can also refer to certain words that are sometimes overused by writers. A few of these phrases or words are things that I have been told/taught either through other writing advice blogs or through writing conferences and a few of them are just phrases/words that I have personally noticed that are overused in certain genres of writing.
For example, there are a lot of common phrases or descriptions in romance novels that are often overused. Such physical descriptor words like, ‘eyes as blue as the sky’ or ‘auburn hair the color of the sunset’ are often used by many writers and although some of them seem more acceptable to include others become more and more annoying over time when every you book you read has the description in it.
Some common words that are often overused and commonly appear in fiction writing that should be avoided is the overuse of dialogue description verbs like, ‘sigh’, ‘shrieked’, ‘laughed’ etc. Many writers seem to be under the impression that their characters can’t simply ‘say’ anything. They might either ‘whisper’ it or ‘scream’ it or some other description. One of the pieces of advice regarding these types of words that I once received was to start paying attention to the conversations you or those around you have and try to imagine writing the dialogue and see how often the words said would be better. I did this once while at a restaurant and noticed that the conversations that I was hearing around me only occasionally had tones or voice levels that I would change from the word ‘said’ if I was actually writing it.
The last set of common words to avoid overusing when writing (less they become cliché) are intensifier adverbs. These are adverbs that intensify the adjective or verb of the sentences such as ‘really’, ‘totally’, ‘utterly’, ‘very’, etc. Again, sometimes using these words fits well with the sentence and should be used appropriately but overuse of these words can create a cliché in your own writing and should be avoided.
Character Stereotypes
This is the easiest cliché for many writers to understand but it is one of the hardest for a lot of writers to avoid. Character stereotypes are sometimes blatantly obvious to some readers while so ingrained in the writer’s mind that they don’t even realize that they are writing a cliché.
My main genre of writing is fantasy. There are many fantasy character stereotypes that are used that most don’t even realize they are using. Some of these include the character stereotype that the mentor/wizard character is almost always an old man, often times with a beard. That the ‘Chosen One’ of the story is often a young person – typically a teenager or someone in their early 20s. Elves are often shown in the stereotypical high elf manner of being above humans, calm, and living for a very long time. These are just a few character stereotypes that can be used in fantasy novels.
Every genre has its character stereotypes and although character stereotypes are no all bad there is a point when the overuse of such stereotypes can lead to your story seeming very cliché. There are two ways that I’ve heard to avoid this as much as possible when writing.
The first way is to list out before you start writing the story blurb for your book. Read it carefully and list all of the character stereotypes in the description and try to see if there are any that you could change. For example, maybe your wizard mentor character is actually 22 instead of 87. Maybe your chosen one is actually in her mid-50s. See how many you can change without ruining the story.
The second method that I’ve heard is to purposely leave some character stereotypes in your story as to not go too far in the other direction of having no character stereotypes or stereotypical plot points (that occur from the actions of stereotypical characters) that the reader might be familiar with. Both of these methods seem to be a good way to not overuse character stereotypes and make your characters too cliché.
That’s all I have for this week’s post. I hope that this short summary of a few clichés in writing prose was helpful for a few of you. Clichés aren’t always bad and there are a lot more types than what I wrote about in this week’s post as well. Hopefully you have a better understanding of what they are, when to use them, and how to avoid them a little bit.
I hope that next week’s post is also enjoyable. Next week we will be discussing length which is a topic a little bit related to last week’s post on syntax. I hope that you enjoy next week’s post as much as I will enjoy sharing it. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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