The game has changed now that I have moved into the realm of serious writing. This is no longer jotting down stories on the back of napkins. This is no longer 300 words here, 200 words there – none of which see the light of day. I want the world to read my writing. This is serious. My words suddenly matter. And they better be free of clichés!
I imagine first drafts of all beginning writers are riddled with clichés (I hope it’s not just me). They are so easy to write – they are on the tip of our fingers, they roll off our tongues. When we are revising, we must rework those clichés. Easier said than done (ha! I’m having too much fun.).
But what if my characters are nothing but big fat clichés? What if my entire story is a cliché? This is where I keep finding myself stuck. I come up with an idea for a story that I L-O-V-E. I love my characters. I love the plot. I can think of nothing but this story. I write a draft. Then I read it. And think, what a cliché! I fall immediately out of love with my story and my characters. I move on to the next one.
Heck, I’m a cliché: Suburban housewife turned wannabe novelist, penning dystopian teen novel from Starbucks while children are at school.
I know that I am doing myself a disservice by not staying committed to my writing, by not working out the clichés. I know that clichés can be worked through by developing my characters more, or by adding an unpredictable twist to the plot. But my excuse du jour is: I’m stuck in cliché-land! My computer holds nothing but a cache of clichés! I will keep going so this thing called writing will work out for me. But today, I’m hating.
Are you finding yourself penning a pile of clichéd crap like me? Here are some articles I found on Writer’s Digest that could help:
How To Prevent Predictable Plots
12 Cliches All Writers Should Avoid
Everyone and everything is a cliche depending on who you talk to any given day. What EVER!! Tell a good story and tell it well, and who cares if someone thinks its a cliche or not :) (PS I don't know how to do that accenty thing over the "e").
ReplyDeletekeep at it girl!!! and thanks for the great articles!!
Tee hee. Thanks. I want my stories to be more than just good I want them to be great (really I want them to be "Wow!")-- which I think means making sure they are not too cliche...
DeleteAs far as the accent thing over cliche -- I don't know how to do it either, Word did it for me. I type my blogs in Word first, then cut them into Notepad to get rid of any funky Word formatting, then cut them into Blogger. A little trick I learned back in the day when I was blogging when only techies were "Web-logging" aka "blogging." Back before Google became a verb.
This is great thank you for taking the time to make these availible for the fine folks at HWC. They are beautiful and I intend to place an order for 2 120 Silver later this week, waiting on tax return,lol. This community bar none has the best people in the industry sculling about the Hardware
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