2015 was...

... the year of worrying over cliché. And it's spilling over into 2016.

The year I joined this forum, 2008, was the year of the Vampire, and ostensibly, still the year of the waning H.P. It was all vampires, all day, all night, fangs, blood, and sparkle. Members pondered vampires attending a secret hidden Vamping School for special vamp children where a plucky little trio of vamps (two fellahs and their oh-so-bright gal-pal) learned the ways of vamping, all the while fighting a secret war against an evil Dark Vampire Overload trying to ruin everything. Vampity, vampity, Gryffindor!

2015 was the year of passionate worry over cliché. Everyone has a pretty unique story they are working on. Ideas are all over the map, all of which would be excellent and fine and wondrous, yet the fear of cliché has taken hold in the hearts of would-be writers and is twisting their meat-pump painfully.

It's all been done, friends. All of it. The story about a gay vampire wizard fighting his way through a maze to get to the Capital City to kill the evil President who wants to squash the Vampnegation Faction in District 37 and eradicate all the Divergevamps, it's been written. It's out there somewhere.

Stop worrying about the props of your story and start wondering WHY you are writing your story. Do you have a reason to write it? Through your story is there something you want to say, or better yet, ask? No, not a fucking brow-beating polemic. It doesn't have to be dialed up to a ten. But it shouldn't be a zero either. There are numbers in between, you know.

</rant>