And there I was thinking it might go like: By the dim light of two moons, with sharp rain stinging her eyes, Gabrielle Estelle searched the forest for the source of a husky roar. That noise wasn't thunder; it was animal. A large animal. Would anybody, unprompted, recognise that as "It was a dark and stormy night"?
Everything is cliché, because everything has been presented to you so far in one form or another. It depends on how you want to interpret or write it. Hell even biographies are a cliché, considering the fact that some one can relate to similar occurrences in their own lives. Take a deep breath and let it go, unless you plan on depicting a parody. The saying goes: Nothing new under the sun.
We've gotten a bit off topic, but I'm going to indulge my contrarian side and say: poor Bulwer-Lytton. He wasn't a terrible writer, really: he gave us several pithy phrases that we still use (always without attribution, of course): "the pen is mightier than the sword", "the almighty dollar". But all anyone ever remembers is that "dark and stormy night" bit. And don't get me wrong, it's an ugly sentence--and especially ugly as an opening sentence. I just think it's unfair that his whole reputation has come down to one sentence, out of everything he ever wrote.
I wouldn't agree with that. As it has to be recognisable for it to be cliche, to my definition at least. And not just recognisable, but overused. There is an awful lot being written that is fresh to me. I would think that the pen is mightier than the sword is more remembered.
I must admit that I didn't know that Buller-Lytton coined "It was a dark and stormy night". Hence, that aspect is equal for me. Or: was.
Perhaps of interest, considering Mr. Bulwer-Lytton's under discussion, is a contest for writing the worst opening sentence to a novel in 25 words or less, hosted by author Adam Cadre here: http://www.adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html More apropos of the original question: Avoiding repeating my own phrasing is the biggest concern I have about cliche. I would never use a set phrase like "it was a dark and storm night," but that doesn't mean I don't fall prey to describing my characters in similar fashion every time, or the like, which can be just as underpowered as falling back on someone else's established cliche.
I'm hijacking this as it's not worth a thread of its own. Is this an overly-cliched way to end a chapter? I suspect it is, but I would just like confirmation from others. As we set off down the dusty road I was blissfully unaware that things were about to take a drastic change that day.
Eh, it is some pretty basic foreshadowing, you're effectively shouting, "EXCITING THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!" Maybe go with something worded a bit differently. ... blissfully unaware that the capital of Florida was Tallahassee. Yeah, it doesn't seem important now, but trust me; It is.
I don't know if cliché is the right word, but it's too... heavy-handed? for my liking. I don't want to be told, "Hang on, there's some tension coming up!"... just show me the tension. This is definitely cliché, but I'd rather something like "As we set off down the dusty road I was happy for the first time in weeks. Maybe our struggles were over." Because as soon as someone says that you know they're about to get into some really big trouble, BUT I don't get that feeling of the author prodding me and winking and going, "Hey? Hey? Keep reading, yeah?"
Seems silly that I couldn't see for myself how cliched it is, but I get like that some days - possessed by a weird uncertainty in things that should be obvious to me. Thanks.
Happens to me too, its like when you say a word over and over again. First you lose the meaning of the word, how it made you feel, and you start to wonder if society is really just a bunch of rules people pretend to follow and could fall apart at any moment...
I have another, hopefully less obvious one. Is it cliched to write a scene - that usually only happens in films - and then have a character say as much? For instance, 'Surely he wasn't going to give chase! Doesn't that kind of thing only happens in the movies?'
Not cliched as much as a writing device; It's called lampshading. Basically, it's you acknowledging as a writer that the scene you've created is a bit out of the norm. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
Deliberately subverting tropes and altering cliches is what gave George R.R. Martin a career. Of course you can use them. Just don't construct a story out of them. That's like having a "lego story" where you just assembled it from premade "pieces" Just take a cliche, look at how its been used, and try to find a way it isn't been used or find a way where it hasn't been used much. If you go with the latter, change the perspective on that. One of my favorite subverting of cliches ever is in the game Drakengard 3, in which a "purity sue" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PuritySue) is murdered and maimed by the protagonist for seemingly no reason(a questionably reasonable cause was found later, but nothing even close to justifying the protagonist's cruelty and brutality).
