while know this is pedantic, isn't 'common cliches' a bit of a redundancy since uncommon cliches would be an oxymoron...
Kinda? I feel like I knew what he meant though. Like, "teenage farm boy made powerful with magic tears down the whole system," is cliché, but I can't even remember the last time I read or watched something with that story. "Eragon" I guess? Even Tsaka in "ATLA" wasn't given magic just to avoid the trope. So I wouldn't call it a common cliché anymore. But an aircraft pilot that doesn't suffer for drinking on the job and damaging their air/space craft, or black hair called "raven hair," or "anger burning in their chest," or a lead female protagonist describe as a plain Audrey Hepburn without makeup (and sometimes even saying "Audrey Hepburn" in the description) all seem super common to me (because of the books I have read. I have not run a formal study). Woman being killed and put on ice to motivate the hero is still shockingly common. Normal World: Show ageing hero at home with family, remembering the bad ol' times, but happy to have an attractive wife and well-adjusted children. Set-up: Unjustly, the bad guys appear and come after the hero. He's not home because he was called away to help someone with a minor task, so his wife is killed, maybe his dog too, and his kid is taken. Set-up 2: The hero investigates, but is betrayed by someone who should have warned him or watched his back. Hero is scoffed at and rejected in his time of need. Alternately--the female family member was killed over something that didn't have to do with the protagonist, in which case this part of the set-up is dialed up to 11 and made as irritating as possible. Inciting Incident: Hero decides to kill them all.
I found pictures of the female protagonist in your crime thriller, and pictures of your aging male action star from your military thriller: Spoiler
Sorry! Didn’t think about that when coming up with the title. I wanted something simple and easy to understand. Maybe I should’ve left off ‘common’. Ah well!
I'm talking about those phrases you hear all the time such as dear in the headlights, bull in a china shop, and similar things. If there's a phrase you've heard a bunch of times, I think it's best to find a more unique way to say it than relying on these worn phrases that have become quite cliche and aren't doing anyone favors when it comes to their writing.
I forgot who said it, but this: If you're heard a turn of phrase before, don't use it. Unless, of course, you WANT your character to sound like a walking cliché. Writing clichés is good, if the effect is intended.
A round drop, not tear-shaped like most people believe, but proper football round, like soccer football, not rugby, because that's not a round ball, at least not sphere type round, more pointy round, nor does it involve much foot action, apart from running, but it isn't really football, which is why I say a proper football, or a basketball, or even a golf ball, but without the dimples, and much smaller, like raindrop small, fell on my head, marking the beginning of a deluge that would last several days and cause a whole litany of wild adventures, some of which I will regale you with now....
Exactly. Anything goes in dialogue or direct thought, of course. It's when you're the neutral narrator that I reckon you need to hold back on the clichés ...or at least be aware you're using them. In other words, use them for a purpose—not just because you can't think of anything else, or it's the first comparison, etc, that pops into your head. You can get away with the occasional cliché, but if you pile on too many, it's going to reflect unfavourably on your ability to write original prose (or poetry.)
'The fat lot of good it did' would be a cliche, wouldn't it? If I was to use it, would it be better to remove 'fat' from the sentence?
Actually, I don't think there is ever a right place to use a cliche, not narration, dialog, or direct thoughts. A few years back I would have agreed with you guys, but having now worked with some professionals cliches are the first darlings to be killed. There's always a better way to say the same thing without falling back on these warn and cliche phrases. They just don't do your writing any favors. When I was first told not to include these (even in dialog) I was a little hesitant, but I found my writing to be stronger without them. And if I think about the books and stories I've read, I can't recall coming across these sort of cliches. I'm not saying there isn't a book out there with cliche phrases anywhere in them, but it's not really something I tend to come across. I think that's for a good reason. Such things cheapen the writing. So, if you've heard something said a bunch of times, I wouldn't use it. I trust myself to write better than a cliche phrase. I think we can all write better without them.
Could you think of some turns of phrase that have ascended beyond cliché and become normal language? For example, "anger burned in his chest" seems cliché because people write it all the time. However, "butterflies in the stomach" actually has a meaning, and I think it sticks out when a writer tries to write around it. "He felt a not unpleasant sort of anxiety as a physical twiddling in his lower abdominal quadrants."
What would you consider to be the relationship between real life and fictional characters? There are cliched phrases that certain kinds of people use quite frequently; would you say when writing those sorts of characters still to cut them from dialogue? Like an old farmer who says "it never rains but it pours" and "a stitch in time saves nine" and so forth.
Yeah, I think it's crazy unwise to remove real and relatable dialogue from a story in pursuit of 'originality'. It can be overdone, and sound silly if not done properly, but colloquialisms and cliches of the time can be an effective and important component to building a character. Also let's not confuse figures of speech with cliches. But cliche stories are another matter. Broad tropes I think are OK but some stories are predictable down to the beat, often when they're trying hard not to be. Cliche red herrings et al.
Context may come into play here. Still, what if they, the characters actually said what they're saying? Dialog is more about what's being said then trying to nail down how people talk. Dialog is part of the story. In my professional experience there is no room for cliches. Maybe I used to think differently, but now I see what wonderful things come out when I don't rely on any worn phrases. I see an improvement in not using them.
How they say things conveys just as much as what they say. It's not just about conveying information directly, but building up character. "Yo! Buddy! Yeah you, give us a hand will ya?" is a different a character to " Excuse me, good sir, would you mind assisting me for a brief moment?" or even "Help me, please." Dialogue is the main thing people get wrong. Constantly. Characters using cliche's, and which ones, tells us about the character. I'd agree using lazy cliche's should be avoided, but not using them at all, even deliberately, is, in my 'professional' experience, wrong.
It was a dark and stormy night. The skies raged in shades of grays, split apart by thundering strikes of white-hot lightning as rains swept *character name* in *character location* as he *long backstory* and he *long backstory* because *long backstory*. The rain was relentless in its purple prose — and had left *main character* drenched from head to toe as he *long backstory*.
