Now, suppose you have a really awesome (well, you thought it was awesome, anyway) line you character is supposed to say. You show it to your friend, he says that line is very cliched. You check TVTropes, nothing there. You google it, nothing there either. So my question is, how do you check if a particular line (or something similar) has been said by anyone before, apart fro those two ways?
Okay guys, don't judge or anything Here's the scene: Two guys are drinking in a bar, one more than another. One guy is drunk blind and bragging off, which attracts... unwanted attention. Some people challenge him to prove his bragging. The other still-sane guy intervenes, and is told to stop protecting the drunk. He laughs and says something like: "I'm not protecting him from you, I'mm protecting you from him." Yeah, probably a bit cheesy..
Maybe you could change the words around to make it sound less cheesey? hmmm, something like, after the intervening guy intervenes and is told to 'step off', he can raise his hands, turn back to the bar and say "well, come find me when you realise it's you who needs protecting from him!"
Sometimes, it's not the actual words but they way they are said and the way characters (and readers) interpret them.
Well I've definitely heard variants. Possibly even something close to the exact phrase. You can of course use cliches in dialogue because realistically people do. But if you're trying to demonstrate that the character is awesomely sharp and witty, I don't think your phrase achieves that.
Eh..it's not that bad. I might try to make it a little shorter, so that it requires a little bit of interpretation. One step in that direction would be, "Oh, he's not the one that needs protecting." or "Protecting him?"
There's a variant in the movie First Blood. Col. Trautman says to the sheriff: "I don't think you understand. I didn't come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him."
Okay, so the line itself isn't cliched, but the scenario is one that is a bit overused. That is we see this type of thing pretty often. A badass walks into a tough guy hang out. People want to start problems, and the friend tries to warn them before the badass just owns them completely. At this point it's the expected or predictable scenario, ya know. As @ChickenFreak suggests, making it shorter or tweaking the wording a bit might make the situation a little less obvious.
What if the badass battles the others in an alcohol-induced hallucination (seeing them as demons and dwarves) and proceeds to get his own ass kicked instead?
That would be unexpected, kind of funny, and probably well-received in my opinion. As much as we naturally want to see cool characters do cool things, it's almost always more interesting to withhold these success from them because it presents challenges and allows for more tension. We like to see mc's fail cuz we like to want them to succeed.
Not so badass if he can't hold his liquor . Personally, I think I'd find that kinda awesome, especially if he's been established as a cool badass and then he makes a less bad ass out of himself. ;D
This was what they did with Clint Eastwood in his spaghetti westerns. Look at A Fistful of Dollars. Halfway through, badass Clint gets his ass handed to him by the bad guys. They beat the living crap out of him. This makes the eventual payoff scene at the end all the more delicious.
Exactly. Seeing the hero fail sometimes makes them more relatable and more compassionate. Then it's that much more gratifying when they have their moment.
jeez minstrel, thank you! I knew I had seen almost that specific line in a movie somewhere, it would have driven me crazy...
