A CLICHÉ A DAY . . .

by John M. Floyd

Keeps the readers away. At least that’s what an editor told me, and I would think she’d know. The funny thing is, even though most editors, writers, and readers know and recognize bad writing — dull plots, uninteresting characters, POV shifts, repetitions, inaccuracies, grammar errors, etc. — clichés are the one form of bad writing that will sort of sneak up on you.

What I mean is, writers often use clichés without even realizing it. I, for one, like expressions like “cute as a button” and “pretty as a picture.” After all, they’re familiar sayings — and readers like to encounter things in stories that are familiar, right? Well, not in this case. The problem lies in the fact that the sayings are so familiar. Originality is a good thing, in a book or a story, and clichés are not original.

It’s like a joke, or a funny TV commercial. The first time you hear or see it, it’s great. But after a dozen or so times, it loses its appeal. Pretty soon you dread it, and either tune it out or hit MUTE on the remote until it’s over. And you sure don’t want folks feeling that way when they read your story.

Repeat Offenders

I mentioned that I’m fond of some clichés, and I am. Others I really hate. Here are a few of what I consider the worst of the bunch:

Ripped from the headlines

A sense of closure

All walks of life

Serious as a heart attack

Give it your best shot

The whole nine yards

Mona Lisa smile

24/7

Give 110 per cent

I’ll always be there for you

Think outside the box

A gutsy play

Choked with emotion

Do I see these a lot, in print? You bet I do. Have I used some of them myself, in my fiction? Yes — but I’m not proud of it. Maybe (he said, looking guilty) it was long enough ago that they weren’t quite so old then.

Never Say Never

Actually, clichés can sometimes work well if they’re altered a bit, to create something that is original. (They even show up now and then as book titles.) Examples:

A fate worse than debt

Pin the blame on the donkey

A hearse of a different color

Burn that bridge when we get to it

No way to treat a first lady

Singing from the same hymnal

Pure as the driven slush

What goes around probably should

Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle?

Hot as a nickel pistol

Between Iraq and a hard place

The danger is that it’s easy to get too cute, with this kind of thing. Even a time-worn cliché is better than an altered one that misfires completely.

Metaphors Be With You

One argument that can be made for clichés is that they can be useful in dialogue, to help characterize the speaker — but even that can get old pretty fast.

The only instance I can remember where clichés really worked well is when Robin Williams used them in “Mork and Mindy.” Mork was always getting them mixed up, and I loved it. (“Okay, you’ve buttered your bread, now you’re going have to lie in it.”) But if you’re not from the planet Ork there’s not much excuse for this.

What Do the Experts Say?

Noah Lukeman, The First Five Pages: “If you have even one commonplace comparison, you bring a portion of this distasteful effect into your manuscript. And distasteful effects — even minute ones — accumulate quickly.”

Renni Browne and Dave King, Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: “Your characters should never live life in the fast lane, nor should anything in your writing be worth no more than a plugged nickel. And if you come across ‘She tossed her head,’ the first question you should ask is, ‘How far?’”

Patricia T. O’Connor, Woe Is I: “The more beautiful or lively or effective the figure of speech, the more likely it will be loved, remembered, repeated, worn out, and finally worked to death.”

So that’s my brief case for the need to avoid clichés in writing. Now that I’ve issued that challenge, though, do I myself find it hard to do?

Of course not.

It’s easy as falling off a log.