Most used cliches that should be avoided while writing?

[Horserider92]

So I'm writing a book and are wondering what the most used cliches are so I know to stay away from them. Can you guys just list the ones that you know?

Thanks for the help.

[scarletpeaches]

All of them.

[Maxinquaye]

Anything that is a lazy shorthand for telling rather than showing:

dark as a cave
raining cats and dogs
just like that

and so on. Anytime you grab shorthand like that, you're using a cliché. It's pointless to list specific ones.

[motormind]

So I'm writing a book and are wondering what the most used cliches are so I know to stay away from them. Can you guys just list the ones that you know?


Using words. Everybody is doing that nowadays.

[DannySherbet]

The more you read and write, the more accustomed you come to spotting cliches.

"John was as hard as nails."

"Miranda is as pretty as a picture."

It's not as difficult as you might think for an inadvertent cliche to slip into your writing.

And it's not just your words: beware also of writing cliched plots, cliched characters and cliched reactions.

[Cyia]

All of them.

Yep.

[defcon6000]

Using words. Everybody is doing that nowadays.
There's always binary.

100011110110...

[maestrowork]

Cliches are okay during first draft to get the story out.

In rewrites, try to excise them, or find better ways to express the same ideas. Like someone said, cliches like "dark as cave" or "tastes like mud" read like lazy writing.

[Topaz044]

'It was a dark and stormy night'....

[Jamesaritchie]

All cliches are bad, but there are hundreds, probably thousands. Certainly too many to list here. But you can Google and get some pretty exhaustive lists.

Unless it's a generic phrase such as "Good morning", my rule is pretty simple. If I've heard it or read it anywhere, I don't use it.

Bad writers copy the phrases of good writers, which is what turns those phrases into cliches. Good writers create their own phrases that lesser writers copy over and over until they become cliches.

Better to be the creator than the copier.

[Horserider92]

Haha. Yeah It's a dark and stormy night is wayyy over used.

[James D. Macdonald]

A cliché was originally word or phrase that was cast as a single piece to save time while compositing hand-set type.

You want clichés? You got 'em! (http://www.westegg.com/cliche/random.cgi)

[maestrowork]

I would tolerate the use of cliches in 1st person narration.... but only to a certain extent. If the narrator brandishes cliches constantly, I'd get bored with the writing quickly.

Cliches are also okay in dialogue if that's the way these characters talk. But again, less is more.

[Lady Ice]

People do talk in cliches, to an extent. But people also talk like this:
'Um...er...you...do you think..I mean..you know...'

And you're not exactly going to write that too much in a novel.

[RJK]

Uncle Jim sent you to a page on the Cliche Finder site (http://www.westegg.com/cliche/) This link will let you type in any word and it will list the cliches associated with it.

[Libbie]

A cliché was originally word or phrase that was cast as a single piece to save time while compositing hand-set type.

You want clichés? You got 'em! (http://www.westegg.com/cliche/random.cgi)

Your generator said "Sweet fancy Moses" is a cliche. I've never heard that one before, but I like it. It's up there with "for corn's sake" for me.

[Stijn Hommes]

Just like adverbs and the verb to be (especially 'was'), cliches have their place. Use them with moderation.

[DrZoidberg]

"...and so it goes."

It's a great one, but taken :(

[Rhys Cordelle]

hotter than two rats screwing in a wool sock in the desert


That's a cliche? o.O

[MDei]

All cliches are bad, but there are hundreds, probably thousands. Certainly too many to list here. But you can Google and get some pretty exhaustive lists.

Unless it's a generic phrase such as "Good morning", my rule is pretty simple. If I've heard it or read it anywhere, I don't use it.

Bad writers copy the phrases of good writers, which is what turns those phrases into cliches. Good writers create their own phrases that lesser writers copy over and over until they become cliches.

Better to be the creator than the copier.

Exactly my perspective.

[LuckyH]

I haven’t got a good word to say about clichés, nor the continual use of grating adverbs, and some of the other writing commandments, but this: could it lead to a stage where a writer pauses continuously to check the trillion advice sites to ensure that he hasn’t broken any rules?

Do you want to sit in front of your laptop like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights, looking over your shoulder in case somebody is watching, too timid to type out the next word?

I sometimes fear that that is what it’s coming to, an overload of rules that stifle good writing.

It’s impossible to throw the rule book away, but it is possible to disconnect from the internet and throw the How to Write books in the dustbin.

You know enough, now is the time to write like an angel. (God, can I use that phrase? Has someone used it before?)

[Horserider92]

Thanks.

[Me&BacchusGoIntoABar]

.

[Maxinquaye]

"behind the clouds, the sun is shining"

A mate had a favorit continuation of that, which he picked up from a comic:

"And beyond the sun there's eternal darkness".

[James D. Macdonald]

There is only one rule: If it works, it's right.

[Lady Ice]

Yeah, look at the cliches and work out what they're really driving at:
'hard as nails'

Nails are cold metal things which you bash into a wall. Look at the qualities which that cliche shows.

[mscelina]

Any kind of "lone tear" phrase. The books I'm editing these days are full of people who only cry one tear.

[Horserider92]

To James: Agreed...

[Hittman]

Somewhere in my first draft the MC thinks "she's not the sharpest crayon in the box." After writing that I immediacy made a note (fix this), and then kept writing – I didn't want to break out of the zone to figure out something original.

It will be gone in the second draft.

It's also possible to get too cute being original. I can't read Tom Robbins because his metaphors and similes jump out at me and say "See! See how clever I am!"

[Sandy Shin]

Any kind of "lone tear" phrase. The books I'm editing these days are full of people who only cry one tear.

I am generally tolerant of cliches to a certain extent, but "lone tear"... *shudders*

[DannySherbet]

Any kind of "lone tear" phrase. The books I'm editing these days are full of people who only cry one tear.

"And as she waved him goodbye one solitary tear ran down her cheek."

Bang goes the ending to my novel. :cry:

[Samantha's_Song]

Bad grammar.
So I'm writing a book and are wondering what the most used cliches are

[Mara]

Would exactly three tears be acceptable? :)

[Tanydwr]

Avoid where you can, obviously, but a few are fine, particularly in dialogue because people *do* use clichés in speech. However, watch which clichés you use. It's all very well to use 'cool as a cucumber', but if it's in a northern-based fantasy, how likely is it that anyone's seen a cucumber or has any idea how cool one is?

The most difficult clichés to avoid are, I think, those applying to colour and temperature. There are only so many ways you can say something is red or blue or hot or cold, and it is very easy to use a lazy descriptor to get on with the sake of writing.

So, my tips - use sparingly, and make sure they make sense in context. Don't use references to modern technology in a medieval world, but don't go the other way either - it doesn't really make sense to refer to something as 'precise as an alchemist' when you can use 'as precise as a scientist/chemist/physicist/astrophysicist' instead. Don't refer to historical characters if you're based in an alternate universe (similarly, avoid 'Bob's your uncle' - it originated as a reference to someone getting a job through nepotism). Create your own clichés or turns of phrase in that case - something exclusive to your world, or else a cliché so old-fashioned it's no longer a cliché.

Of course, you could always go the opposite way like Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett:

"It hung in the air the way a brick doesn't." or thereabouts.

[cwfgal]

Cliches aren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, they can be very useful in dialogue and internal monologues to help establish a character's personality, a time period, or a geographic setting. But the overuse of cliches in a narrative can be grating and an indicator of laziness. One or two sprinkled here and there is likely okay, but use them judiciously.

Beth (aka Annelise Ryan)

[Brindle MacWuff]

Methinks cliches, like adverbs, should be used very sparingly, and only when they are absolutely the right thing to say. If they are being used in an ordinary descriptive sense.... don't do it.

They can work very well in dialogue, but it would be an exception to use them anywhere else.