Cliches To Avoid Like The Plague?

Why fix them? Make them work for you.

I don't agree with the idea of avoiding cliches or asking what to avoid. If you don't agree with writing the cliche, then don't. But don't just erase things out of book because someone slapped a label on something and you feel compelled to avoid those things. At the end of the day, you won't be able to write anything.

Also, "Chosen one" isn't a cliche, it's a trope. If the Chosen One was given the Magical Sword by the Wise Old Man to defeat the Evil Lord who wishes to Destroy the World and you follow that all to the letter, then it's a cliche.
I'm sure real people get knocked out, but it could be a cliche if you use it to shut up/stop your character. "Hey, your job is done in the scene, now time to sleep. Sleep now, awake when you're useful in the next scene."

If you're looking for food for thought,Limyaael's Rants are a good starting place. But here's my handful of pennies:

Cliches aren't bad. Not in and of themselves. They can be badly handled, or beaten to death, but they don't automatically equal bad. There are instances where Chosen Ones work without grating like nails on a chalkboard, and there are times when concussing a character is the best way to get the job done. It's all about judgement, and making sure the call you've made is the right one for the story.

I'm not sure being knocked unconscious is a cliche. The chosen one is but it doesn't mean it can't make for a good story. I've just been reading the Kingkiller Chronicles and Kvothe is a chosen one: I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

But I'm biased -I have a chosen one of my own.

There is no list of cliches to avoid that will result in a good story. A cliche is really just a trope until you execute it, and the execution is what makes a story good or bad.

justlukeyou said:

I do agree that cliches can be used but huge books like Maze Runner, Hunger Games and Legend don't feature these cliches which I'm sure is linked to there popularity.

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Actually, all of those books feature major cliches. And even more popular series (at least in SF circles, as opposed to YA circles) like Wheel of Time or The Sword of Shannara feature almost exactly some of the cliches you cited.


While we're at it, none of those books were particularly popular when they first came out. Hunger Games in particular had a fairly long incubation period and only became really popular once they said there was gonna be a movie. Maze Runner still isn't incredibly popular. (And I didn't care for it much, but maybe that's just me.) I'm not sure you'd find any serious knowledge of Legend outside of YA fan circles.

HG sold well for a YA novel when it first came out, but the sales and popularity ballooned when it got made into a movie. Same for Maze Runner, as far as I know. I imagine Legend will experience a similar trend if it isn't already.

These books got popular for several reasons, but none of them are particularly related to the presence of cliches. I would suggest you might find more enlightenment in the YA section of the forum, since the examples you cite are all YA novels.

justlukeyou said:

Hi,

After reviewing my story I have realised that I have included two cliches:

1. The main character is "the chosen one". However this is heavily used in The Matrix.

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If you think the Matrix is the only recent work of spec fict that heavily draws on the chosen one trope, then you need to read and watch more SFF

Seriously, though, it's a trope because it appeals to people and has been doing so for centuries. If you have a compelling story with a fascinating protagonist, people will still enjoy it.

justlukeyou said:

2. At one point the main character is knocked unconcious.

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Being knocked unconscious happens a lot in fiction, and the main problem people have with it is that it's often portrayed in a way that's unrealistic from a medical standpoint. Writers will also sometimes use it to avoid writing an awkward connecting scene or having to decide what to summarize and what to show in more detail when a character is being transported somewhere.

But if you research the situation and if you're not using it for lazy reasons, then it can certainly be a part of your story.

justlukeyou said:

Fixing them shouldn't be to difficult and will improve the story but are there any other clichés I should avoid at all costs?

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You can spend hours on a site like TV tropes and get that sick feeling that everything in your story has been done before. This is because it has. There is nothing new under the sun. In fact, stories need an element of predictability. They also need to have an element of novelty. The challenge lies in combining familiar, even predictable, elements in a way that is fresh and fun.

Critting partners can help you determine whether or not you're handling the various tropes of fiction in a way that seems trite or cliched.

The cliches I try hardest to avoid in my own writing are the ones that

1. Convey inaccurate information about things, especially when they are easy to research and portray accurately (like portraying getting hit on the head hard enough to be unconscious for hours as a minor injury where the person wakes with a slight headache and can start running around without consequence).

2. Perpetuate cliches or stereotypes that are harmful or offensive to people who have traditionally been under or misrepresented in storytelling or by society as a whole.

One of the hugest cliches in THG is that Kaitniss never kills any innocent people.

justlukeyou said:

The reasin I also ask this question us that a team of scientists developed a programme which coukd determine with in an 80% accuracy of whether a book would be a hit. The number one reason they put it down to was a lack of cliches within the story.

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Wow, that's interesting. Do you have a link or any idea of how to find that programme?

justlukeyou said:

Katniss became a chosen one, she wasn't born a chosen one which is a huge difference. Her background of being persecuted forces forces her not to kill innocent people which is a totally reason to use that cliche.

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Forces her? You can look at it that Kaitniss is too good to kill innocent people, or you can see her hanging back until the field's almost clear as a very cynical survival move. But more likely the author knew the character would lose sympathy from the readership if she killed innocents. And after all, she wasn't the only person there who'd been persecuted.

The reasin I also ask this question us that a team of scientists developed a programme which coukd determine with in an 80% accuracy of whether a book would be a hit. The number one reason they put it down to was a lack of cliches within the story.

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link? and who decides what's a cliche anyway?

So make the cliche fresh? i have an alien invasion, done to death. But my setting was original...

One immediate problem I see with that study is they were comparing apples with orang-outangs.

ETA: And, despite the Telegraph headline, the only reference I found in the actual paper to cliches was this

Also, more successful books use discourse connectives and prepositions more frequently, while less successful books rely more on topical words that could be almost cliche, (eg "love"), typical locations, and involve more extreme (eg "breathless") and negative (eg "risk") words.

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justlukeyou said:

The reasin I also ask this question us that a team of scientists developed a programme which coukd determine with in an 80% accuracy of whether a book would be a hit. The number one reason they put it down to was a lack of cliches within the story.

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Could you find this study? I'm sure it's something editors and filmmakers are drooling over, because I recently spoke to an editor at a large publishing house who was shaking their head sadly over the fact that they can sign ten equally promising new writers and not be able to predict which book will go on to become a bestseller. The current model is that the profitability of bestselling authors props up the careers of those who end up being less so, but if they could figure out how to publish fewer books and have them all sell like hotcakes, they would in a heartbeat.

Mind you, I'm happy about this "problem," since most of the books I like personally are not bestsellers. I'd be sad to live in a world where editors had that magic formula that allowed them to publish only 1/10 as many books as they do now

I have trouble believing that a complete lack of cliches determines success though, if for no other reason than most of the bestselling books and blockbuster movies I can think of are pretty cliche ridden.

I mean, I could sit down and write something that has no cliches at all, but it probably wouldn't be a very appealing story, because it would have no narrative justice and the characters would bseem rather random in their behaviors and motivations.

Maybe there's some balance of cliche to novelty that is optimal, however.

justlukeyou said:

[QwouldSprings2;9076792]So make the cliche fresh? i have an alien invasion, done to death. But my setting was original...

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I wouldn't say alien invasion is a cliche. Little green men is a cliche or killing them with a virus.[/QUOTE]


Ooooops.... hey, it was a new virus. seriously, the background to it broke the cliche. Or, possibly, used the cliche to its advantage. Sometimes they can be a shortcut to let a story develop - everyone understands little green men, they can give the frame for your characters' story.

Roxxsmom said:

Could you find this study? I'm sure it's something editors and filmmakers are drooling over, because I recently spoke to an editor at a large publishing house who was shaking their head sadly over the fact that they can sign ten equally promising new writers and not be able to predict which book will go on to become a bestseller.

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This is the actual paper: http://aclweb.org/anthology/D/D13/D13-1181.pdf

Note it doesn't say what the Telegraph says it says, which is unsurprising to those of us familiar with the British press.

Also, the methodology is suspect.

justlukeyou said:

Ooooops.... hey, it was a new virus. seriously, the background to it broke the cliche. Or, possibly, used the cliche to its advantage. Sometimes they can be a shortcut to let a story develop - everyone understands little green men, they can give the frame for your characters' story.

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What about an alien that you never see that kills off humans with a virus.[/QUOTE]

I'm sure it's been done (something rings bells.) but everything has been done. It's what you do with it that counts.