1001 great writing cliches....

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preyer

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faux pas, bad writing, notable junk, etc.. add on to these. you don't think i can personally come up with 1001 of these things, do you? :)

1~ the univited guest at the door is death or the undead. just once it would be nice if death announced you were the publisher's clearing house sweepstakes winner. but, then he'd have to kill you.

2~ mary sues. with no real reason, every character around absolutely loves a mary sue, who of course can do no wrong. these are the reason 'tragedies' were made, just to kill them off... and black comedy so we can comfortably laugh at it.

3~ 'the butler did it!' with the wrench in the library, right?

4~ the magician who controls one and only one elemental. no one ever controls awesome forces of nature like pollen. no magician is, like, ever great at making someone loose their bowels. 'behold! i am master of the prostate! smell my wrath!'

5~ the kid geek who just happens to be such a computer whiz that he can crack any code given enough time as if it were written by atari 2600 engineers.

6~ deus ex machina endings. gotta love 'em, they're every hack's best friend.

7~ vampires. 'nuff said.
 

MidnightMuse

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8 ~ The Chosen One ! One day he's a plumber, then suddenly he's the only one who can save humanity. How come it's never a Hero who can suddenly, thanks to a magic charm or some talisman, now unclog your toilet?
 

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Wisdom

preyer said:
7~ vampires. 'nuff said and even more VAMPIRE viruses.

My gripe is

9~ Wisdom, what we learn from life: we only use 2% of our brains and Inspiration is 98% inspiration and 2% the other 2% of our brains we do use for something or other....

10~ Kid, you have to look at all the angles and sometimes you just have to hang up your shoe and ask it what to do...
 

PeeDee

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I was all set to think up some logical additions to the list, and then....


preyer said:
4~ the magician who controls one and only one elemental. no one ever controls awesome forces of nature like pollen. no magician is, like, ever great at making someone loose their bowels. 'behold! i am master of the prostate! smell my wrath!'

......preyer made me snort into my tea, and now I'm giggling like a small child. Great. I'll get nothing done now!

Think of how great that'd be in a story! The Wizard is very helpful and useful but never uses magic and won't even talk about it, until toward the end of the book, you find out that all he can do is control......pollen!

Brilliant. :D
 

Ol' Fashioned Girl

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After I cleaned up the keyboard and the monitor, I immediately started trying to work into my historical a hero who discovers - quite by accident - that he can cause others to poop their pants...
 

PeeDee

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Think of it! Our wizard could be force-fed muffins all day long, and not be affected at all!

THAT'S power.
 

J.S Greer

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11~The hard boiled hero that has given up on life, only to learn to love again with the introduction of a secondary character.

12~"It was a dark and stormy night..."

13~It was all a dream, or was it?

14~The awesome secondary character that in many cases steals the scene from the primary characters, then dies near the end of the book. Ugh, I hate that self sacrifice!( I mainly hate this one because I wanted the character to live..lol)

15~The simple farmboy who was abandoned by his overlord father who turned evil, only to be set upon a course of adventure to revive the long dead order of just heroes and take his place as their leader...Star wars, Eragon...
 

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PeeDee said:
Think of it! Our wizard could be force-fed muffins all day long, and not be affected at all!

THAT'S power.

The old "Force fed muffins" trick...can you get any more cliche than that?
 

PeeDee

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J.S Greer said:
The old "Force fed muffins" trick...can you get any more cliche than that?

If I had a dollar for every book with a force-feeding-muffin scene in it, I'd have.....you know. Money.

16~The entire history of the world/universe/character is given to you in one paragraph. It's eighteen pages long.
 

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MidnightMuse said:
8 ~ The Chosen One ! One day he's a plumber, then suddenly he's the only one who can save humanity.

You mean Mario and Luigi? :D
 

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preyer said:
4no magician is, like, ever great at making someone loose their bowels. 'behold! i am master of the prostate! smell my wrath!'

Now that you brought it up, I'll betcha someone uses this one.
 

PeeDee

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Simon Woodhouse said:
17 - A race of fantasy creatures who are usually based on one of the author's pets, most notably their cat.

How many times have I pointed out my deep terror about furries? Can I point it out again? Anyone want to see the hives?


Why doesn't anyone ever base a species off of Golden Retrievers? Or little Scotty dogs? Or other household pets, like the Hamster? The Crab?

And why aren't the cat-based species ever anything like the cat population of my house.

Our hero says "Tell me, brave Cat Person, what lies beyond the mountains?

Cat Person: Food? Food? Pet Pet Pet Pet sleeeeeeeepppppppp Food? Friend? PET PET PET! AAAAGGGH TAIL TAIL TAIL TAIL DIRT CLEAN CLEAN FOOD? Poop.
 

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18~The oh so convenient circumstance. "I just happened to be a highly-trained anti-terrorist operative before I retired to be a baker, so I know just how to fight these guys..."

19~The adventuring scholar. Indiana Jones was the only character to get it right; Robert Langdon should burn in literary hell.

Here's a literary cliche that will never get old: the badass warrior. I don't care how sophisticated my literary taste grow, every fantasy or sci-fi story should have a badass warrior.
 

J.S Greer

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PeeDee said:
How many times have I pointed out my deep terror about furries? Can I point it out again? Anyone want to see the hives?

Please dont get me started on Furries. Please. that topic makes me angry to no end...lol
 

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PeeDee said:
And why aren't the cat-based species ever anything like the cat population of my house.

LOL! With my cats, it would be:

Hero: Cat Person, what is the meaning of my quest?

Cat Person: Zzzzzzzz.........huh, did you say something? Zzzzzz........
 

preyer

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:)

17~ the twinkie princess who loses her kingdom and sets out to reclaim it. look, we all know you'd get side-tracked and ruin the whole scheme should you stumble upon a medieval holister, so do yourself, us, and your subjects a favour and just let the evil advisor handle things. if he's good enough to usurp the throne from the invariably wise and beloved king, he's probably good enough to run the whole show. oh, who am i kidding, nothing is as powerful as girl power.

18~ the young, beautiful girl is a workaholic. she needs a change. she needs a life. she needs a man, but doesn't admit it, nor doesn't want it, so it's quite a surprise when joe cool, her polar opposite, shows up to save the day. and naturally joe is so hot you could fry an egg on his asss... if you're into that kind of thing.

19~ all secret military compounds are buried thirty million feet in solid bedrock. you could go out the back door and get starbucks -- in china. and they've got elevators that move at mach 12. and yet there's still an excellent chance a 12 year old can break into their mainframe using windows98.

20~ since it was mentioned, what's the deal with prologues? aren't most of us of the opinion that prologues are to good writing as spam is to body glitter? show me a good prologue and i'll show you a pair of pamela sue lee anderson rock mcguillicutty's thongs whose crotch hasn't rotted through. in other words, good luck.

21~ describing every *other* character except the one the story is about. i don't think i'm asking for much, but, uhm, do you think that you could give me a visual on the main character before page ten? it's pretty bad when i could tell you how many trees are in the MC's backyard and that his yellow lab has a problem with dingleberries sticking to his butt, yet all i know about the character's actual description is that they've got 'azure' eyes. what the frig is azure, anyway?

22~ i've always said i'm a bad writer. i'm a good hack, just a bad writer. ne'ertheless, i can honestly say that most of what i write doesn't look like a dictionary was stuffed down a shotgun barrel and blasted into cyberspace. i.e., at least show some semblence of having a writerly attribute or two. believe it or not, "...funk. She said." is wrong.

23~ dedications. okay, okay, i understand them. it makes someone/s feel good, especially since you didn't pay them for all that legal or medical advice you scammed off of them for free with the promise you'll immortalize their name/s. or you really want to tell the world that you really, really like your daughter. ultimately, i don't know or care who these people are and if you're going to go around condoning the wanton slaughter of trees, the least you can do is put a pizza coupon on the other side. as an aside, all books should come with coupons. romance should come with kleenex coupons. chick lit, tampax. dumb military action books, 30% (expressed in calibres) off psychiatrist visits. bibles, one free 'pass' on tithing.
 

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preyer said:
:)
20~ since it was mentioned, what's the deal with prologues? aren't most of us of the opinion that prologues are to good writing as spam is to body glitter? show me a good prologue and i'll show you a pair of pamela sue lee anderson rock mcguillicutty's thongs whose crotch hasn't rotted through. in other words, good luck.

I can only answer these two for myself, of course, but I'd disagree strongly with both. I could certainly show you a bunch of prologues I loved, and that I think made teh book much stronger. What I can't do is show you one that you'll say is good. Honestly, I think it's primarily writers and wannabe writers who hate prologues, not readers. The history of prologues has withstood the pure reader test very well.

preyer said:
21~ describing every *other* character except the one the story is about. i don't think i'm asking for much, but, uhm, do you think that you could give me a visual on the main character before page ten? it's pretty bad when i could tell you how many trees are in the MC's backyard and that his yellow lab has a problem with dingleberries sticking to his butt, yet all i know about the character's actual description is that they've got 'azure' eyes. what the frig is azure, anyway?

No. You can read from page one to page last and never, ever find a description of most of my main characters. So, yes, I think you're asking too much here. But don't worry, I won't tell you his eye color, either.

You'll know he's tall if he grabs something off a high shelf. You'll know he's strong if he picks up something heavy. You'll know he's tall if everyone else looks up at him. You'll know he's hamdsome if women turn for a second look, or flirt with him.

The books I write, and the books I most enjoy reading, are usually told from the viewpoint of the main character, and people do not go around describing themelves, or even think much about the way they look.

And why does anyone need to know what the main character looks like? This is what imagination is for. Have you ever listened to radio dramas? Nary a word about how the viewpoint character looks, but you can see him clearly through what he does and how he does it.

God save me from books and writers who insist on describing the main character to me. I much prefer the way he looks in my mind to the way he'll be described.
 

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PeeDee said:
I was all set to think up some logical additions to the list, and then....




......preyer made me snort into my tea, and now I'm giggling like a small child. Great. I'll get nothing done now!

Think of how great that'd be in a story! The Wizard is very helpful and useful but never uses magic and won't even talk about it, until toward the end of the book, you find out that all he can do is control......pollen!

Brilliant. :D
I wrote a comic once where a superhero was a slugcharmer. He had power to control slugs. And that's it. Man, it fun trying to make that one useful. Another in the same group just had really bendy thumbs.
 

PeeDee

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jbal said:
I wrote a comic once where a superhero was a slugcharmer. He had power to control slugs. And that's it. Man, it fun trying to make that one useful. Another in the same group just had really bendy thumbs.

Hah! I would read that. :)
 

inanna

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May I just say that people who sneer at cliches are a bit cliche? :tongue

And yes, I've written a vampire novel with a prologue. It hurts my feewings when you all say meen fings like that.
 

preyer

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for all y'all prologue lovers out there, i should have prefaced this with there being the possibility of tongue-in-cheek action.

james, are you saying pamela sue...'s crotch *wouldn't* burn through a pair of thongs like sulphuric acid through tissue paper?

'No. You can read from page one to page last and never, ever find a description of most of my main characters. So, yes, I think you're asking too much here. But don't worry, I won't tell you his eye color, either.

'You'll know he's tall if he grabs something off a high shelf. You'll know he's strong if he picks up something heavy. You'll know he's tall if everyone else looks up at him. You'll know he's hamdsome if women turn for a second look, or flirt with him.

'The books I write, and the books I most enjoy reading, are usually told from the viewpoint of the main character, and people do not go around describing themelves, or even think much about the way they look.

'And why does anyone need to know what the main character looks like? This is what imagination is for. Have you ever listened to radio dramas? Nary a word about how the viewpoint character looks, but you can see him clearly through what he does and how he does it.' ~ kind of seems like you're hurting your own argument here, james, lol ('you don't need to describe the character, but this is how i describe the character'). if you've got an omnicient POV, and you've described every *other* person, place and thing, why stop short at describing the MC? of course it's up to the reader to use their imagination to a certain extent, but sans those clues you mentioned (you being a professional writer), and outright description, what, am i just supposed to wing it? where's the sin in at least giving a little description so that the reader sees in broad strokes what the writer wants him to see?

i used to listen to radio dramas all the time. almost nightly, in fact, when there was a great suspense radio drama on hosted by e.g. marshall. and an hour later it was over with. and the characters were fairly generic, as i recall. are you saying you write stuff with absolutely no description as to what the character even wears, or are such details that much implied? anyway....



27~ prologues that start off about the universe's machinations.
 

Carrie in PA

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MeowGirl said:
LOL! With my cats, it would be:

Hero: Cat Person, what is the meaning of my quest?

Cat Person: Zzzzzzzz.........huh, did you say something? Zzzzzz........

:ROFL: In my house, it would be more like

Hero: Oh Mighty Cat! Please! Help me find my way.

Cat 1: :Wha: Are you speaking to me? Be gone from my sight, insolent fool!

Cat 2: What? Who are you?! Where did you come from? Why are you looking at me?! What do you want? Go away! *darts under couch and glares out suspiciously until Hero gives up and leaves*

Cat 3: If you fill my dish, I will help you.

(Hero fills dish)

Cat 3: If you scratch my ears, I will help you.

(Hero scratches ears)

Cat 3: If you scoop my litterbox, I will help you.

Hero: (scooping litterbox) Um, are you going to actually help me?

Cat 3: Hey, pal, you want help or not? Shut up and scoop!

I'll just quit now because I'm having way too much fun with this. LOL
 

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preyer said:
i used to listen to radio dramas all the time. almost nightly, in fact, when there was a great suspense radio drama on hosted by e.g. marshall. and an hour later it was over with. and the characters were fairly generic, as i recall. are you saying you write stuff with absolutely no description as to what the character even wears, or are such details that much implied? anyway....

Why does anyone care what the character is wearing? If he's a cop, officer of plain clothes, don't you already know what he's wearing? If he's going to work at the local factory, do I really need to tell you he isn't wearing a pink dress, a cop's uniform, or a spacesuit? You've seen factory workers, haven't you?

Now, if a viewpoint character is wearing something special, say an arm brace, I'll mention it, but even more than I hate physical description of the viewpoint character, I triply hate it when a writer gives me a clothing description.


Really, who the heck cares what the viewpoint character is wearing, unless there are special circumstances? He's wearing whatever you want him to be wearing, in whatever color you prefer it to be. I'm also not going to tell you what color his hair is, or what color his eyes are. His hair and his eyes are whatever color you want them to be.

I guess we listen to different radio dramas. I still listen to them daily, and I find nothing at all generic about the characters. Radio, where these shows are concerned, is called "The Theatre of the Mind," and I believe it. I see every character in stark detail, right down to the soup stain on the private eyes's lapel, even when it's never mentioned that he ate soup.

The funny thing is this. Just about every last one of the male POV characters on those radio dramas looks exactly like me. But I see all the others just as clearly.

If I want to know what everyone is wearing, I'll go watch TV. Though most often I can tell you what TV characters are wqearing with my eyes closed. Most are dressed exactly as they should be for where they are and/or who they are. Characters in novels, too, should usually be dressed according to where they are and/or who they are. Really, try it sometime. Go watch a TV program with your eyes closed. Guess what the characters are wearing. You may get the color wrong, but you should get the basics right most of teh times.

I won't say there's never a time when you should describe the viewpoint character, but there does need to be a strong reason other than letting the reader know what he looks like. If your viewpoint character is a man, stands five feet tall, and dresses eaxctly like a gay leprechaun, the reader will probably need to know this, but even then it can all be done in a sentence. Please, no lists.

I just thinks it's best to credit your readers with having a good imagination, and I think it's best to let the reader become teh viewpoint character. It's hard to place yourself in a characters shoes when he's a foot taller than you, when he has red hair and you have brown, and when he has bright blue eyes and you have muddy brown eyes.

I love good description, and I like more description than many readers, but I hate needless description, and I hate being TOLD what the viewpoint character looks like, or how he dresses. I know he isn't naked, I know what he does for a living, what he's doing right now, where he is, etc.

And I know real people don't go around describing themselves, even in third person limited.

Then again, I detest it when writers insist on giving me a runway, Monkey Ward description of any character. It stops being fiction, and jumps over to fashion magazine.

Describe the things the viewpoint character has a REASON to notice. Describe the things he has a REASON to pay attention to.

Really, when you walk into a bank to despoist money, how do you think about what all the other customers are wearing. When you get to the teller, does it matter that she's wearing a faux pearl necklace? Do you care? So why would I care? Do you tell anyone, "I went to the bank to deposit my check, and the teller was wearing a blue dress and a faux pearl necklace."

There are times when characters need to be described, but most descriptions I've seen, sometimes in published novels, and in darned near every unpublished manuscript I've seen, are pointless filler that often takes several sentences, or even paragraphs, to do the job my imagination can do better in half a second.
 
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