6 Ways Clichés Can Help Your Writing
By Kathryn Craft | June 8, 2023 |
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
Ah, the dreaded cliché. It sneaks into our writing with nary a noise, and yet is received by readers with a resounding clunk.
Most writers go to great lengths to avoid them.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, on whose wings Janet Fitch’s debut White Oleander found its well-deserved audience, Fitch said she approached her work like a poet, replacing any combination of words that she’d ever heard before. While this is more effort than many of us are willing to expend, it makes sense from a business perspective. Why should a publisher pay a wordsmith to regurgitate combinations so recognizable that readers are numb to them? We need to do the work of creative writers and come up with word clusters that will snag the reader’s interest and inspire fresh thought.
But to sidestep clichés at all costs is to miss out on a handy tool that’s available to all writers. After all, when we need to drive home a nail, will we refuse the hammer just because it is a simple and easily recognized tool? Consider the following arguments in support of the lowly cliché.
1. Clichés are true. Why else would they be overused? Even the claim that “fiction writers make things up to find out what is true” may now be a cliché, but it rings the bell of truth loud and clear. (“Loud and clear”—I’m on a roll!)
2. Clichés make a convenient placeholder while drafting. If your first draft lacks sparkle due to an overuse of clichés, this simply proves their ubiquity: finding clichés conveniently lined up on the nearest shelf, your mind made good use of them while laying down your story. This is smart. Further innovation at this point would impede the story as it flows from mind to virgin page.
The time to replace worn-out phrases with more evocative language is in later drafts, as Fitch did, when you’re sure that sentence is needed. If the cliché conveys just the right meaning, try refreshing it with a twist. As you would with any edited prose, demand that your twisted cliché create voice, deepen characterization, and/or further plot.
Here’s what Mark Z. Danielewski did to spiff up his prose in an excerpt from the cult classic, House of Leaves. My guess is that this exchange between his narrator and the woman he just met began with inspiration from the Supremes hit, “(Whenever You’re Near) I Hear a Symphony.” (And let’s face it—any song Motown produced in the 60s is probably a cliché today).
“Thank you,” I said, thinking I should kneel.
“Thank you,” she insisted.
Those were the next two words she ever said to me, and wow, I don’t know why but her voice went off in my head like a symphony. A great symphony. A sweet symphony. A great-f***ing-sweet symphony. I don’t know what I’m saying. I know absolutely sh*t about symphonies.
I don’t know whether Danielewski wrote this way from the get-go or if it was in revision that he waxed symphonic. But it was entertaining, right? Even out of context, this riff perfectly evokes the effect this woman has had on the protagonist.
3. Clichés provide a recognizable jumping off point for your own creativity. A cliché can create just the right axis for your own creative spin. In House of Leaves, for example, when our narrator meets this woman, she leaves him “reeling.” (Bet you never heard that one before!) But look what Danielewski did with that, by unspooling thoughts from deep within his character’s reeling point of view:
And hard as this may be for you to believe, I really was reeling. Even after she left the Shop an hour or so later, I was still giving serious thought to petitioning all major religions in order to have her deified.
In fact I was so caught up in the thought of her, there was even a moment where I failed to recognize my boss. I had absolutely no clue who he was. I just stared at him thinking to myself, “Who’s this dumb mutant and how the hell did he get up here?” which it turns out I didn’t think at all but accidentally said out loud, causing all sorts of mayhem to ensue, not worth delving into now.
While trying to ground a character’s reaction in visceral sensations, it pays to throw our creativity into a higher gear. Human biology and physiology offer us a limited palette with which to color those reactions. Heavy sighs, fluttering stomachs, clenched jaws, throbbing temples—the worth of a visceral reaction will be diminished if its clichéd nature threatens reader engagement.
Frederik Backman, in his novel My Grandmother Wants to Tell You She’s Sorry, finds fresh ways to spin such reactions that are consistent with his characters’ voices.
The woman takes such a deep breath that if you threw a coin into it you’d never hear it hit the bottom.
Mum’s sigh as she answers is so deep that it feels as if Elsa’s sheets are ruffled by the draft.
Mum sighs and smiles at the same time, as if one emotional expression is trying to swallow the other.
4. Clichéd characterization is a fast track to shame. If your character is afraid of becoming a walking cliché, he will gain our sympathy—you only need set up why. Even now, 20 years since reading Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George, I remember the way this opening line had me cringing: “To Ian Armstrong, life had begun its current downward slide the moment he’d been made redundant.”
The powerful inner conflict at the heart of many a protagonist is born of the desire to fit in with others even while desperately hoping that their individuality matters. This conundrum is so central to our human existence that readers gobble up such stories at every reading level, from P.D. Eastman’s displaced hatchling in the children’s book Are You My Mother to cancer warrior Lucy Grealy’s memoir The Autobiography of a Face, to adult fiction, such as Kim Michele Richardson’s blue-skinned librarian in The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. The premise is refreshed through details.
5. Clichés can sketch a quick background. Think a dark tale in the City of Light, sin in the City of Angels, murder and mayhem in the City of Brotherly Love. These backdrops quickly evoke the nature of the conflict to come.
Clichéd characters can also provide a backdrop that will make a protagonist pop. An example might be the story of a woman in her 40s who is still trying and discarding jobs and partners while seeking a sense of self, set against the life of her sidekick, the cheerleader who married the high school quarterback and settled in their hometown with two kids and a minivan. The description of the high school power couple may read as jealousy at first, but the cliché will set up the expectation that nothing is ever as easy as this couple makes it seem.
6. Clichés provide a welcome shorthand in a query. How do “friends-to-lovers” romances, “coming-of-age” young adult tales, and “cat and mouse” thrillers still get published? It’s because such tropes, so overused that they are a form of cliché, are easy to latch onto. On the business end, they give publishing professionals a quick grasp of your story’s underpinnings, assuring them it’s the kind of book they can sell; on the consumer end, they assure the reader they have picked up the kind of story that appeals to them. Once you set that expectation, you can share how the perspective of your protagonist adds its own special twist.
If you are convinced that your book is “one of a kind” and “never-before encountered,” good luck selling it. The world of traditional publishing, even while looking for the next new thing, bases sales potential, acquisitions, and author advances on what has come before. Which means that debut authors—and experienced authors who stay in the game—must figure out how to build something new on a well-known base.
Clichés are here to stay, so best think of them as a playground. You might be looking at the same old array of swings, slides, monkey bars, and merry-go-rounds, but there are an infinite number of ways to play with them.
Let’s practice. Whether by indulging in a Danielewski-style rant, adding a Backman enhancement, or sharing your own inimitable style, take one of these clichéd titles from a sixties hit and give it a creative spin.
You can’t hurry love
I heard it through the grapevine
Dancing in the street
Ain’t no mountain high enough
The tears of a clown
I look forward to reading what you come up with!
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. Her forthcoming book, Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, draws from decades of experience as both a story consultant and a movement specialist/dance critic. Learn more on Kathryn’s website.
[coffee]
Hey Kathryn, I loved your examples. (Frederik Backman is always a joy to read.) In one of the first stories I wrote some years ago, I had a character drive out of a parking lot “like a bat out of hell.” As a placeholder! However, my husband (who is my most supportive reader) still laughs about it today. I’ll have him read your post.
Haha! I love that story, Mary. In a crunch, my husband will play a similar role—and in the case of The Far End of Happy, I had a big crunch. I had just three weeks to completely reorder and reintegrate the way I’d delivered the backstory (I’d experimented at it was a bust). I was down to the wire, printing out 10 pages at a time and handing them to my husband, who would read, hand them back, and I’d make those changes, etc. I can’t recall the wording now, but on one of the pages, he’d noted and circled a cliché. As my non-writer husband handed me back the pages, he said, “Come on now, you can do better than that!”
Husbands!
Ha! Although in that instance, I have to admit he was 💯 right! This slow and careful writer had to learn, fast, how to be creative in a crunch!
My current novel is set in the early 70s. I use a few cliches to set the time period they lived in and for me, it works. Like it or lump it. 😎
Clichés as convenient placeholders — yes! No time wasted by stopping the flow to search for a better choice of words. Bang down the cliché and keep on going.
I heard it through the grapevine, which was already picked bare.
Dancing in the street, tripping over the cobblestones.
The tears of a clown, revising but not improving his maquillage.
Thanks for playing Anna! Love these twists. And while I was sure-footed when dancing on a stage, I’d for sure be the one in the streets tripping over cobblestones!
Love it, Anna! The contrast between cliche and creative twist makes the latter even fresher.
Ah, you CAN HURRY LOVE AND REGRET IT… Interesting post, the plastic of language, how to use and reuse. Readers want new and wonderful; readers don’t want to work too hard. It depends. Taking a cliche and strangling it so it becomes fresh and new might work? Or it might make the writing stiff and weird. Often what flows in the initial creation is so much better than trying a redo. Just my morning thoughts….cliche.
Enjoyed this peek into the workings of your mind, Beth. And so true about our ability to hurry love and regret it! Your use of the word “strangling” interests me. I didn’t think Backman’s examples were stiff or weird—rather, they reflected the sensibility of the character who uttered them (although it’s true that this particular book has unusual elements, such as a fantasy story world within its “real” world whose characters exist in both worlds due to the “almost 8 year-old” protagonist).
You can’t hurry love but we took it to a new level, waiting a decade to finally marry. Now I tell people not to wait. Take that leap of faith hand-n-hand. The net will appear.
Haha, even more cliches in that one :) Thanks for a fun post with great examples, as always.
That cliché sandwich brought a chuckle, Vijaya. Thanks for playing!
I think clichés as placeholders is a smart way to use them. Here’s a thought, though: I think cliches coming from the mouths of characters (real people say them all the time) is a way to put them to good use.
Great point, Ray. While I wouldn’t suggest having all characters spewing clichés, they can be used well, as is, for characterizing a certain type of speaker.
Just of the top of my head :)
You can’t hurry love .. the patience of a crocus under the snow, waiting for spring
Heard it through the grapevine . . . Rumor accrued like detritus on an ancient fern, leaving a hollow where the truth had been.
The patience of a crocus under snow—that one really speaks to me, as does “a hollow where the truth had been.” Thanks for playing, Christine!
Kathryn, this has to be one of my favorite aspects (and challenges) of writing, and it’s something I’m highly attuned to when I read. I wrote a post a couple of years ago about analogies, similes, and metaphors and how they can replace a cliche or at least replace more mundane language. These are among my favorites that left me breathless and more than a bit envious.
The Light We Lost by Jill Santapolo
“There are so many kinds of secrets. The sweet ones you want to savor like candy, the grenades that have the potential to destroy your world, and the exciting ones that are more fun the more you share them.”
Secrets as candy. Secrets as grenades. Wow. Perfection.
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
“The helicopter bucks through chunky air, each drop like a hand slapping a jar, trying to dislodge the last peanut.”
This is totally unexpected, but can’t you just feel it?
The March King’s Daughter by Karen Dionn
“I liked the way the nails screeched before they let go, like an animal caught in a trap.”
It’s basically a PhD level of “fingernails against a blackboard.” It’s disturbing (much like the book). But I heard it. And now I can’t forget it.
Am I right?
Oh wowza, thanks for sharing these Densie! They’re all great. And now that you mention it, I too can recall reading the screeching nails one in The Marsh King’s Daughter. A powerful image can stick with us, for sure.
You can’t hurry love any more than cooking up a spicy pot of chili. The end is always heartburn.
Ooh, fun one! And oh so true. Thanks, Arvilla!
Warning: I think the entire plot of a YA novel might be in the third paragraph ahead. If you want it, send me ten dollars. Twelve dollars Canadian.
In answer to Kathryn’s challenge, I began by thinking about the cliches themselves. I wondered if hearing something “through the grapevine” predated telephones. And did “the tears of a clown” come directly from Pagliacci? Were there sad clowns before that? (Not gonna look it up.)
Then I remembered the time at a party in junior high when I overheard a girl calling me a “clown,” and it had hurt! So much so that I began to change my behavior. I was in fact a clown; I worked at it. But she was beautiful and unattainable and she was hanging onto a slightly hoody guy that I didn’t like, and I have never forgotten that moment. (Obviously.)
But in the (lots of) years from then to now, I had never asked myself *why* I had been such a clown, and how I had been able to assume a new “identity” so quickly. Today I realized that, at that time, I had just transferred into a new school. In my previous school/gang, I had been the best friend and sidekick of a guy who was Joe Cool. He had animal good looks (I wish I could post a picture of him at that age), and was athletic, as well as the best artist I have ever known personally. He had no doubts about all these things.
Around him I had been invisible, or so it seemed to me, and “clown” was something I could do. When I arrived in a new town, I stayed with “clown” until the morning after that party. I very consciously changed my behavior, and I got away with it because nobody knew me.
PS: There were no actual tears.
Michael I appreciate the depth you have added to this discussion by adding another way to use clichés: by exploring their universal truths through the lens of their relevance to one’s own life. Also, you brought back not-so-fond memories of my own junior high attempts to fit in. Um, thanks? 😂
She used the vine of gnarled, grape-sipping relatives looking for a reason to believe anything that tasted sour enough to taunt.
Love the twist, Dawn. Your character sounds like trouble!
Just have to check in for a second time. The most annoying cliché around ( heard it again for the 4,637th time) (I had to grit my teeth) is the phrase “at the end of the day.” Can’t we do away with that one, please? Still, just maybe, at the end of the day, there is a someone who is in love with the idea, so I do apologize if my view is offensive to anyone. At the end of the twenty.four, it all comes down to love of language and we all know you can’t hurry love.
“At the end of the day”—and every other cliché under the sun—playing on the next episode of The Bachelor!
Love this fresh look at using cliches, Kathryn! Clever and useful.
It’s interesting how a well-placed cliché can instantly create familiarity and connection with readers. I’ll definitely be more open to using them strategically in my own writing.
And serve as a springboard to your own creativity! Enjoy, vipra!
Wonderful post! Love your ideas! Thank you!
You’re welcome, Nancy!