General Fiction Cliches
We’re
all aware of different narrative clichés which creep into our writing, and we
know ways to avoid them - phrases and words such ‘all of a sudden’ or ‘or hell
broke loose’, ‘just then’ and ‘suddenly’ etc, but there is also another kind of
cliché which crops up from time to time without a writer even realising. These are general
fiction clichés.
So
what are they? Unlike the usual
hackneyed words and phrases, these general clichés can be situations,
characters, places, events or even set scenes.
The best way to illustrate this is to give you some examples of common fiction
clichés:
a)
The creepy/haunted house/log cabin in the middle of the woods or near a lake,
enveloped by a ghostly mist...now where have we seen that one before?
b) The
hard-bitten cop with emotional problems, who doesn’t conform to the rules...how
many books and movies have this kind if main character?
c)
The woman alone in her house, who for some inexplicable reason forgets that the
light switches work and instead insists on using a torch while calling out,
‘Hello? Who’s there?’ Like anyone lurking in the shadows is going
answer her, and why would anyone ask such stupid questions to a lurking
burglar/murderer/,monster etc, in the first place?
d)
The climax of the story always takes place in a factory or foundry, a warehouse
or docks...always somewhere where all the workers have mysteriously vanished
into a fictional black hole, so there is no one about while the bad guy and the
hero slug it out. Sound familiar?
e) The
antagonist corners the hero, it looks like he’s going in for the kill...but then
spends the next four pages explaining why he’s so evil and horrible and intent
on taking over the world, and then goes into great detail about how he’s going to
kill the hero. Why do the bad guys always
insist on telling the hero everything beforehand? If you are a cold calculating killer, you kill;
you don’t hang around chatting happily to your victim.
f)
The main character tells his girlfriend to stay put while he goes to
investigate the noises outside...so what does she do? She stupidly ignores him (obviously) and goes
off on her own and quickly (here’s a surprise) gets into trouble...
Which
then leads us to probably the worst cliché in the history of fiction – women ALWAYS
need rescuing from danger by the hero, because they’re weak and pretty dumb
and can’t do things for themselves, and more importantly, they’re there to make
the hero look...well, heroic.
If
your story has any of these, especially the last one, it really
needs some brutal editing and maybe a dose of reality.
These
familiar examples are all fiction clichés and happen with regularity. Why must a creepy or haunted house be in the
middle of nowhere? Why must your crime
novel have a cardboard-character cop so predictable that the reader will see
through him? Why do TV series, movies
and books always have characters searching through a house with flashlights when
most of the time they can just throw
a light switch?
And
why are women portrayed so dismally in fiction and with such stereotypical
influence?
Writers
settle into these clichés too easily, and without realising it, so to avoid
them is to be different in your approach.
It is a matter of carefully reading through your story and being able to
spot obvious these types of general fiction clichés, and if you do spot them,
be judicious with your editing.
Think
carefully how the story begins, how it will open out and how it might end. Think about how your characters fit and work
together into this framework. If there
are female characters, have you made stereotypes from them? Why not switch the gender roles and have the
female rescuing the male, for a change.
Don’t
be afraid to be different with your characters so they are not so predictable
or turn into cardboard cut outs. Be different with your settings - set your
ghost story somewhere other than the clichéd creepy forest/lake, and instead
choose the middle of a bustling town or city, or perhaps it takes places on a
ship or in a factory. Challenge your
reader with unpredictable events
rather than predictable, hackneyed ones.
Try
to be different with as many aspects of your writing as you can, this is what
makes ideas fresh and inventive, but be different, especially when it comes to
fiction clichés.
Next
week: How your writing evolves.
Every single b----y film we watch has at least one of these cliches, so presumably someone thinks the general public expects them!
ReplyDeleteYou'd think the writers would be a little more creative...
DeleteIf only they could come up with something new!
Love this post! So many things that needed to be said.
ReplyDelete