Every Fingerprint, Every Snowflake is Unique; or Why You Should Never Use Clichés
Cliches make the world go round. Well, that and money. But writers must fight against the dying light and carry the flame of creativity. That. or become the zombie your 11th-grade literature teacher always said you would be.
And so, we meet again…on this dark and stormy night. Are you sitting down? Because this blog is going to BLOW YOU AWAY!
Ready to open this can of worms? Careful, in this realm, ignorance is bliss. Let’s get the ball rolling, shall we?
Imo/Tbh, writing is not rocket science; it’s sex. We can all do it, some better than others. Modern online or other writing tends to wax cliches more than it coins a phrase.
We communicate faster than ever: Twitter, Threads, Medium, reaction videos, reaction to reaction videos, hot takes, and all the other immediate consumption BS the modern world has deemed necessary.
Clear communication has become one of the most powerful tools in the world. ChatGPT has stolen from every post online and put copywriters out of pocket in less than a year, turning every corporation’s humanless voice into the norm.
Not everyone is a great communicator. Hell, even Shakespeare used cliches. From “In a pickle” to “break the ice,” the Bard was not above the common tongue.
As novelist Nora Ephron put it, “The hardest thing about writing is writing.”
What is a cliche, you ask?
Odds are, if you’ve heard it used again and again IRL, on social media, or in a movie, then it’s likely a cliche.
How about “Love is blind” or “beat around the bush?” If that doesn’t do “float your boat”, the ball is in your court to “leave no stone unturned.”
Cliches are mental models the mind has adapted to communicate information quickly. It could be a line “stuck in your caw” or a quip that caught your attention, such as, “That dog don’t hunt,” or “madder than a wet hen,” to borrow a few from the South. It doesn’t matter; we all fall victim to them as sometimes it simply “Is what it is.”
Then again, it doesn’t have to be a particular line or phrase (although those are the most immediately guilty). It can be a setting or an idea that has been played out.
In the 90s, it was the “Rush to the airport” moment. Today, Hallmark movies repeatedly replay the same tired romantic troupes in Holiday red and green tones. But they’re not the only culprits.
We can envision the Scream Queen tripping up a flight of stairs as the Stalker closes in or the suave, overdressed detective withholding vital information until the final sitting room scene. Sometimes, cliches can be genre or an audience expectation, such as Poirot solving the case or the final battle ending in carnage.
More often than not, however, this is not the case.
Producers always want a guarantee, especially in a world where box offices have dwindled to nothing, and owning a movie in hard copy is a relic. Therefore, we get ripoff after ripoff: Divergent and Hunger Games blatantly plagiarizing Battle Royale, young adult fiction creating one generic chosen one after another, or, worst of all, it was all just a dream…
It can also be catchphrases or marketing gimmicks serving as earworms, such as, “Guess what day it is,” or, “Got milk?” This is at least forgivable, as it’s marketing’s job to live in your brain rent-free.
Today, social media contributes to the overuse of cliches and perhaps is evolving them as posts like “I’m him” and “This” populate people’s feeds. We all have that one friend who only speaks in references and memes, impossible to have a conversation with that doesn’t start with, “I saw this post,” or, “I was listening to this podcast.”
For the more inquisitive bunch looking to score big on trivia night, “cliché” is a French word used to describe a stereotype: a metal plate for printing a picture. In other words, it was a way to reprint the same image repeatedly and quickly.
Is there an inherent problem with the cliche? Not necessarily; after all, there is nothing worse than a verbose blowhard who tries to insert as many polysyllabic words into a sentence just to make themselves sound intellectual. Trust me, the irony is not lost here.
They are shared phrases picked up from pop culture that permeate the zeitgeist, a turn of phrase that, at one point, popped so well people took it as their own; however, the prevalence of clichés in our communication should not be mistaken for their efficacy.
Often, they’re meaningless. For those of us raised in the 00s, think high school and college bros trying to pass off Dane Cook jokes and Will Ferrell lines as their own.
Yes, at one point in time, the phrase encapsulated meaning so well that, like a virus, it spread through the culture. But, as it does, the idea became diluted, misused, and ultimately tired.
Today, people throw around “woke” and “bougie” with their original intent completely lost. A single word meant to encapsulate an entire framework where meaning has corroded.
Effective communication demands clarity and precision, which clichés lack. They communicate the idea but produce a thought-stopping, mind-numbing effect.
Using cliches is the opposite of originality. We steal from a source, oft long forgotten, and then plug and play without any context or accuracy. And voila, our writing or speech becomes hackneyed and uninspired.
Unlike the royal pun, cliches are somehow acceptable. No one groans when a cliche is inserted into a scene. We just accept it and move on like the sloths we are.
Creativity requires effort, and why would we want to do that? If we want our speech to roll off the tongue, we can’t languish over language. It’s a tool, a code, and why fix what ain’t broken?
Writing is as much music as it is data, and a copy-and-paste job is never what we’re after.
Cliches may make writing easier but hinder the depth of our expression, creating monotonous sentences that push the reader to peruse.
If you don’t care, why should I?
It’s Not You; It’s Me: Clichés Mask Genuine Emotion
If writing still serves a purpose in today’s world, with the novel becoming as much a relic of a bygone era as the theatre, then it is to go deeper. The novelization of the film offers more insight into the characters, the plot, and the setting. A single-person narrative offers us the thoughts and ideas of the protagonist, reliable or not.
Cliches protect us, the writer. They keep the thoughts generic and vague. It allows us a cop-out of true, honest expression.
As Robert Frost wrote, “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”
This is why cliches thrive in life but not on paper. In the moment, we need a turn of phrase, something reliable, something with a shared meaning. We don’t have time to entertain the jackass searching for the right word. Just serve me my damn coffee; yes, it is a case of the Mondays.
When we write, be it for fun or for academic use, we are diving deeper into a topic. Critical thinking involves questioning assumptions, challenging norms, and seeking deeper understanding. Clichés promote shallow, unexamined ideas.
In this realm, we want real. We want honest. We want depth.
Otherwise, I’ll just listen to the podcast.
How to Avoid Clichés in Writing; or, Lists Are Trite Too
We regularly need to communicate an idea fast, and there’s nothing wrong with quickly using a turn of phrase that has worked for thousands of years, i.e., “All the world’s a stage,” or, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” even, “All is butt toys.” Okay, the last one is made up. Sort of.
Don’t rely on tired phrases. Like the good actor, we must coin the phrase ourselves. It’s elementary, one could say.
1. Re-coin the Phrase
Often, we use cliches because the punishment fits the crime. We are in a situation when makes sense to rely on “You can’t win ’em all.” In the moment, perhaps nothing else will do.
Writing can be a bitch. We could be slogging through thousands of words and ideas or on an absolute heater of a bender spitting absolute bars and out pops a hackneyed phrase.
Don’t worry about it. Hemingway is not coming from his grave, rallying Poe and knocking on your door with a Monkey’s Paw to beat you.
Let the phrase do its job, come back, and rewrite it. Mass communication, where cliches live, is no longer the objective intent. Odds are, today, we are writing for specific audiences. Respect your audience.
It’s okay for previous ideas to supply kindling for new ones. Just don’t forget to make it new.
2. Delete Altogether
Kill your darlings and bury the bodies. As mentioned above, these tired phrases emerge when trying to communicate efficiently and effectively. Therefore, we use an economy of words and rely on the old standards. Only, you’re not Sinatra, and this ain’t Christmas.
Thus, the best solution is often to delete it altogether.
Cliches are like groaners at a comedy club. They kill the vibe.
Mark Twain once suggested replacing the word ‘very’ with ‘damn’ as a way to avoid clichés. And that’s damn fine advice if you ask me.
3. Suck it up and bite the bullet
There are times when nothing else will do, when stereotypes and cliche fit the bill. Maybe even it’s an homage to something that came before, such as the classic line, “How could things get any worse?” Cue the lightning strike.
When this is the case, use it. Just don’t rely on it. A story like Knives Out uses and subverts the trope.
Today, the strategy seems to be going meta. Acknowledging that the writer or writers are using a cliche and calling attention to it like some kind of Rick & Morty episode starring Ryan Reynolds. The fact that the charming actor calls the treasure a MacGuffin does not make it any less a MacGuffin.
Conclusion
Writing is about showing off, not showing how much you know. At the click of a button or the insertion of a prompt, we can garner a vast amount of human knowledge. We can allow AI to pull from the entire expanse of human writing and regurgitate what has already been said, and in today’s world, that is the ultimate sin.
If a bot can do what I do, then why write it? If all that is required of the human spirit is the regurgitation of pre-existing knowledge, then what’s the point? Why do it?
One of the first lessons we teach young actors is to make the part “Their own.” This is solid writing advice as well.
We are so focused on “Getting it right” and living up to the standard we forget to say, “Fuck the standard, here’s my interpretation.” I don’t care how Kenneth Branagh played Benedick; I want to see what you do with it. Yes, David Suchet is brilliant as Poirot, but I don’t give a rat’s ass if you can imitate him. Mark Hamill’s Joker is brilliant, but how does the next generation interpret that?
The first audience we must create for is ourselves. We have to hold our standards high. If not, no one else will.
So, the next time you are gearing up to write, even if you are on a tight deadline churning out the words in the nick of time, don’t be like a kid in a candy store perusing the proverbial nomenclatures, the litany of poetical phrases handed down from generation to generation be it, “read between the lines,” or, “all that glitters is not gold.” Instead, seize the day and pluck from the vine something more scintillating, or titillating, something new and fresh — let the old standards be and leave them to those whose writing is dead as a doornail, or dead on arrival for that matter.
Don’t throw in the towel if, at first, you don’t succeed. Try, try again. After all, the world is your oyster.
Is the pot calling the kettle black? Perhaps.
But for now, I forget how that’s my problem.