12 MARCH 2020 http://www.writers-online.co.uk

Using clichés is a shortcut to bad writing.

Avoid them by arming yourself with advice from Michael Clough

CREATIVE WRITING

A COMMON

CRIMINAL

dream’ would have been original.

It may well have brought gasps of

relief... thank heavens this isn’t real!

But then, so it can be assumed,

every other writer was ending his

or her story in this way and it lost

all power of surprise. Familiarity

breeds boredom... the same old,

same old. If it was all a dream then

why did I bother?

As for ‘white as a sheet’ or other

stock sayings, they can undermine

faith in your ability to whisk the

reader away to the world you are

trying to create. You are entering

an ‘imaginative pact’. However the

cliché betrays a lack of effort on your

behalf. It signals poor quality. With

an engaging plot and characters you

might get away with it. Your chances

are next to nil though if your reader

works for a publishing house. Then

again, even the best wordsmiths

ought to be allowed the occasional

bum note – if everything else is

stunningly fresh then one or two

indiscretions can be overlooked.

Avoid cliché pile-up

The greater the number of clichés

the more likely you are to undermine

the effect. This is especially so if you

write literary fiction as the bar is set

much higher. Though even with genre

fiction, where the hackneyed use of

language is more common, it lowers

your chances of finding a buyer for

your manuscript. You may therefore

ask why clichés can be found in

published novels. If Dan Brown uses

them willy-nilly then why can’t I?

It is far easier to write badly, to

plunder the so-called dictionary of

tired expressions. By doing so you

are putting yourself into a vast pool

of competitors – almost everyone

seems to be writing fiction these

days. As such, your chances are

immediately diminished. Whenever I

come across atrocious writing I look

into the circumstances of the author’s

publication. In what is essentially

a cutthroat business, cronyism,

networking skills and simple chance

can play an increasingly large part.

Often it will turn out that the six-

figure deal only came about because

the person is known of in some other

capacity, as a politician or a singer

perhaps or they just happened to be

in the right place at the right time. I

wouldn’t advise waiting around for a

blind date with an editor or whatever.

It is far better to write to the best of

your ability and that means avoiding

clichés. You will then be in a much

smaller pool.

Readers resist

It could also be said that reader

expectations are changing. There is a

kernel of hope that we are seeing the

beginning of a shift in the publishing

industry. With pot-boilers, as they are

sometimes known, it has long been

assumed that they will be devoured

Y

our ability to spot a cliché
will depend, to a large
extent, on the breadth and
depth of your reading.
‘Greedy as a pig’ would be an original
comparison to an infant encountering
his or her first picture book, whereas
most literate adults would consider
this rather tired. It is an obvious
example though. In writing fiction
a word or literary device may well
seem perfect for whatever you want to
convey. Only when editing the piece
will you begin to have doubts.
Familiarity with all literature ever
would be impossible for even the
most compulsive reader. Anyway, it
isn’t a matter of checking your word
choice against an unchanging glossary
of clichés. Some phrases go out of
fashion while others are on the rise.
What is overused today may seem
fresh and lively in a hundred years.

Clichés cut in
But why should you avoid these nasty
little creatures? Putting it simply, they
risk taking your reader away from
the story. They are the microphone
hovering into view during a favourite
soap opera, ruining the suspension
of disbelief. Imagine reading a
wonderfully vivid passage only for it
to end with ‘and it was all a dream’, or
to be told that the protagonist looked
in the mirror and saw she was ‘as
white as a sheet’.
When first penned ‘it was all a

Cliché:

Clichés

Clichés