Everyday Canvas

Annoying Clichés -for me- in Fiction

Clichés do not inflict themselves only in words and phrases. They can, also, infect storytelling practices. I read more than I write; so, I keep coming face to face with those clichés a lot. Most of what I don’t like, I know experienced editors don’t like either, such as a character describing oneself while looking at a mirror or when only the main character or the antagonist can act smart or devious and can see through the things, while the other characters are sitting ducks or dummies. What an insult to human intelligence!

Other things that make me uncomfortable while I read are:

• Stories or novels supposedly written in series where each book is not a full story. I have read novels that cut the main storyline in the middle or in its climax with the note that the solution or the end will be revealed in the next book. This, as a bookselling practice, is a deception. Each book in a series needs to be a story on its own. The second book may take a secondary character and continue as another story, which is just fine, but breaking the main plot in the middle is my biggest pet-peeve. Actually, I have a list of authors who have done this and I won’t read anything from them again.

• Blaming every bad or criminal behavior on the character’s parents. It’s too easy to blame monster parents for a character’s own shortcomings. On the other hand, a person can grow in a nice home and turn out terrible. The second option I mostly see in experienced authors’ fiction.

• Using/describing medical process, procedure, and hospital practices without enough research. Writers seem to forget that some or most readers have some connection to the medical field and may stop believing in the writer’s ability or in the story.

• Having people/criminals confess to things too easily or by a sudden whip of guilty conscience. Even if caught, why would a criminal easily confess or give a detailed explanation as to why he did something?

• Describing sex explicitly for titillation to the degree of turning a serious story into pornography, without it being an evidence to characters’ feelings or as a hint to a subplot or something in the plot.

• Too many inside jokes or references to rare lingo words or other material, such as James Joyce’s Ulysses or The Lego Movie. This only shows that the writer reads/watches what he thinks is cool, but it doesn’t help his storytelling. And I am not talking about a serious story that centers on James Joyce or The Lego Movie in some way, but refers to them in passing, unnecessarily.

• When the hero is not only a hero who can solve the problem, but he is also chosen by a higher being or force; therefore, he gets all kinds of supernatural help. This is an evasion that belittles the main character and his wit, and takes away from a greater success that the reader can relate to and applaud.

• Using dreams too often is not a good practice either, especially in realistic fiction. Most readers like to read what is actually happening in the story. Yes, we all dream and sometimes dreams may herald the future, but using that as a plot point or in some serious connection to the main story may sound absurd. Still, some authors use dreams very effectively. I think this should be studied well as a skill before authors use dreams in their work.

Clichés are convenient, but they are already expected. If they were not, they wouldn’t be clichés. Not all clichés are bad, as they happen in life often, and at times, they can be used with care and delicacy. Instead of stories with oft-used clichés, authentic, rich, specific moments and details appeal to me more, and I think this attention to originality separates good literature from the mundane.