Avoiding Cliches

Nearly every writer, professor, teacher, and book on writing says “Avoid cliches.” It’s almost as popular as “Write What You Know.”… but we’ll get to that cliche in a later post.

I, as a writer who likes to work with suspense, twists and turns, and sudden plot changes, don’t see why one should avoid cliches. After all, they’re cliche for a reason.

Last night, I was thinking… who was the first person to come up with a cliche, and then how did that cliche become a cliche? All I can think of, was the person who came up with a cliche was such a good writer that he/she described it perfectly. Then the person who read it thought “Wow, I can completely relate to that. I must remember it and use in it my work.” And so on and so on.

Cliches are cliches for a reason – because they’re true. Because people can relate to them. Because they’re easily explaining something that is otherwise hard to explain.
Using cliches in your writing is, at least in my humble opinion, just fine. The trick is to bend the cliche, going just outside and adding a certain twist that readers don’t see coming… why do they not see it coming? Because it is a cliche…

Cliches allow readers to easily relate to what you’re writing about… it’s also already a cliche, so it gives a comforting, familiar feeling. So, when you then bend the cliche it shocks the reader even more so than if you had avoided the cliche all together. It’s actually quite a brilliant concept, because readers don’t want to read a book with a bunch of cliches – but they do want to read a good, not confusing book, that they can easily relate to.

It’s often times hard to cater to certain reader’s tastes because everybody likes something a little different (hence why we have so many different books, stories, genres, etc.) but everybody loves a bent cliche of one sort or another.

So, perhaps in the spirit of contradictions… “Avoiding the cliche” is a cliche that we should avoid.

Thanks for your interest,
Kya
For more information on me, my writing, and to read free short stories, please visit my official website: KyaAliana.Weebly.Com