Avoiding Clichés Like the Plague

The Writing Itself

When you think about why you like your favourite book, there can be many reasons that come to mind. Because you like the characters. Because you like the way the story unfolds. Because you like the concept. Because it has this certain element that you can't describe, but it makes the book amazing.

You're unlikely to say, "because the writing style is genius." Writing itself is hard to describe, making it very hard to deal with and correct. It's a fairly subtle thing, and if it's good, it can turn a bland story into the best thing you've ever read. It's that extra element, that one that you don't know how to describe. But if it's bad, the whole story is unbearable to read. I have picked up books, been fascinated by the back cover description, then read the first three chapters, and put it down because I couldn't stand the writing

First Part

It completely depends on the point of view you're writing from, but many people make this mistake in their introduction to their story: They start off with a few bland sentences describing the character. Par example:

"My name is Sophie. I'm 12 years old and had a pretty normal life, before all this weird stuff happened.. My mom left my dad and me before I was born and I never met her."

BORING!

You want to start with something interesting. Don't start with the character describing themself or their life. Your story should begin when something is happening. Whether it's a girl walking down to the docks so that some magical fish can tell her a story, (I have started a story like that) or a guy describing the soft drink he's consuming, seeing as it's the last he'll have for months (I'm still working on that story.)

Come on, people, even Twilight started out with Bella leaving her home. Harry Potter started with the most annoying family in the world having their world flipped upside down. Percy Jackson starts with… well the very beginning isn't perfect, but within the first chapter he becomes mildly schizophrenic, according to his classmates. Start your story with something out of the ordinary, an event that causes things to happen.

Descriptions

Obviously, you want to describe what's happening in your story. Adding bits about what characters look like, what things sound like, what places are like, and how things feel make your story seem more realistic. Descriptions are your friend. They make you story come to life. Unfortunately, they can also be that friend who stabs you in the back, asks out the guy you like, and successfully makes you miserable and incapable of doing anything particularly productive.

What you don't want to do is describe the same thing over and over again. You can refer to someone's "bushy brown hair," or their "piercing blue eyes," but once you've described a person or place, leave it at that. I have seen many would-be good stories go to waste because people spend too much time describing little details that no one really gives a crap about. We like to know that there's a domed ceiling, and blue walls, and that the carpet is so thick that your shoes disappear into it. But we don't really care that the walls were a precise midnight blue with little white flecks that you didn't see until you looked up close. We don't want to know what every picture on the wall looks like.

While it's okay to reference a part of a description every now and then, it's not okay to mention it every single time you read about that particular person/place/thing. This lessens the impact. If you are going to insist and describe a feeling over and over, at least make it a different description each time.

One part that you really don't want to over describe is any sort of romantic happening. These tend to get tedious and repetitive, not to mention the fact that people often get wrapped up in their own sexual and romantic fantasies, and write down way too much information. You may find yourself straying from the actual character and end up talking about that guy/girl that you've had your eye on forever.

In general, don't write too much description. Unless you can make it really entertaining, intriguing, or funny, people will find it super boring. Of course, on fanfiction, you more often find too little description. So, also remember this: we want to know what everything looks like in your story so that we can picture it happening.

Verbs

Verbs. Simple enough, right? Wrong. Verbs are some of the trickiest things to get right in a story. How many times is it acceptable to use "said" in a page? Is my character really "prancing" to her front door? What can I use rather than "pull," considering I've used that four times in the past two hundred words?

There are people who don't use enough verbs. Their characters WALK everywhere and SAY everything and TAKE stuff all the time. These people don't use much variety in their verbs, either because they're lazy, they don't see anything wrong with this, or they can't think of any more creative words to use. Stories like these becomes extremely tiring, seeing as there's a very limited number of words being used.

Then there are the people who seem to think that it's absolutely unacceptable to use the same verb more than once. The result is people "questioning" when they're not asking a question, "frolicking" while thoroughly depressed, and "glooming" their way to school, which, apart from not sounding very good, is physically impossible. The story quickly descends into a group of words that don't make any sense and are incredibly difficult to decipher.

Sometimes, people do just SAY things and they just OPEN stuff. But not always. People also yell, leap, peer, and flop. The key is balance.

And for the sake of literature, don't change tense! You also need to make sure the verb agrees with the subject! "The umbrella, while colourful, were still boring," is not right, and neither is "Jack and I am going to look for the Lost Moon of Poosh." They should be "The umbrella, while colourful, was still boring," and "Jack and I are going to look for the Lost Moon of Poosh."

Dialogue

You know that person who sits directly behind you in science class, and while they can be funny sometimes, they often just seem to like you too much, to the point that it gets annoying? Meet dialogue.

In real life, people talk. It's one of our main forms of communication. That doesn't mean people have to talk in a story. I have seen perfectly good stories that happen entirely in a character's head. A lot of Coraline takes place in the main character's thoughts. So before you even write anything, consider if you really need much dialogue or any at all. I bet your answer is yes. And that's fine. But you have to be careful with what that characters are saying.

Conversations rarely go like this:

"Well, Connor, I reckon we have done our work here."

"Of course. What do you say to going to get some dinner, Travis."

"I think that would be wonderful. I do not want to spend too much, though"

No one talks like that. No one. And if they do, it's intentional. Because, like I've said before, people are really, really lazy. They don't say "reckon," unless they're Australian or something. People don't use names that often and they shorten everything. Don't, wanna, sucks, barbie, (rather than barbeque. Aussie slang.) If you're having trouble deciding whether or not a piece of dialogue is realistic, say it out loud. Does it sound stupid or unrealistic? Yes? Then don't use it. It's also okay to throw all grammar rules out the window when writing dialogue. People don't speak with proper grammar.

You can also write with an accent. If you have only one British character, or want to emphasize an accent, you can have them say "somefing," if you want. The same goes for any character who talks in a particularly different or specific way.

It's also very easy to get carried away and have your story entirely made up of dialogue. Never do this. It's annoying and confusing.

Now, something that drives me insane is when people don't format their dialogue the proper way. For example, every time their character says something with a little more emotion than usual, everything is written in capital letters. No. Caps lock is reserved for those moments in which someone flies into an explosive rage and is determined (for at least five seconds) that they have the right to blow up the moon.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" says Percy, after he sees Annabeth hugging Atticus Finch. Wrong!

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" says Percy, after he sees Annabeth making out with Atticus Finch, who, apart from being forty, had killed Percy's dog earlier that day, burned down his apartment, spoiled Dumbledore's death, and robbed Percy's family of all their money and dignity. Right! That is most definitely rage-worthy! It doesn't have to be that extreme, but you get my point.

And now, how to write proper dialogue:

Press enter for a new line, Quotation mark, Talking, Comma, Quotation mark.

That's basically how you do it. There's way more to learn when you split up the dialogue, but it's mainly just a lot of commas. Example:

"Well, too bad. I'm going to learn to fly and there's nothing Clarisse can do to stop me," said Nico.

"What," said Mr Croup, "do you want?"

Finally, the last thing you want to watch out for is making the dialogue too clever. My Sister's Keeper has this problem. It's a great book, but some of the things that people say are too witty, too intelligent, and altogether unlikely to ever happen.

Dialogue can push your story forwards, but it can just as easily stop your story in its tracks. And if you do it wrong, you will create the most unrealistic thing that anyone has ever read.

So, there you have it, general writing tips. The key to writing is balance. Too much of something is bad, but so is too little. Balance is part of the theory of power. (Reaction force, concentration, balance, breathing, mass, speed)So if you want your story to make and impact, you have to have everything in the right proportion.

Well, have fun with that. Being able to write really well can take a lot of practice, so don't be discouraged. And in between practicing, grow some garlic, listen to The Gorillaz, and don't forget to vote Saxon.

-Socks