 Drama: November 13, 2013 Issue [#5976] |
  Drama
This week: Clichés: Use’em or Lose’em? Edited by: Joy  
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“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.â€
Ernest Hemingway
“We're all clichés, all following scripts that have been written and played out long before we landed the role.â€
Jonathan Tropper One Last Thing Before I Go
“Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred cliches move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.
Umberto Eco, Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers --The Clichés Are Having a Ball
“It's okay to write crap. Just don't try publishing it while it's still crap.â€
S.M. Blooding
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about clichés and using them wisely if you are going to use them at all.
Your Drama Newsletter Editors: zwisis NickiD89  kittiara Joy
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
Note: In the editorial, I refer to third person singular as he, to also mean the female gender, because I don't like to use they or he/she.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
For the word artists like us  , clichés are tools similar to the pre-mixed paint tubes for the painter. They help give a nearly perfect color to an image with the stroke of a brush, even if they lack the nuances when the painter mixes the colors himself. In reality, clichés are quite successful in their line of work; yet, it is this success that turns their users into lazy writers.
As writers, we are told to “avoid clichés like the plague.†As an aside, did you notice the cliché in this advice?
Then, like many other creative-writing teachers, Thomas Mann --the German Nobel Laureate of 1929-- also wrote, “rather babble away and at least partially express something difficult than reproduce impeccable clichés.â€
The reason is for this advice is, their overuse has made clichés so commonplace that they have lost their originality and appeal. Anything already used becomes second-hand and anything overused becomes boring. And you have to admit this is not art.
True art is creating something new, or in the least, something imaginatively renewed.
Talking about imagining, imagine you are reading a good metaphor or simile in a book. Doesn’t it make you admire the writer’s skill? That writer has shown what he wants you to see in your mind’s eye, with mastery and without telling. Yet, another writer who has used a cliché instead has taken a short-cut and has told instead of showing.
In the “Oxford Book of Essential Writer’s Reference,†there is a list of phrase and expression clichés to avoid. In addition to it, you might come upon similar cliché lists in any other writers’ advice publication. It is a good idea to look through those and be consciously aware of them, as we hear them so often that their usage may have become second nature to us. One way to avoid this habit is to read what we have written with special attention to the clichés inside it.
If, in our writing, we chance upon a cliché expression or two, we can convert it into straight language.
A couple of examples to this:
Cliché: With those words, he showed his true colors to her.
Fix: His words stunned her. His words had exposed him as he really was, as he really had been.
Cliché: She went out on a limb and read between the lines.
Fix: Even though it felt risky to think about it, she dared to look into the situation objectively to analyze the facts.
One place where clichés are allowed is the dialogue. Since people do use clichés in everyday language, for the sake of realism, we can use them quite comfortably, but even then, we should try not to fill a short conversation with more than one or two clichés.
Yet a caveat even in dialogue: Do not borrow the movie industry’s clichés, such as: “You are not in Kansas anymore,†“I eat guys like you for breakfast,†or “You want the truth? You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth?†Everybody knows those lines. So let us not use them, unless of course, we are writing a parody.
So far, the type of clichés I referred to involved phrases and expressions. Cliché actions and even cliché plots also exist in writing, especially in genres. For those, the advice needs to be: if we are using the master template of a genre, we should try to change some things about it, such as: switch players, add our own actions, or adapt our own ending to the expected ending of a genre. As to actions, let us not reuse our own words and turn them into clichés. Let us not put the same or similar sword fights, sex scenes, or identical types of sappy scenes inside the same story or repeat those in consecutive tales.
As writers, we have a responsibility to our art and to our readers. Let us not cheapen that responsibility by overuse and laziness.
Until next time... 
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 Enjoy!
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|  | Unsung Hero (18+)
A disgruntled cynic wakes up as the center of a prophecy in a world of cliches.
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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 This Issue's Tip: Place strong words at the beginning and at the end of sentence, section, or paragraph. This guarantees a strong initial impact in the beginning and a lasting effect at the end.
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 Reading Recommendation: A book with drama
If you have a recommendation, a few words on a book or a product review, send it to me or to this newsletter. I'll highlight it here. 
Feedback for "Getting Ready for NaNo"
dwarf2012
Thank you for highlighting my short story. As far as NaNoWriMo goes, it is tough if you work full time and have a family. It can be done, but ground rules need to be established. Hard to get the puppies to understand them though!
So true, but those very things make our work so heroic.
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Quick-Quill 
The nano can accomplish a number of thing depending on the writer's goal. For me it's getting the story out of my head and on the page. I do the prep, but so far its been a guideline only. It may change as time goes on. This year I'm not as excited about the story as I have been in the past. I am going to give it my best shot! The mental and physical endurance is the reward
Agreed. Endurance teaches. We learn what we can accomplish that we didn't know we could.
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Acme
Hi Joy,
Thank you for the NaNo-prep Drama newsletter--an interesting read, especially given the fact I'm working with a number of writers outside of WDC who are participating again this year. Some of our writers prep, prep, prep, and, while others say they don't, they do so, but in a less structured or tangible way. One of them, who never commits anything to paper, usually has the whole storyworld and characters plotted out by simply imagining 'What if...' A great memory, for sure, and he does it every year, but I know it wouldn't work for me!
Thank you, too, for highlighting Acme’s Comedy Scream Hallowe’en; it’s appreciated.
Thanks for the input, Acme.
I do enjoy pantsing a lot more than prepping; however, my pantsing results have not been all that great. So I have been going along with the prepping, or rather, what I call adaptable prepping.
I don't know how good pantsers can do it at all, and there are a lot of them who can.
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BIG BAD WOLF is Howling 
Submitted item: "Monster Cowboys The Book"
Give your own spin on a story.
You'll have to, since it's your own story.
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