[Bisclavret]

Let me explain myself...

Truth be told, I understand that clichés have their place in literature as they do in other mediums; notwithstanding, what concerns me, as a novice writer, is that I may very well be insentitive and or consciously unaware of these common yet sometimes subtle narrative trends. I wish to minimize my usage of clichés in my own work, therefore I have these two questions which I'd appreciate answers for.

1) What tips do you have for avoiding and identifying overused literary clichés, concerning the realm of fiction?

2) What are some examples of clichés that I should be aware of?

Note: My genre is mainly science fiction.

[Grimace]

Firstly, since you want to write in a genre, you have an even greater load of cliche to deal with then otherwise.

What I will say is that, with much poor science fiction, or genre writing in general, or, I guess, with any surface-level escapist nonsense, the narrative tends to be horizontal, beginning to end, some point in time to another point in time, linked by events. A sign of good writing, writing more likely to be free from cliche, is that it moves both horizontally and vertically, that is to say, into both the revelatory heights and the profound interior depths of the human condition, in other words, it's moving on more than one axis.

A good sign that you may have written a cliche is that it comes very easily. This is not to say that some burst of insight cannot be easy and sudden, but that often, the first thought you jump to is more widely interconnected with cultural and artistic tropes and cliches, the familiar, the already read, seen, experienced.

There are so many cliches, and one could never list them all.

some I dislike personally, and have been seeing on the marking I've been at my university.

-blood running cold please, god, don't use this cliche

-anything "like lightning" trust me, it's been done.

-this one may be slightly more obscure if not part of a cohort of writers or more specifically poets, but don't say the "geography of [insert something unrelated to geography, like love, loss, sadness, etc] it's been done.

Any turn of phrase, colloquialism, sage advice, wise saying, etc that comes as a unit of words (ie phrase; cliches are rarely single words) is wise to avoid unless you're using it for a comedic, ironic or otherwise sophisticated purpose, is best avoided.


Something to remember is that cliches tend to fill a void in true understanding, in essence replacing a legitimate grasp of an emotion or scene or conflict with the go-to ready-made unit of cliche. So, if you're writing about something that you don't actually know anything about, you are likely sourcing from the masses of summary cliche that anyone brought up in the information age has been exposed to. In other words, research, care, engagement, and a precise artistic and aesthetic attention will serve you well in avoiding tired cliches.

Damn, I rambled.

ps. Cannot figure out my accent aigu function, thus none are present where they should be.

[OwenF]

Phrase-level clichés are avoided easily enough. Don't use dead figurative language unless it's so embedded in idiom that it isn't even noticed as figurative anymore. "Dead as a doornail" is a cliché because it is still recognized as a simile despite being over 650 years old. "She was blessed with long and nimble toes" is not a cliché because this metaphoric use of "blessed" has become so common that it's a standard meaning. The third dictionary.com definition of "blessed" is "to bestow good of any kind upon: a nation blessed with peace." It's possible that something figurative is still going on with the toe blessing, especially if the writer in question isn't intending to refer to the existence of a Bestower, but only an insanely fussy reader is going to cry cliché in an instance like this one.

But I suspect that you weren't asking about phrase-level clichés. If by literary clichés you mean well-worn plots, well-worn character types, and so on, then those are truly tough to avoid in science fiction. A small number of categories can cover most science fiction plots: zap the bugs; defeat the empire; save Earth or the universe from the empire of space bugs; encounter weird forms of life; find a way back home; put the (now killer) robots back in the box; recognize that the robots are people, too; deal with the dys part of a given dystopia (totalitarianism, unthinking hedonism, organ harvesting); deal with post-apocalyptic misery; get freaky with time.

The best advice I can think to give is to cultivate richness. Don't worry about an overarching plot that has elements of cliché, or worry overmuch about characters that echo certain archetypes, but do worry about filling your partly borrowed world with unique details. Seen from a distance, Cormac McCarthy's The Road is pretty standard post-apocalyptic stuff, but the details make all the difference. Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake is teeming with clichés; they're mixed in an interesting way, though, and the world is vividly described, and the language can be fun, and the characters are quite psychologically credible and complex as science fiction characters go.

Another way to keep things fresh is to pick a science fiction cliché that you don't like and write a story that intentionally subverts it. At times Stanislaw Lem's primary impetus as a writer seemed to be his intense dislike of most science fiction.

A great strength of science fiction is how easily it lends itself to an exploration of ideas. The trick is to embody the ideas in narrative as much as possible rather than being overtly preachy or having characters deliver long John Galt type speeches. And remember to explore ideas instead of writing one-sided propaganda. There is nothing wrong with having what amounts to a thesis in mind, be it libertarian or conservative or egalitarian or ecological, but be sure to leave room for complexity. If you must have baddies, allow your baddies to be as eloquent as Iago.

[Bisclavret]

Originally Posted by Grimace To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

What I will say is that, with much poor science fiction, or genre writing in general, or, I guess, with any surface-level escapist nonsense, the narrative tends to be horizontal, beginning to end, some point in time to another point in time, linked by events. A sign of good writing, writing more likely to be free from cliche, is that it moves both horizontally and vertically, that is to say, into both the revelatory heights and the profound interior depths of the human condition, in other words, it's moving on more than one axis.

Yes, I've noticed this in poor story telling myself: stories that are nothing more than one long sequence of haphazard events, in which there is little to no character development. Cheap horror movies come to mind.

Neverthless, I'd agree with you with regards to what to good storytelling: that is focuses as much on the intangibles as it does on the tangible aspects of life. This is precisely what I endeavour to focus on.

	A good sign that you may have written a cliche is that it comes very easily. This is not to say that some burst of insight cannot be easy and sudden, but that often, the first thought you jump to is more widely interconnected with cultural and artistic tropes and cliches, the familiar, the already read, seen, experienced.

Agreed. In truth, my plot is still heavily ladened in cliche, due in part to my original inspiration for the story. I am at the point where I realize that I might have to establish a completely new plot, to escape from the commonalities which it shares with other sci-fi titles.

There are so many cliches, and one could never list them all. some I dislike personally, and have been seeing on the marking I've been at my university. -blood running cold please, god, don't use this cliche -anything "like lightning" trust me, it's been done. -this one may be slightly more obscure if not part of a cohort of writers or more specifically poets, but don't say the "geography of [insert something unrelated to geography, like love, loss, sadness, etc] it's been done. Any turn of phrase, colloquialism, sage advice, wise saying, etc that comes as a unit of words (ie phrase; cliches are rarely single words) is wise to avoid unless you're using it for a comedic, ironic or otherwise sophisticated purpose, is best avoided.

What concerns me moreso at this point is character and plot cliches, though I will definitely keep this in mind.

Something to remember is that cliches tend to fill a void in true understanding, in essence replacing a legitimate grasp of an emotion or scene or conflict with the go-to ready-made unit of cliche. So, if you're writing about something that you don't actually know anything about, you are likely sourcing from the masses of summary cliche that anyone brought up in the information age has been exposed to. In other words, research, care, engagement, and a precise artistic and aesthetic attention will serve you well in avoiding tired cliches. Damn, I rambled.

Research, research, research! I get it.

I am currently in process of racking up knowledge on nanotechnology to avoid some of the cliches that are attributed to it. Overall, I find that having a broad based education helps in the creation of an aforesaid, "believable" fictional world.

	ps. Cannot figure out my accent aigu function, thus none are present where they should be.

You're not the only one.

---------- Post added 12-22-2011 at 06:39 PM ----------

Originally Posted by OwenF To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Phrase-level clichés are avoided easily enough. Don't use dead figurative language unless it's so embedded in idiom that it isn't even noticed as figurative anymore. "Dead as a doornail" is a cliché because it is still recognized as a simile despite being over 650 years old. "She was blessed with long and nimble toes" is not a cliché because this metaphoric use of "blessed" has become so common that it's a standard meaning. The third dictionary.com definition of "blessed" is "to bestow good of any kind upon: a nation blessed with peace." It's possible that something figurative is still going on with the toe blessing, especially if the writer in question isn't intending to refer to the existence of a Bestower, but only an insanely fussy reader is going to cry cliché in an instance like this one.

I'll do my best in avoiding these figurative forms of cliche.

But I suspect that you weren't asking about phrase-level clichés. If by literary clichés you mean well-worn plots, well-worn character types, and so on, then those are truly tough to avoid in science fiction. A small number of categories can cover most science fiction plots: zap the bugs; defeat the empire; save Earth or the universe from the empire of space bugs; encounter weird forms of life; find a way back home; put the (now killer) robots back in the box; recognize that the robots are people, too; deal with the dys part of a given dystopia (totalitarianism, unthinking hedonism, organ harvesting); deal with post-apocalyptic misery; get freaky with time.

Indeed my main concern revolves around character and plot cliches and how to best avoid them, at least partially.

Those examples that you brought up are indeed endemic within the realm of the sci-fi genre. I got a good laugh out of reading that!

The best advice I can think to give is to cultivate richness. Don't worry about an overarching plot that has elements of cliché, or worry overmuch about characters that echo certain archetypes, but do worry about filling your partly borrowed world with unique details. Seen from a distance, Cormac McCarthy's The Road is pretty standard post-apocalyptic stuff, but the details make all the difference. Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake is teeming with clichés; they're mixed in an interesting way, though, and the world is vividly described, and the language can be fun, and the characters are quite psychologically credible and complex as science fiction characters go.

Though I haven't read McCarthy's piece, I did read and enjoy Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. Admittedly, it wasn't the plot that was revolutionary (global man-made pandemic; post-apocalyptic; tale of last man on earth; genetically modified humans; etc.) but what Atwood did with her characters. They were nuanced, imperfect, and had nicely fleshed out backstories.

Maybe I should focus more of my time on making my characters feel real and believable, than in trying to create a perfectly 'novel' plotline.

Another way to keep things fresh is to pick a science fiction cliché that you don't like and write a story that intentionally subverts it. At times Stanislaw Lem's primary impetus as a writer seemed to be his intense dislike of most science fiction. A great strength of science fiction is how easily it lends itself to an exploration of ideas. The trick is to embody the ideas in narrative as much as possible rather than being overtly preachy or having characters deliver long John Galt type speeches. And remember to explore ideas instead of writing one-sided propaganda. There is nothing wrong with having what amounts to a thesis in mind, be it libertarian or conservative or egalitarian or ecological, but be sure to leave room for complexity. If you must have baddies, allow your baddies to be as eloquent as Iago.

I haven't read Lem, but his name I do recall having heard about him. And this idea of writing science fiction which subverts the genre's most overused cliche, it seems promising to me. Maybe I should read something from Lem to have a better idea as to how to go about doing so.

Furthermore, the exploration of ideas is definitely one of the chief reasons why I like sci-fi as much as I do, be they philosophical, ethical, political, psychological, and so forth.

Question: what, if anything, is wrong with having my characters bring up these issues?

[OwenF]

	Originally Posted by Bisclavret To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Question: what, if anything, is wrong with having my characters bring up these issues?

I don't think there is anything categorically wrong with having your characters bring them up. It's more an issue of degree. Below are a few reasons I would avoid doing it too much as well as a few thoughts about avoiding pitfalls and presenting ideas in an effective way:

1. If speeches take over your narrative, the story can start to seem little more than a half-baked excuse to write a long polemical essay. Genre-bending can work well (see #6), but you don't want to reduce your novel to a Trojan Horse for an argument.

2. If characters are frequently delivering long, idea-laden speeches, it requires the reader to make a great effort to suspend disbelief. In real life this would usually come across as obnoxious rather than captivating.

3. Narrative can be a powerful form of argument, a powerful means of letting your audience discover the truth you're trying to relate rather than having the truth waved in front of their faces. Show causes; show consequences. If you show how your ideas play out in plausible (if exotic) situations, your points will be made in a more convincing way. In short, demonstration is more effective than explanation.

4. If you do have a character introduce ideas, there needs to be a compelling reason to do so. The ideas need to be especially fresh or especially bizarre or especially integral to the story you're telling. Avoid ideas that resemble a canned version of this or that ideology. The reader has no reason to go to a novel to get that kind of thing.

5. You will lose readers if you come across as preachy. Though I'm pretty sure my politics are not identical to those that Atwood uses to inform Oryx and Crake, she makes me give serious consideration to all of her ideas because she presents a world instead of having characters tell me what's what. Using ideas to animate your world and to make your readers think will work better than using ideas to demand that your readers think the right thoughts.

6. At their best, writers like Lem and Borges are so good with ideas, so subtle and so full of logical and analogical surprises, that they can get by with long stretches of abstraction in fiction. (This usually takes place in the narration itself rather than in dialogue.) This is a rare talent, though, and this kind of thing is much more frequently attempted than successfully carried out.

7. Despite his histrionics, Dostoevski is a good model for allowing characters who disagree with the author's ideas to speak--and speak well.

I admit that there are preachy, essayistic novelists who have large fan bases. (Hint: Her initials are A. R. and I allude to her in my previous post.) Taking another path is more likely to satisfy more readers, though, and I think it's the better artistic choice. In addition to some of the people mentioned above, you can find successful idea work in Heinlein, Le Guin, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Verne, Wells, Dick, Huxley, Card, Crichton, and Herbert. Though talky polemics can be found in the work of these writers, they don't tend to be a defining characteristic.

[Grimace]

Also, Robertson Davies (Debtford Trilogy) is another example of how incredibly long speeches and books consisting entirely of dialogues can be successful, but he's really quite masterful with his writing, and the speeches seem linked to the characters and not (mostly) to what feels like the author ranting, so it's a matter of tuning it properly.


ps. Have to mention that I absolutely loved Oryx and Crake when I read it a few times in high school. I read almost no books more than once. Atwood's predictions around internet voyeurism and desensitization were frighteningly precise, and seem to be getting only more accurate the further we get into this century.

[mieu]

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