Young Writers Society

CLICHE'S -
I'm looking for popular cliche's for a realistic fiction story I'm writing... I normally write fanstasy so I'm not that familiar with realistic fiction cliches.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE -
I've read reviews where it says "this novel has something for everyone!" (The Princess Bride being one of them) I want to know what those somethings are...

Mostly out of curiousity but somewhat because I'm out of idea's and really my story can go anywhere or do anything without it sounding odd. So what are they?

Thanks

Cliches:

Basic things that happen in life. Girl deals with horrible, alcoholic father. Girl likes boy, boy hates girl, girl hates boy, boy likes girl. Mom and daughter are insanely close.

Something For Everyone:

I don't agree with your example; I hated The Princess Bride! But the 'something for everyone' incorporates everything. They have a dash of romance, a pinch of adventure, a bit of mystery, some angst, and some fluff. How do you write that? Pick any teen's life, and start writing.

But really, 'something for everyone's' not that hard. A girl likes a boy (romance) but the boy's secretive (mystery) and then she spies with friends to find out what's wrong (adventure) and we learn that he's a cutter (angst) but then she stops him and they live happily ever after (fluff.)

Lame example, but you can come up with better ones. If I did that in one minute, think of what *you* can do in one hour!

Good luck, and PM me for anything (including critiques when you get this written. )

~JFW1415

If you're writing a sort of romance, there are plenty of cliches piled up. Shy Girl suddenly catches eye of Popular Guy (an example of the Romeo and Juliet, High School style cliche, with people of differing cliques getting together). Normal Girl meets a Rock Star/Movie Star, all those sorts of things work. Fluff can easily go hand in hand with romance.

Angst is very easy to get if you give one of the characters some tragic past, dysfunctional family, or emo character.

Any sort of conflict, whether it's secret agents after you, fending off jealous fangirls, a haunted house with violent spirits (though I suppose that's not realistic), falling in a river, saving a friend form a drug addiction, etc. will give you action. There are 3 basic types of conflict: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. Self.

Humor and tragedy is usually easy to integrate into a story, though I personally don't like writing tragic scenes T_T too sad.

Perhaps I've merely misunderstood what this thread is all about (and if I have please inform me.) but I've always thought that when you're writing something it was best to AVOID cliches....unless you're writing a tongue-in-cheek kind of piece or something, I don't see why you'd try to use cliches for any kind of writing....

Krupp wrote:Perhaps I've merely misunderstood what this thread is all about (and if I have please inform me.) but I've always thought that when you're writing something it was best to AVOID cliches....unless you're writing a tongue-in-cheek kind of piece or something, I don't see why you'd try to use cliches for any kind of writing....

Everything is a cliche, no matter how small the cliche is. You start with a one, and turn it into yours.

~JFW1415

Personally I never saw what was so horrible about cliches. YES - one should try to be original. And you can't always rely on cliches.

But sometimes when I'm read a novel, I find myself going: "This plot is somewhat cliche... but I STILL must find out what happens!" because somehow the cliche hasn't run old with me, even after years of reading it.

They're overrused because they're entertaining.

Of course, this is a contrary opinion. And strange. But... you know... it's not like I throw a book down if I see a cliche character.

JFW1415 wrote:

Krupp wrote:Perhaps I've merely misunderstood what this thread is all about (and if I have please inform me.) but I've always thought that when you're writing something it was best to AVOID cliches....unless you're writing a tongue-in-cheek kind of piece or something, I don't see why you'd try to use cliches for any kind of writing....

Everything is a cliche, no matter how small the cliche is. You start with a one, and turn it into yours.

~JFW1415

heh...the sad thing is, even SAYING that something is cliche is cliche'd now. How sad is that? It's unfortunate.

But I get your point anyway. I'd rather not use cliches if I can help it; I don't think my stuff is that cliche'd if I may be so bold to say so...but then again maybe there's a cliche out there that I haven't heard about yet.

clograbby wrote:Personally I never saw what was so horrible about cliches. YES - one should try to be original. And you can't always rely on cliches.

But sometimes when I'm read a novel, I find myself going: "This plot is somewhat cliche... but I STILL must find out what happens!" because somehow the cliche hasn't run old with me, even after years of reading it.

They're overrused because they're entertaining.

Of course, this is a contrary opinion. And strange. But... you know... it's not like I throw a book down if I see a cliche character.

I kind of agree with you. In fact, I don't even throw a book down if I see a cliché plot and can tell exactly what's going to happen at the end, as long as the book entertaining enough.

Edited because I forgot to address actual topic!

Another cliché is girl likes popular guy who doesn't notice her, girl's best guy friend is secretly in love with her, said popular guy may or may not realise girl exists before she discovers she's actually been in love with her best friend all along.

Any kind of forbidden love is a good one.

As for 'something for everyone', what JFW1415 said plus Kagerou453's humour and tragedy.

Sapphire wrote:

clograbby wrote:Personally I never saw what was so horrible about cliches. YES - one should try to be original. And you can't always rely on cliches.

But sometimes when I'm read a novel, I find myself going: "This plot is somewhat cliche... but I STILL must find out what happens!" because somehow the cliche hasn't run old with me, even after years of reading it.

They're overrused because they're entertaining. :wink:

Of course, this is a contrary opinion. And strange. But... you know... it's not like I throw a book down if I see a cliche character.

I kind of agree with you. In fact, I don't even throw a book down if I see a cliché plot and can tell exactly what's going to happen at the end, as long as the book entertaining enough. :lol:

It's not that cliches keep me from reading something....they just irritate me, that's all. Now, granted, everyone uses them at some point and time, so it's pretty much inevitable that you'll run across one every now and then...

Krupp wrote:

Sapphire wrote:

clograbby wrote:Personally I never saw what was so horrible about cliches. YES - one should try to be original. And you can't always rely on cliches.

But sometimes when I'm read a novel, I find myself going: "This plot is somewhat cliche... but I STILL must find out what happens!" because somehow the cliche hasn't run old with me, even after years of reading it.

They're overrused because they're entertaining.

Of course, this is a contrary opinion. And strange. But... you know... it's not like I throw a book down if I see a cliche character.

I kind of agree with you. In fact, I don't even throw a book down if I see a cliché plot and can tell exactly what's going to happen at the end, as long as the book entertaining enough.

It's not that cliches keep me from reading something....they just irritate me, that's all. Now, granted, everyone uses them at some point and time, so it's pretty much inevitable that you'll run across one every now and then...

Yeah. Some clichés are irritating. In fact, some are so unrealistic that I don't know how they ever became so over-used. They must just appeal to that part of everyone that loves to fantasise.

Another cliché - The Hero's Journey.

Krupp wrote:Perhaps I've merely misunderstood what this thread is all about (and if I have please inform me.) but I've always thought that when you're writing something it was best to AVOID cliches....unless you're writing a tongue-in-cheek kind of piece or something, I don't see why you'd try to use cliches for any kind of writing....

Everything's cliched. Your story on forming a band? Been done before, thousands of times. Probably many things in that story has, too. (Please - humans have been writing for hundreds of years. You really believe you'll come up with something completely new? Sure, you'll have a few new ideas, but not the whole thing.) You make it original, so you break the cliche.

~JFW1415

If you want cliches, look at Meg Cabot. Uhm, "Princess Diaries" on Merlin and Ecstasy?

I agree with JFW. Everything's cliched. Everything's been done before, unless you're going to run ludicrously rampant into the absurd like some others (Palahniuk, I'm thinking) but even THEY'RE helplessly cliche in the end.

It's a waste of time and breath to sit around and ponder over cliches. Is this cliche? Do I a sense a cliche? Is it cliche that I get up in the morning and make toast and tea? I honestly don't even see the point of being irritated. It begs for a burst blood vessel. Instead of thinking "is this cliche?" as you read or write a book, I suggest just reading and writing it. Because in the end, it is NOT whether or not they are cliche that sells books, it is NOT that which gets them published.

It's simply not where everyone's mind is! The word cliche should be tossed out into the garbage.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE!

JFW1415 - Thanks.. Really what I ment when I said "something for everyone" using The Princess Bride as an example is that it has pretty much everything: Pirates, Adventure, true love, sword fights, magic, freaks, princesses, prince's, revenge, death, animals, greed... I can't think of anything else... Basically, you could open the book and find something you like, even if it is a single sentance.

I really don't pay much attention to realistic fiction books/movies/etc. so I have no clue what would be original or cliche in that genre.

Kagerou453 - Thanks.. this is going to be really useful!

Krupp - I guess I am kind of writing a tongue-in-cheek kind of story. One is just for fun (the realistic one) but the other one isn't. I'm determined to do everything a writer shouldn't in a novel... that won't make it completely boring or otherwise unreadable.

Clograbby - I get your point... I think what's bad about cliche's is that there are a lot of stories out there that are carbon copies of each other. I have to say that in movies I do that... I pride myself in knowing the ending of SOME movies before everyone else the first time I watch it. In novels I tend to not pick up on the cliche's so much... I dunno why.

Sapphire - Yeah there's an Amanda Bynes movie about that very cliche...

Clograbby - Well said..

* * *
EVERYONE:
I guess my point to this topic was to find cliche's that I could base my story off of... because I'm so sick of worrying about cliche's that I might as well write it and let my imagination have it's way with it.

And the something for everything... well I don't know much about anything and have no clue what everyone likes to see. (Pirates, Ninjas, princesses&prince's, true love, Knights in shinning armor, revenge, murder, sea monsters, dragons, fairies and unicorns... etc.?)

You tell me...

When you break things down into their simplest form, yes, everything is a cliche. But when is a novel ever in it's simplest form? In the blurb, maybe, but aside from that novels are intricate things that can not all be rounded up into one group, which we are naming 'cliches' here. Hard as it is to believe, it is possible to come up with something original. I think it's just easier for us to accept that everything is a cliche and that there's no point in trying to be original.

The overused plots, adeptly done, will entertain people and sell books. And if that's what you want, then use whatever overused storyline you can think of. Just do it well, with at least a mask of originality. But as writers, shouldn't we strive for something more? A book people won't just read, but a book people will talk about, argue over, even ponder well into the night? I, for one, hope that one day I can write a book like that. Kurt Vonnegut had original ideas a few decades ago, and I don't think the last original idea has been used up since then.

I'm sorry to disagree with this consensus we seem to have here, but there's something very futile and bleak about what you've all decided on.

*walks off*

EDIT:

*returns briefly*

I'm sorry, but I now realize that my opinion is quite irrelevant to the topic we have here. I don't have any further advice on how to have something for everyone, or what some good cliches are, I just felt like I had to say something. Don't throw things at me, please.