Young Writers Society

What are the most common cliches you see in other people's writing? I'm just curious.

Mary-Sue/Gary Stu.
Any Manga genre in terms of theme improperly used in non mangaka styles or across cultures.
Movie themes improperly adapted to non-scriptwriting styles.
The Shyamalan Disease of Infinite TWISTS!
"I am going to mimic X famous writer and think it's somehow original and interesting" (sometimes good, 5% of the time)

Er, do orphaned heroes count? One does tend to see many of those.

Heroes that have some wise old person who does next to nothing except try to sound enigmatic and mysterious. Another one is names that are impossible to pronounce, characters names after emotions that fit them, this can work if they're the opposite of it, like say Faith from Buffy.

Teenage girl drifting through high school unnoticed until she is asked out/ falls in love with hot new boy/ captain of the football team.

Okay. This one is pretty overdone. Not to mention it makes me feel ill

Girl meets boy. Boy hates girl. Eventually they are forced together by their unforgiving author. Suddenly, girl loves boy and boy loves girl, even though they have nothing in common.

The romantic fiction forum is so stuffed full of crap like this that I rarely evr dare to venture within any more. xD

Moo wrote:Okay. This one is pretty overdone. Not to mention it makes me feel ill

Girl meets boy. Boy hates girl. Eventually they are forced together by their unforgiving author. Suddenly, girl loves boy and boy loves girl, even though they have nothing in common.

The romantic fiction forum is so stuffed full of crap like this that I rarely evr dare to venture within any more. xD

I blame the Shojo/shonen manga genres for further popularizing this.
Thanks for the notice about that forum, I'll steer clear.

"Chosen One" prophecies. Nothing can just happen to a character anymore - obviously they need to be a part of some huge prophecy/ secretly the daughter of the vampire king.

If your plot is so horrible that you need to invent some kind of prophecy to justify it, GET A NEW PLOT.

Haha, i agree about the romantic short story forum, although there are some gems occasionally.

I don't believe there is such a thing as "cliche." Cliches are such because they work for one reason or another. It's how you use cliches that make them bad or good.

It's called fomula fiction. You know, "happily ever after" even though you don't use those exact words. And the whole "overcome a great obstacle" theme.

Many of the greatest works of literature ended with somebody dying and then life going on as normal or just downhill. Not all. But a lot. There was no happily ever after.

Rowling would never have Harry die and Voldemort take over the world and it all end. No, no. That's jumping out of the formula. Harry has to win (and does). Everybody knows it. The only reason it is a relatively good series is because everybody wants to know how he goes about doing it.

Cliches are fun and cool. Especially when written well with excellent characters, great storyline, etc. Anything, basically, that makes a good read a good read.

However, my favourite cliche is the fatherless hero/heroine. Mainly when they set out to find said long lost father [not when the father is dead]. It's the funnest to write/read.

I will say it. I love cliches when they are written well.

Rosey Unicorn wrote:I don't believe there is such a thing as "cliche." Cliches are such because they work for one reason or another. It's how you use cliches that make them bad or good.

This.

MeadowLark wrote:I will say it. I love cliches when they are written well.

And this.

Take a cliche and make it your own, if you want. Just add some originality in there.

Moo wrote:Okay. This one is pretty overdone. Not to mention it makes me feel ill

Girl meets boy. Boy hates girl. Eventually they are forced together by their unforgiving author. Suddenly, girl loves boy and boy loves girl, even though they have nothing in common.

The romantic fiction forum is so stuffed full of crap like this that I rarely evr dare to venture within any more. xD

Yeah. I don't date people I hate as a general rule. Ah, romance...as unrealistic as fantasy and science fiction...normally more so...and heck of a lot weirder than elves in space...

Nephthys wrote:"Chosen One" prophecies. Nothing can just happen to a character anymore - obviously they need to be a part of some huge prophecy/ secretly the daughter of the vampire king.

If your plot is so horrible that you need to invent some kind of prophecy to justify it, GET A NEW PLOT.

Unless it's "Warriors".