{"id":46,"date":"2011-11-28T19:13:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T19:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/28\/writing-tips-the-dirty-dozen\/"},"modified":"2011-11-28T19:13:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T19:13:00","slug":"writing-tips-the-dirty-dozen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/28\/writing-tips-the-dirty-dozen\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Tips: The Dirty Dozen"},"content":{"rendered":"
Any writer worth their salt (hey, there\u2019s one!) will instantly recognize this list as the dirtiest collection of overused phrases and concepts known as a clich\u00e9s. Without a doubt, clich\u00e9s emerge in all genres and styles of writing by accident, an unfortunate happenstance of the written word sometimes offers no other turn of phrase. I suppose, that is excusable. If done intentionally, I would hope the insertion was meant to be ironic; otherwise their very passing suggests a serious reconsideration of the source material. At least in this writer\u2019s opinion (whose opinion is often snarky\u2026You have been warned). Take careful note of their use so you can avoid the same pitfalls:<\/span><\/div>\n
1. Mary \/ Gary Sue<\/b>. I had to put this at the top because a flawless person can only be found in bad writing. Humans have flaws, so characters should too. I wish everyone would just accept that. <\/span><\/div>\n
2. Everybody Dies \/ Lives<\/b>. The culmination of a great story, no matter what medium, needs to have an original ending. The collective deaths or happily-ever-afters are just plain embarrassing.  <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
3. Villain Monologue\u2019ing or Giving Hero Time to Escape<\/b>. It\u2019s ironic and comical in James Bond. It shouldn\u2019t be used anywhere else. A well written villain does not allow for an easy escape nor do they detail their plans to the hero. It\u2019s just bad for business. <\/span><\/div>\n
4. It\u2019s Been Done Before<\/b>. This is something writers say. They fear the attempt of a story because the concept has been done before. Everything has been done before in some fashion. Take a chance and make it yours. <\/span><\/div>\n
5. Friends Marrying Each Other<\/b>. Two friends from a group getting together stretches this clich\u00e9 enough. But when everyone marries each other\u2026ugh\u2026if you can\u2019t tell\u2026I\u2019m shaking my head.<\/span><\/div>\n
6. Bad Boy Can be Turned Good<\/b>. For some reason this attracts all the ladies. But it\u2019s not realistic. It makes for great emotional scenes, but take it as a red flag. People who are damaged need to work themselves out of the hole. The \u201cbad boy\u201d should too. <\/span><\/div>\n
7. Damsel in Distress<\/b>. Women are not all helpless flowers in need of saving. Period. <\/span><\/div>\n
8. Calm Before the Storm<\/b>. I\u2019m not sure what storms these people have witnessed. Storms can take a while to build, but they can also be abrupt and violent. Avoid phrases like this that generalize. <\/span><\/div>\n
9. It\u2019s Quiet. A Little Too Quiet<\/b>. I wonder what will happen next. Will someone jump out and startle me? I would have never guessed.  <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
10. The Orphan Hero<\/b>. If you need to emotionally abuse or seclude your hero at their introduction in order to gain sympathy from readers, perhaps this isn\u2019t your biggest problem. <\/span><\/div>\n
11. Characters are Either Good or Evil<\/b>. In life there is a gray area. There should be in writing. Characters can be loyal to a team, yes, but they can also play both sides, or switch sides. These alterations can make this age-old battle interesting. <\/span><\/div>\n
12. Black as Night \/ Bright as Day<\/b>. Redundant much? Description of places, people or things should be done in a manner that avoids obvious or worn-out ideas like this. <\/span><\/div>\n
Some of these clich\u00e9d ideas can be executed well, but typically they just stink of a lack of creativity. Although this lists the twelve most shameful clich\u00e9s a writer can use in my opinion, I\u2019m sure each and every one of you has several of their own to add. Feel free to comment if you have a particularly irksome clich\u00e9 you would like to share!  <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any writer worth their salt (hey, there\u2019s one!) will instantly recognize this list as the dirtiest collection of overused phrases and concepts known as a clich\u00e9s. Without a doubt, clich\u00e9s emerge in all genres and styles of writing by accident, an unfortunate happenstance of the written word sometimes offers no other turn of phrase. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41,48,30,42,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-characters","category-cliches","category-dialogue","category-plot","category-writing-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YHlB-K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}