Patricia Abbott (pattinase): Cliches

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Cliches

Real people use cliches all the time. But when I write cliches for my characters to use in dialogue, I always feel guilty. I feel I should do better by my characters or better by my old writing professor at least. No cliches in the narrative, but cliches in the dialogue as its suits the characters. Right? Or do you omit them entirely?

Check out the great artwork on the link to the right that says PatrickDostine. It will brighten up any room and he's ultra reasonable for we poor writers.

2 comments:

Allan Guthrie said...: If you write from a close point of view, then your narrative might well be called monologue -- so whatever rule you apply here should probably extend to dialogue or you'll risk creating the appearance of a different voice when your point-of-view character speaks aloud. Context matters too, of course.

My rule with cliches is that the bigger the emotion, the more original the writing needs to be to convey it -- whether in dialogue or narrative.

Another thing to think about: cliches are generally so meaningless that you can almost always cut them without affecting the flow of the story. Dialogue should move the story forward, and cliches most likely won't do that.

One final thought: a character who speaks in cliches will most likely come across as unimaginative.

And having said all that, my characters frequently speak in cliches but that's cause I'm a lazy bastard.; 5:04 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I guess I'm inclined to use them sparingly except to make a point or to establish a particular type. Sometimes they do really sum somthing up well though.; 8:37 AM