by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: February 12, 2009

Cliches in fiction will generally give our readers one of two things. It will either give them a feeling of nausea - or it will give them precisely what they wanted when they started reading our work! Knowing when each is likely to be the case is therefore clearly extremely important so let us examine some ways in which we can go at least some way to making such a vital determination.

There are probably two cliches which are bigger than all the rest in fiction. The first of these is where man gets woman, then loses woman, then gets her back again. I have never personally read a purely romantic novel but I believe I am correct in stating that this would be the central theme in most of them. The setting may vary hugely in a geographical and even in a period sense but they essentially tell the tale of the trials and tribulations of a couple and the strain perhaps on their relationship before everything is resolved and they fall in to each others arms. This clich is one which readers of such novels expect when they start reading the novel and are happy to go on the journey which the writer takes them even although they know the destination beforehand.

The other major cliche in fiction I would suggest is the happy ending. This is where the characters go through a series of traumatic or even dangerous events and the excitement builds as they are tested to the full, but at the end of the day, everything turns out fine and they all live happily ever after. This is most commonly required in such as children's novels or fairy stories. Any children's novel which includes the principal character being brutally slaughtered at the end is likely to a lot of angry parents make! The child - and perhaps the parent reading the story to them - therefore knows that although it may appear at various times in the story that all is lost, everything will somehow turn out all right and they are always happy to see this proven to be the case.

So where would the two narrative cliches described above not be appropriate? I would suggest that an action adventure story for teenaged boys would not be too well received were the principal theme to be love lost and then found again, or that a particularly brutal war novel would not ideally come to the conclusion where everyone lived happily ever after and no one came to a grisly end.

Cliches can therefore be seen to both have their place in fiction and be wholly inappropriate at times. It is the job of the author - and essential that he get it right - to make the determination where and when they may or indeed should be usedand where they will essentially spoil the entire structure and effect of his work.

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