by Amelia Schaffer

Created on: July 21, 2009

Contrary to popular belief, cliches are not always bad. Because of their familiarity, they make it easy to convey a lot of information in a short amount of time to a reader who, already knowing the cliche, immediately understands what it means.

Cliches are useful for some aspects of fiction writing. For example, a writer wishing to avoid boring, two-dimensional minor characters might wish to develop their personalities more, but not have enough time to do it without abandoning the main story. Cliches allow the writer to give minor characters a personality that users will immediately recognize and understand without sacrificing the plot and pacing. With cliches, the reader can work off of a few cues given by the writer, filling in the blank spots with their knowledge of certain character types.

Readers tend to forgive cliches used in this manner. After all, who wants to read a chapter-long backstory about every minor character; or, alternatively, read about minor characters who function as little more than props to dispense important dialogue? However, using cliche characters becomes frustrating to the reader, and too much of a shortcut for the writer, when they extend to the main characters of the story. Cliche characters are predictable; they serve their purpose in small doses, but in large doses become dull and boring. Furthermore, cliches are often based in stereotypes. When the character plays a big part in the story but never moves beyond the stereotype, the cliche can become not only lazy writing but offensive as well.

The best way to use cliches in fiction is to set up a situation that looks like a cliche, but is revealed not to be. In this case, the writer turns the readers' expectations against them. Instead of using the readers' knowledge of cliches to avoid character development or originality, the writer uses that knowledge to set up suspense, unexpected plot twists, or unique characters who don't match up to the readers' stereotypes.

It is important for a writer to have knowledge of cliches in order to decide when, how, and if to use them. There are few things worse for a writer than to believe that a work is original and then discover that it has unconsciously fallen into the pattern of what has gone before. There is no shame in using cliches in certain situations, and indeed they are sometimes cliches for a reason: because they work. (For example, the cliche that the hero never dies exists because killing off the hero in the middle of the book would leave the writer without a main character to follow.) However, the writer must be aware of these cliches in order to use them both sparingly and to the advantage of the story.

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