Cliches in fiction writing: When to use them and when to avoid them - by Heather Chase

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by Heather Chase

Created on: June 01, 2010

All the world’s a circus

PT Barnum once said there’s a sucker born every minute. Shakespeare once wrote all the word’s a stage and we are but actors upon it (to paraphrase). Such is the requirements of a writer’s responsibility to refrain from becoming cliché in our writing.

I’m leading you down a path. It’s well-trod and relatively straight, I’m just turning you around a couple of times, face down on a baseball bat, so you don’t recognize it yet. And I just did what I’m writing about. Making something mundane seem more interesting by the words we choose.

We all know that what Mr. Barnum meant when he said there’s a sucker born every minute was that there are a lot of fools out there who will believe anything you tell them. Well, yes, but there’s more of an explanation to that. People will believe what you tell them, but you have to present it correctly. Readers will give your writing more credence if you write “to” them. Not above or below them, but “to” them.

I read an editorial a few months ago where the columnist wrote the entire first paragraph in five-syllable words. I’m not even sure they knew what most of those words were before looking up more difficult words in a thesaurus. Regardless, they were trying to make a point that writing above your audience makes them feel like you’re just full of hot air and your own self-importance. The writer later translated the first paragraph down to two- and three-syllable words (which I could then understand with ease), after which they explained how they chose each word carefully so as not to write below the audience. To write below your audience makes them feel like you don’t respect them or your own intelligence.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my head to hurt or to feel like I’m reading to a four-year-old when I’m processing information.

And that brings me to the Shakespeare quote I mangled. All the worlds’ a stage and all the men and women merely players (that’s the correct quote). The reason I chose this quote in my verbose illustration was to show you that writing is like acting upon a stage. And it is real life. A great theatrical production will make you believe what you’re seeing is real. Everything the actor says, you

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Cliches in fiction writing: When to use them and when to avoid them