Hi all, I've often pondered this question as a writer myself, and am left wondering how one can avoid cliches? Stocked phraises, stereotyping characters, familiar dialogue, and was wondering how you as writers managge to acheive this. What, exactly, defines 'creativity' and 'originality'? Love to hear your thoughts. Jess.
You should try to read as many books as possible. There are still pitfalls, and sometimes you can still repeat something that has been done before, but it doesn't stop you from doing it in your own individual style. Don't punish yourself, Jess, just go with the flow of your writing. There are critics out there who will always tell you positive, or negative things about your work. The best critic of your work should be you. That is why I suggest to people to read as many books as they can, and explore not just the content of a novel, but how the author has written it. You can learn about writing even from a book that you don't like. One thing that you will notice very soon in your thread is a lot of people who will tell you how to write, but not many who ever post any of their writing here My advice is to post a sample of your work, and allow people to comment on it. I've noticed from the past that if someone posts a very big chunk of text they will not get many responses, so try a couple of paragraphs to start with and take it from there. Good luck.
By smoking pot while listening to the grateful dead in a dirty one bedroom apartment with empty pizza boxes everywhere and glow in the dark mushroom posters decorating the walls. No but really, reading a lot, meeting a lot of people (Those two are key) and for some people, drugs help.
Hi Thanks a lot for the advice and encouragement, much appreciated! Will find something to post up soonish. Peace Jess. P.S. Any other comments?
Coolness I was working on this story about this guy in a band, and his life; parents, girlfriend, etc, also involving a shadey record producer, blackmail and all kinds of things, and I had a friend look at it and she said all the young characters sound like me and that's the last thing I want. They're all young guys in a band, and that's dedfinitely not me. Any advice?
I don't know. It's hard. All my stories end up the same, which is why I've tried my hand at "Hunter Thompson with a shot of estrogen minus the genius" style of writing. But I love it, so that makes it okay.
Reading other's works helps you see the diversity of artistic energy, so to speak. When you mentally become aware, you too can gain that flow and play around with the styles. The more your learn, the less you hold your own creativity back.
Sometimes you can't avoid cliches, when I run into that problem I just work the cliche into the story line instead of trying to work around it. One way to do it is to use cliche as a reference point for your readers, i.e. using a familiar reference to help explain a new concept that you've introduced but your readers might not understand. I'm working on a western right now, and I'm continually running into cliches. There has been so much material produced in the western genre over the years that you really can't do anything that hasn't been done before. So what I did was just work them in as kind of a running joke, which often helps to offset the more serious, dramatic themes in the book. One example of working in the cliches is the chapter titles. I titled the last chapter "Into the sunset" (obviously symbolizing the end of the book), Another chapter about a gunfight between the hero and villian is titled "High Noon" (an old cliche which is now the universal symbol of a gunfight). The titles sound stale at first, but they serve as symbols that fans of the genre will understand. That was a bit long-winded, but I hope it helps.
Think of the details of the situation you are writing about. If you are writing about a crime investigation, you can write instead of,"at the scene of the crime";"at this murder fiasco, or this devestated and rotting place." Be creative.
I disagree with the former portion. Madison Avenue generates billions of dollars based on creativity. Some of the slogans and catch phrases are whimsical and ephemeral such as "Where's the beef?" or "Your Windsong stays on my mind," while others that are tried and true seem to last forever "Shake 'n Bake coating mix... and we haylpt!" I suppose creativity and avoidance of cliché are best accomplished by comparing things that have not been matched up before. (i.e. "The smell of her oil based paints wafted throughout the studio, maddening my senses and driving me to 12-step support...much the same way as when I started using this ergonomic keyboard.")
the only thing worse than a poem comeing out sounding like drsuess, is a story that sounds like a privete dick novel. I try not to throw things when that happens, and just get up and walk away for a while. I havent had much experience writing non fiction, not since i was a kid anyway. Still i find myself occationaly embrassing a stereotype to convey the story. When that happens all i can do is reintroduce the characture and ty and get a clearer idea of who he is.
I don't think you should worry about avoiding cliches so much as you should focus on not sucking. The best way to do this is to write only for yourself, and not listen to what anyone has to say about it ever.
A cliche is a way that (too) many people use to desribe something. By using a wider vocabulary, you will be able to make your own NEW cliches (which is OK) Write, and remove the cliches on revision. have friends read it for you (or note where they are as you notice them) to "ferret them out."
