What with my Red Hair article, and the new piece I wrote for SCBWI about character cliches, I’m afraid I’m going to get a reputation as a Cliche Queen…or maybe the Cliche Police is more like it.
One thing that surprised me when the Red Hair article came out (or is linked to on another writer’s blog) is that a lot of people have emailed me and made comments that imply that if I start reading a book with too many of the cliches from my list on it, that I automatically stop reading. This isn’t true at all. In fact, I recently read one full of them, and I still enjoyed it. And I’m reading one now that already has five things from the list in the first ten pages or so, but you couldn’t pay me to stop reading it. It’s hilarious, and well-written, and I’m totally enjoying it. It’s also the author’s first YA, which is something else I’ve noticed, the heaviest use of items from the list usually show up in debut novels.
Like I have tried to tell the writers who get defensive about my list (and I’ve gotten some pretty strong emails/comments asking me, “who the heck do I think I am and what do I know?”), these are observations, not rules. They’re like laws in Tennessee…guidelines.
Someday I might write a book (under a pen name, of course) that includes all twenty-five cliches along with some really mean cheerleaders. That would be fun!
Here are a couple more I think you could definitely add:
- Authors who work in vocabulary by including moments where their characters use big words and then identify them as “SAT words.”
- Having your characters like the music from your high school era (I think this is usually the author being either too lazy to find out what kids like today OR they don’t want to date their books with “this year’s” music – totally understandable)
Have you noticed any new ones?
Yes you’re right 🙂 I shall hunt them down!
What’s hilarious is I read further into the book and the SAT thing came up in this book too! I really think that you can use any or many of these things, but that nine times out of ten, it’s the first thing that you thought of. And guess what? It’s the first thing everyone thinks of. I’m trying to encourage people (and myself) to stretch beyond those first inclinations and ideas by offering up the list.
I liked the new additions too and I have seen the SAT one a few times recently but it worked really well in one and in the other I just though huh? I think Kim’s right it depends on how you use your cliches or that’s what I’m hoping anyway!
I agree with you, Joelle. I think a book can have a few cliches and still be wonderfully worth reading! I really enjoyed your newest additions to the cliche list. I met with a children’s book editor at a conference fairly recently, and in discussing my novel (which is about an orphaned boy–not Harry Potter-esque at all, though), I said that I knew having an orphaned main character was a cliche. She really surprised me and said something to the effect of, “So what? If it works really well and is intrinsic to the development of your story, then what’s the problem?” Maybe that’s the key–our cliches have to MATTER, or we risk having them become simply bad/lazy writing? What do you think?