The trouble with clichés is that they often express exactly what you want to say – not surprisingly, as many can be traced to great writers such as Shakespeare, the poet Alexander Pope, or the compilers of the King James Bible.
So what’s not to like – why not borrow from the best?
When first used, phrases like ‘green-eyed monster’, ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ or ‘the blind leading the blind’ had the arresting power of originality, worthy of Pope’s description of true wit as ‘what oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d’. But, with repetition, what began as new and striking becomes familiar and loses its power.
What about those well-known phrases not attributed to anyone in particular, but whose origins are ‘lost in the mists of time’? A character might be ‘dressed to kill’, or look as if they ‘had the weight of the world on their shoulders’, but it would be better to describe what they were actually wearing, or to show how their worries affected them. The occasional well-worn saying may escape the cliché detectives, but their frequent use is seen as lazy writing, only acceptable if used in dialogue to show the speech patterns of a cliché-addicted character.
Language is always changing and not all cliches have long histories. Both social and traditional media adopt – and over-use – those phrases from the worlds of sport, politics or business which seemed clever or apt when first coined. Think of ‘no-brainer’, ‘above my pay grade’, ‘fake news’ and ‘oven-ready deal’; ‘ the ball’s in their court’, ‘in a league of their own’, ‘thinking outside the box’. Many will soon become dated, so again it’s advisable to use them sparingly – unless to satirise the thoughts or speech of a particular character.
George Orwell’s advice was to ‘never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print’. Tempting as it might be, pretend you’ve never heard that familiar phrase and surprise the reader with one of your own.
The same goes for stereotypical characters, or too-familiar situations. There have been many versions of the Romeo and Juliet story – set everywhere from New York’s West Side to Northern Ireland in the Troubles, or even the parallel universe of ‘Noughts and Crosses’ – and, yes, it’s said that there are only seven basic plots in literature, but it takes a great writer or director to succeed with a storyline which is so well-known.
© Brenda Bannister 2024