I have this problem with clichés. The root of the cliché relies on one’s opinion, one’s taste. So for anyone to claim something cliché, means they are just stating their opinion that something has been overworked. Now herein lies the problem, when one says opinion, it can be waived off, but when one says cliché it becomes a rock solid rule.
Which just isn’t so.
To make this problem stickier, we must realize that everything has been over-used, over-done and doesn’t go away fast enough. So in reality everything is cliché, leaving us artistic types with nothing to go on.
In the Poser world it’s NVIATs. You see several years ago this model for the Poser program was released…but clothes were separate. Many did not (and still do not for current versions of the model) have the money for the figure and the clothes or have the talent for postwork. Now given that many computer users have a liking for fantasy we ended up with a lot of Naked Vickies in a Temple. You can’t blame them, and there is nothing wrong with it except the Poser community got tired of them. It became a bad joke, and as such became cliché.
I spent a year on the Colorado State University undergrad literary journal. At submission time the majority of the group decided to reject any poem that rhymed because of the cliché of it all. They called it morbidly cliché. Then of course they did some not-quite-rejection rejection letters because most of them had no clue how the publishing world worked…but that’s another story.
The point is that sometimes you want your poetry to rhyme, or to have your Vickie’s nekked. What is wrong with a Unicorn in a fantasy story? This idea has become so cliché that I’ve only read four books in my entire life with unicorns. I think this is more of a cliché myth than thousands upon thousands of books on unicorns.
So next time you pass on your great idea and some nitwit tells you, “How cliché!” Turn around and do it anyway. Cliches don’t guarantee a suck fest. Your next girl meets unicorn story doesn’t have to be tiresome. Try it anyway. That can’t hurt a bit. It is what you do that counts, not what you use.
© Michelle Norton
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