Thanks to Snoopy writing his novel on top of his doghouse, we all know the opening “It was a dark and stormy night,” is cliché. But how many novels have you read that actually begin that way? Take the example of the MC waking up as an opener to a story. I confess ... (Forgive me, for I have sinned...) that when I first started writing my WIP several years ago, it began with the MC waking up. Since I’d never read other people’s unpublished stories before I joined Hatrack, how was I to know that opener was so common that it would make more experienced writers (and future agents) groan “Not another one!”? I thought it was a fresh approach, particularly since I’d never read it in a published novel. Now I am simply amazed by the sheer percentage of beginning writers who use an awakening to open a story. Who woulda thunk it? And why do new writers tend to gravitate toward that particular opener? It’s a mystery to me.

The Donald Maass Literary Agency has a list of 10 Secrets for Dazzling Query Letters (written by Rachel Vater), posted online. Vater says the agency receives about 350 queries a week. They request one or two manuscripts per week. Vater gives a list of clichés that automatically kill the opening of a novel. The list covers a large percentage of what we see submitted in the F&F section.
http://www.maassagency.com/QueryLetterSecrets.html

So, my question in all this is: what is it the writer is trying to accomplish by using a cliché opening, and what other approaches might work better? In my own writing I find myself asking “Why is this scene here?” As a fantasy writer, I’m conscious of how easy it is to fall into the formulaic rut of cliché -- and as a critic, I recognize how often other writers fall into that trap.

The genré of Sci-Fi and Fantasy is rife with predictable, clichéd plotlines. We love the genré because we have come to expect certain elements in SF&F fiction, but still, we crave originality.

I just thought I’d toss this comment out for discussion, to see what other people think of this paradox.

Come to think of it, television and movies are full of cliches. Even the best of the best have quite a few. How does that arena of storytelling, which comes to think of it begins with a written script, get away with it?

Okay to repeat.

Hi Elan,

I think many new writers fall into this trap when they are trying to find a solutions to common writing problems. Problems like portraying character's appearance or setting or mood etc. They look at the problem and see the first and most obvious solution, and it seems to work. But because these problems are common to all writers, the obvious solutions have been used so often as to become hackneyed. Because the solution seems to work the new writer doesn't always realise the need to delve a little deeper and find other, different ways to solve these common problems. The first solution to suggest itself seems like the only solution.

All writers need clichés (common solutions to common problems) pointed out.
What they do about it is up to them.

It's not a criticism from me. I have done it often enough. But when you see someone doing it you tend to think Okay, this is a new or inexperienced writer.

The danger of producing clichés lies in the formulation of 'solutions' to those problems.
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My advice, for what it's worth: Avoid opting for the first and most obvious solution.

You avoid cliches by doing something that only you would do, or you do it in a way that only you would do.

A cliche is when you use an idea (or write a scene, or create a simile or metaphor) in a way similar to the way lots of other people have used it.

You avoid being cliche with ideas, scenes, similes and metaphors by coming up with combinations that no one else has come up with before.

Sure there is a lot we all have in common, but each of our lives is very different taken all together. The combinations of things in our lives are what make them different from the combinations of things in others' lives.

So you avoid cliches by coming up with new combinations of the same old ideas and by using them in new ways.

Many of our figure of speech cliches were fresh and new when Shakespeare came up with them in the first place. That was part of his genius. Of course, we aren't geniuses like him, so we won't come up with anywhere near as many fresh and new figures of speech as he did, but we can come up with a few if we try hard enough.

OSC advises people to throw out the first idea of how to do something, because everyone else has probably come up with that idea, too. Then throw out the second idea and the third, because there are still quite a few people who probably will think of those as well. The fourth idea may be something you can actually work with because it may be something no one else has come up with (or at least very few people). And if you can come up with a fifth idea, that might be even better.

Now I can't help but wonder if my answer has become cliche.

It turns out that pointing out that someone used a cliche from the 1990s is the new wondering whether what you said was cliche. Black in, pink out. Bucklers for belt buckles in, suspenders out. Alternative WWII histories with aliens in, dystopian futures out. Humanity eschews cybernetics in, jack-in-the-head out.

But, on the other hand, there is "nothing new under the sun," and you should think of things less as "cliches" and more "your personal take on familiar themes."

Cliches are like hot pepper -- they can spice up a book, or they can make it taste like dirt...but most people are smart to avoid them. An editor wants to read a unique story, not one that reminds her of something she can't quite put her finger on.

Raven-black hair. Blood that tastes like copper. If he died "while he was cleaning his gun", there was indubitably foul play. Be careful of things that make TOO much sense. Choose a little obscurity. Add a dash of poetry. Tell a different story. It's why you're a writer to begin with, isn't it?

Some cliches can also be personal vices -- I know a writer whose skies are always bruise-purple, whose grace is more often than not preternatural, and who likes to have characters who spit. A lot.

Hang on...

Already listed, we have:

-Opening with MC waking up.
-White rooms (or barren plains or other forms of uncreated setting)
-Raven-black hair
-Blood that tastes like copper
-Died while he was cleaning his gun, actually foul play

I'll add my own:
-"Hair cropped brutally short," especially on military commanders

That one's on Elan's link above... and it is a classic.

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-Blood that tastes like copper

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I don't like openings with characters searching in a fog or a mist or the dark of night where they can't see two inches in front of their face. I think that's just an outdoor manifestation of the white room. (Just a disclaimer: there are a few fragments in F&F that start this way, but I'm not picking on them.)

- He ran like a madman.
- She was pretty as a summer day.
- The guy was a hot ticket.
- Bob fought like a tiger.

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Deleted due unseemly remarks about fondue.

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What in the...

What did you write? What was wrong with it? How can remarks about fondue possibly be unseemly?

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This is going to keep me up tonight.

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I honestly can't think of any cliches. Does that mean I never use any, or that I use them and can't identify them?

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I'm not sure I want to know the answer to this, but...whose blood?

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Hmmm...all those unguarded pots o' gold must be just lyin' around the Emerald Isle.

*packs bags with an evil grin*

In reworking my story I've, of course, necessarily needed a new opening. Now, this brings up two questions:

We're told to avoid opening a story with a cliche.

Question 1: Where does a story begin? Is it the first page, or the first chapter? i.e. I want a prologue to open my story with a sense of foreshadowing that something horrible is happening as the first part of the book is read(untill you find out that, yes, indeed, something horrible IS happening) - the Prologue opens with these two sentances: "James was always haunted by nightmares these days. The strangest things had a way of creeping into his dreams." - now of course this will be reworked to hell and back when I finish it, but still the jist is that we're entering a character's nightmare. (Chapter 1 opens with our character for that section, Milo, watching a presidential campeign and his thoughts on it. - it's a politically charged book, of course)

The story begins on the first page. If the prologue is something that you can skip without losing the story, why have it?

Also, generally speaking starting with a dream is cliche. MANY agents will not look at a story that starts with a dream. Do you really need to start there? In regards to the first chapter it is harder to say whether or not you are being cliche from what you've said.

While reading through many of the clichés listed I couldn’t help but wonder if it is entirely possible to write a story without including at least one. Yes, one should stay away from using a clichéd plot, (good Lord if I read another book that involves a quest for a sacred relic to save a troubled world I think I’ll explode) but to set out to come up with inventive ways to express every common expression, or even the ones deemed overly used, is a goal that would destroy any writer no matter how experienced. In short I agree with the whole pepper analogy. Heaving breasts are okay but I think the world can live without anymore pale virgins riding unicorns.

[This message has been edited by Neoindra (edited October 11, 2006).]