Cliche
I was watching some videos of women caught on tape soliciting murder-for-hire.
http://by117w.bay117.mail.live.com/mail/TodayLight.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0&n=632440256
Interesting stuff, but hardly novel. If you tried to write that, you could count on getting the "that's cliche" line from critics, editors, agents, etc.
But, IMHUO, cliches are cliches because **it happens**. Happens all the time.
- Women get pregnant to trap a guy into staying with them
- Spouses murder for life insurance policies
- Lovers murder over jealousy
- Spouses abuse each other
- Cops are often dysfunctional
- Gangs deal drugs and murder in drive-by shootings
- The Russian Mafia exists, along with many other mafia/gangs
So...why can't we write about them? I've always believed that we can write about them, that it's all in the presentation. What I haven't figured out is **how** to write those situations so they aren't quite so cliche.
How do you do it? What are your thoughts on the dreaded cliche?
1 comments:
In the words of Dostoevsky, the best way to avoid cliche is to remember, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Great blog post.
E
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