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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34670
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34670
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> Why are clichés discouraged in fiction writing?

# Neurology.

The first time someone said or wrote, "Why isn't anybody talking about the elephant in the room?" it was a surprising metaphor, and apt, and it evoked an image of an actual elephant in a room with people standing around ignoring it.

The first time someone said, "as big as a house," It was a good thing, people imagined a big house, and this worked.

The same may be true the first time **each person** hears such a cliché.

But, the brain learns things, and surprise **and** evoked imagination fades away. The brain learns to **translate** the cliché into standardized thought patterns, that no longer surprise, or evoke any imagination.

In short, they are boring placeholders for what have become boring concepts.

It is the job of the fiction writer to entertain the reader, by assisting and stimulating their imagination of a setting, characters, experience, wonder, and adventure. Boring is the opposite of the job, and because by repeated exposure clichés no longer evoke any new or clever imagination, they are spurned. Both in prose, and in dialogue.

As for **plots,** they are not clichés, they are patterns of action, but the specifics of the actions and characters within that pattern are new. Yes, the plot of a detective story is pretty standard, but every Sherlock Holmes story contains new surprises, different characters, a different mystery for the reader to solve (or be amazed that Sherlock solves it), etc. Every Rom Com has pretty much the same plot, but the details, dialogue, and problems are unique.

When they are not, we still call them derivative, ripoffs, imitations, etc.

Plots are not clichés, they are overall patterns of an order of events, a skeleton that is fleshed out by original work. A "twist" in a story is not a cliché, it all depends on whether it is a twist we have seen a dozen times, or a twist we have never seen (e.g. Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense).

Original score: 5