Clichés

Mmkay. So it's kind of cliche, but these are fun:

I won this contest. I went backstage and spent three days with Synyster Gates. He kissed me. I fell in love with him. He fell for me.
- The Bird and The Worm

My girlfriend hates her life, and I'm her only support system. Her brother committed suicide, and now she's doing drugs.
- This World Will Never Be....

Sometimes there's really no use with avoiding them because they really do actually happen. BUT just because it really does happen doesn'y mean you abuse it. It gets tiring.
And when I say cliche, I mean the 'you're my bff but ily' or the 'u r fucked up but imma feex u, k?' or maybe the 'idk you but its lyk wii wer mayd 4 ich oder'.

z3r0iC:

Sometimes there's really no use with avoiding them because they really do actually happen. BUT just because it really does happen doesn'y mean you abuse it. It gets tiring.
And when I say cliche, I mean the 'you're my bff but ily' or the 'u r fucked up but imma feex u, k?' or maybe the 'idk you but its lyk wii wer mayd 4 ich oder'.

There's a lot of 'you're my bff but ily', especially in slash fanfiction. But there are fifty hundred million things you can do to add edge and depth and something new. It's when you use your talent to create something original from that cliche, rather than just relying on the cliche to get you through that makes it all come together.

Right, because letting the cliche make the story makes the reader go :click: on the 'back' button. Too much can be too much without some sort of meaning.

I really hate when authors try to avoid the cliches so much it becomes really obvious they're just writing it so it's not a cliche anymore.
That seriously gets to me.

I'm not even sure how I avoid cliches, and if I even do. I know that I've been told I think up the most wonderful yet abstract things, though. I suppose it's just how my mind works.

I suppose if you take my story- a boy-next-door romance- and then you add that twist of the murder mystery on it, you get something a little more original.

Not to mention I try to make my character's reactions way different than you'd expect. A kiss, followed by a relationship? Nah. A kiss followed by a huge fight? Yes.

I don't really try to be original. I just write and hope I am.

There are a lot of times, when clichés work...

That's mainly every chapter of my stories
XD

Chemical Heart.:

For me, my co-written story This, Is Getting Over You began as a "Girl meets Band/Hero" cliché. We wanted to make it something different and original, so we still used the cliché but modified it in some way.
Instead of the girl and band member falling for each other straight away, we made them hate each other, That way they were more like rivals. Even though they hated each other, when they do begin to have a romance, its more of a forbidden romance. And instead of having the main character be a Miss Perfect she's completely the opposite.

What do you guys do to avoid or change a cliché in your stories? Or do you embrace them rather than avoid them?

That stills seems kind of cliche...:D

I try to avoid them by writing unusual story lines. Or as you suggested modifying cliche plots.

Skinny jeans
Cocaine
Acting
Dancing
Singing
Art
Music
Mary Sue
Gary Sue
Rape
Death of a loved one
Rape by a loved one
Cheating
Love story ending in blood
Vampires
Werewolves
and

Edward Cullen.

I agree with the very first post, I add twists to my cliches and hide 'em, by deep and "beautiful" words. :cute:
But mostly, my stories have a lot of cliches, but I'm trying my best to obviously, avoid 'em.

Everything I write is probably cliche :oops: but I comfort myself by saying I know the endings, which are hopefully not cliche at all :D

My stuff is just so obscure and weird, that I'm pretty sure even if it was cliche... And, I'm trying to think that over now... Well, the only complete plots I've written are so obscure that really, and complicated... No one could have ever have been that messed up to think of them, they just seem so weird that no matter how cliche they are, theyre just not. Haha, I hope. >_<

Whereas... the stories I'm writing on Mibba... (Standing On Edge and Before The Night's Out) They're proabably guilty of being Cliche. ^^'...
Girl has sucky life, tries to avoid it, finds music and bands much better, kinda runs away, then her home life gets even worse, and she realises the music and band life is much more awful than her home life ever was, but now there's no turning back. hah.
Ok, well that's kind of how both of my stories are going now I think of it =/
I write my own cliches then?
Uh oh.
XD

Adding some sort of humor if you know your story is very cliché helps. I only have one story on here and by no means do I think it’s cliché, but I have come across some very cliché plots in books that have been well hidden through humor and use of great words. It doesn’t work to make your characters over the top though, in a sense of trying to make your story different, nor does it work any better by making them all think the same. (Obviously). If you have some interesting characters, no matter how cliché the plot is, and if written well enough; you can usually get away with it.

Take the Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison for example. It’s written about very usual and silly school girl things like fancying boys and going out to parties, but the humor in it is just so brilliant in my opinion that it isn’t that cliché at all. It’s funny. In my opinion at least, and it feels to me as if Louise Rennison is actually poking a little fun at how silly teenage girls act.

But adding your own twists to a story hide a cliché plot quite well if you can’t avoid it.

robert smith:

I really hate when authors try to avoid the cliches so much it becomes really obvious they're just writing it so it's not a cliche anymore.
That seriously gets to me.

I think I did that once, back on Quizilla.

I got angry with all the 'I fell in love with a vampire!' stories and believed that I could do much, much better so I decided to write about a girl who loathes her new resident-vamp instead of finding him instantly attractive and having a wonderfully lustful relationship with him.

I usually don't realize when I use cliches.

I try to avoid as much cliche as possible, but I've probably slipped a few times.

I think someone is forgeting the 'Sex and girl always end up pregant'

Kills it. Simply does.

Use a god damn condom!

I don't know when my writing is cliche or not.
I'm looking at the plot outline for my fic and I'm praying that it doesn't come off cliche.
Anything I think is cliche, I try to throw in a twist or two, but meh.
I probably reek of cliche.

Masterpiece:

I try to avoid as much cliche as possible, but I've probably slipped a few times.

I think someone is forgeting the 'Sex and girl always end up pregant'

Kills it. Simply does.

Use a god damn condom!

But not everyone uses a condom. I have used a condom twice in my whole life. I've had sex more than twice.

I think it's much more cliche if the condom (used or not) is never mentioned. If there's no accusation of 'why didn't you use a condom' or 'you told me you were on the pill'.

Cliche's I've Used:
Best friends falling in love and or fucking.
Abuse. I overuse that like woah.
I hate you but we are having sex.

Mellisa:

I usually don't realize when I use cliches.

Me either. Like, I don't do it on purpose or anything. :XD It's just the ideas floating around in my head.

I don't like it when the story starts off by the main character waking up. It's very overused. Yes, it can be made original, but usually it's not. And then it follows with the whole 'getting ready' thing and it just ... ugh.