The Thing With Clichés

There is a general idea that cliches, when they surface in the narrative of a story, be it movie, tv or webcomics or anything else, is a sign of bad writing.

There is of course a good basis for this presumption, because usually a cliche is a plot device, or a plot sequence or development that has been done so many times in more or less the same way that it gives audiences deja vu.




It implies that the author isn't investing anything new and isn't trying to tell a story but rather frankenstein together pieces of other stories that look cool, to make some kind of patchwork that passes for a piece of work for people to consume.

HOWEVER.

Is it really the cliche's fault?

There's a reason why cliche's are cliches: They are narratively appealing nuggets of story, they are simply popular.

And they are appealing because they work.

They work in that they have the potential to emotionally engage the audience, to create pathos, to allow for catharsis or to set a certain mood.

But they will only work if they are incorporated in a story, not grafted or shoehorned into it because of a checklist of things to include or because it was cool in that other movie, novel or show.

There's a saying that there's no such thing as an original story, just original spins on the same tale. And it's possible that were we to strip each story down to the bare essentials, we would end up with a very finite number of formulas.

We would end up with cliches.

So that's the thing with cliches. It's not the cliches that are the problem, it's the way they're used. Like most things in life, really.

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