Avoid Stolen or Borrowed Tales
Content
Avoid Stolen or Borrowed Tales
A writer’s job is to write stories—not to steal or borrow them and, with a coat of fresh paint, pawn them
off as original.
That should be obvious, but it’s not always completely clear. Our own private thoughts, dreams, intuitions
and fantasies are inevitably colored by what psychiatrist Carl Jung called the collective unconscious—the
vast, reservoir-like body of shared human experiences and of myths, symbols and legends.
Most sensational subjects have been treated to death. Result: a minefield of clichés. And, as novelist
Martin Amis tells us, good writing is a “war against cliché.” The story’s problems might be partially
redeemed by crisp dialogue, vivid descriptions and an impeccable edgy style—but the plain fact is,
they shouldn’t be solved. Steer clear of tired plots and you, your characters and your readers will avoid all
kinds of heartache.
Resist The Lure of the Sensational
For beginning and experienced writers alike, the temptation to choose intrinsically dramatic subjects is
hard to resist. Drug deals and busts gone wrong, kidnapping, abortion, car crashes, murder, madness,
rape, war—with such sensational raw material to work with, how can writers go wrong?
They can and they do.
A writer who chooses to set his story in a mental hospital, for instance, may bumble into a minefield of
clichés. He will need to avoid all the stereotypes of loony-bin lore coined by Ken Kesey in One Flew Over
the Cuckoo’s Nest, and recycled in a myriad of TV shows and books.
Not that you can’t set a story on a mental ward, or that you can’t tell stories about mental patients and the
abuses they suffer at the hands of their keepers. But if you do so, you need to realize what you’re up
against.
And what you’re up against is cliché.
Turn a Stereotype on its Head
Every milieu has its clichés, its stock characters and stereotypes. A common stereotype is that of the
starving artist. Just once, I’d like to read about a talented, hard-working painter, supplementing his small
income from gallery sales through teaching, grants and fellowships. This, after all, is the reality for many
professional fine artists.
Even poor Vincent van Gogh, that most depraved and deprived of artists, fails to live up to the image. The
letters he wrote to his brother Theo and others show how sane this “madman” was. True, he often went
hungry, and he suffered from incapacitating seizures. But the cartoon of the foaming madman does him
no justice.
The real problem with clichés is that they deprive us of genuine details, which, though less sensational,
are both more convincing and more interesting. A deeper look into the life of any artist will reveal facts that
have it over all clichés.
The truth is the best weapon we have for authenticity and against cliché: Whether it’s the literal truth or
the truth of imagination doesn’t matter.
Tell the Story Only You Can Tell
When we produce stories that are derivative, we’re not being honest with ourselves. We’re borrowing
someone else’s aesthetics and selling them as our own.
In choosing intrinsically sensational subjects, writers think they’re getting a free—or a cheap—ride. But as
with most things in life, you tend to get what you pay for.
The best way to avoid cliché is to practice sincerity. If we’ve come by sensational material honestly,
through our own personal experience or imagination, we may rightly claim it as our own. Otherwise, we’d
best steer clear. Our stories should be stories that only we can tell, as only we can tell them.
Keep it Real by Taking it Slow
My favorite exercise is to ask my students to write two pieces, one at a time, each about a minute long.
Piece 1 should rivet the reader; Piece 2 should bore the reader stiff. Each student reads both pieces out
loud.
Whenever I’ve done this experiment, in almost every instance the result is the same: The “riveting” piece
bores, while the “boring” piece holds interest. There are several reasons for this. In their effort to grip us,
beginning writers tend to rush: They equate their own adrenaline with that of the reader. Conversely, when
trying to bore, the same writers take their time; they don’t hesitate to lavish 250 words on the subject of a
wall of white paint drying. And—to their consternation—the result mesmerizes. At any rate it holds our
attention.
But far worse than rushing, in trying to interest us, most writers abandon sincerity and, with it, authenticity.
They choose sensational subjects on the basis of little personal knowledge and no genuine emotional
investment. They do so on the assumption that their own stories aren’t interesting enough, that what they
have to offer isn’t suitably “sensational.” In fact, every human is in some way unique, and this in itself
makes us each “sensational” in our own ways.
In pretending to be anyone other than themselves, writers sacrifice the very thing we most crave from
them: authenticity.
Deliver Your Story From Circumstantial Cliché
As the moth is attracted to flame, less-than-vigilant writers are attracted to the bright light of intrinsically
dramatic situations, where the drama is preassembled, ready to use—convenient.
We’re drawn to clichés because they’re convenient. And convenience for writers—convenient plots,
convenient characters, convenient coincidences, convenient settings or situations or strings of words—
almost always spells doom.
A writer sets her story in an abortion clinic. What are the expectations raised by such a setting? To the
extent that the common expectations raised by this setting are met head-on, the story fails. It descends
into cliché and denies the reader an authentic experience.
What will the author do to rescue that drama from our expectations, from cliché? Steer clear of such
territory to give us a story that reawakens our senses to a subject that has in and of itself become a
cliché.
Elevate the Ordinary
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath.”
Either your chosen subject plunges you into the imagination’s deeper waters, or your story will probably
drift into one of two shallow waterways:
1.
the autobiographical estuary, in which you write strictly about characters and events from your
own life; or
2.
the brackish bay of stereotype and cliché.
The way to rescue this and other clichés may lie in exploring those parts of the story that don’t belong
firmly to the cliché. By investing our characters with concerns and struggles that point away from the
hackneyed and sensational and toward the earthier dramas of “ordinary” existence, by taking the most
trite elements of our stories out of the foreground and putting them in the background, we begin to lift
them out of cliché.
Rescue Gratuitous Scenes From Melodramatic Action
Overly convenient subjects are prone not only to cliché, but to melodrama.
We call a story or a scene melodramatic when its protagonists are too obviously heroes or victims and its
antagonists are obviously villains. Another acid test for melodrama is the tendency to resort to violence,
either emotional (catatonic seizures, gasps, screams, floods of tears, verbal confrontations) or physical
(fisticuffs—or worse, depending on the caliber of melodrama and available firearms).
Gratuitous violence is synonymous with melodrama. So is the gratuitous gesture, as when a character
who has just come into a fortune tosses fistfuls of greenbacks like confetti into the air—a cliché that
probably has never once happened in real life. (When it does happen, I want to be there.)
Any over-the-top action results in melodrama. A male lover, freshly dumped by his girl, throws himself into
the nearest river. Melodrama. Or, being told by the same girl that she loves him, he boards a crowded
subway and kisses everyone in sight, including a blind man and the conductor. Melodrama. The specific
circumstances mightexplain such behavior (and casting a young Jimmy Stewart would help). But the
likelihood is slim.
Fight Overly Convenient Plot Points With Authenticity
Melodrama is to authentic drama what “crab sticks” are to the real thing: an inferior substitute.
When people punch each other in stories, suspect imitation. In real life people seldom use their fists. It’s
dangerous, and illegal. A solid fist to the bridge of a nose could result in death, and appropriate charges.
Sometimes the mere piling on of sensational events results in melodrama. Another result of cramming too
much drama into too few pages is a paucity of authenticating detail,the sort of small, precise, carefully
chosen and calibrated descriptions that help suspend a reader’s disbelief and make it possible for her to
enjoy a story no matter how unlikely or outrageous.
By slowing down and taking the time and trouble to imbue our stories with authentic, rich, specific
moments and details, we achieve real drama and avoid its floozy cousins, sentimentality and melodrama.
Curb Melodrama with Substance
In real life, people do throw water in their spouses’ faces, and shout accusations at each other; they even
commit murder out of passion or for vengeance. Such things can happen in your fiction, too. But when
violent confrontations become the story, when they are the rule and not the exception, then violence
usurps drama.
The result is melodrama, what soap operas are made of. And soap operas are not dramatic; they are
intrinsically nondramatic, since their perpetuity depends on nothing ever being resolved. The characters
never change.
In soap operas we get wish fulfillment and negative fantasy in place of real resolutions. When a
relationship is “dramatized,” nearly all of the dialogue is head-on and histrionic, vomiting up plot and
backstory. Accusations and apologies are served up along with great gobs of personal history.
A more dramatic, less histrionic approach would convey the status quo between characters up front,
through exposition, leaving subsequent scenes free to explore behavior and character. We read the story
to see how these characters will cope (or not) with each other under specific circumstances (e.g., they
have to pick a coffin for their mother’s funeral). When authors explode drama rather than describe it, their
material deteriorates into soap opera and blows up in everyone’s face. Avoid the temptation to do so, and
your fiction will be more powerful for it.
1) Love triangles- I might be the only one here but I love a good love triangle. I
think it comes from the desire to feel wanted. I might not want my love life that
complicated but I love my fiction to be that way. I like trying to figure out which guy
the heroine is going to choose out of two good choices. And often times, each guy
represents a different live that she must choose from. In a lot of ways, love triangles
are just a great metaphor for the hero/heroine choosing how they want to live their
life.
2) Best friend love interest- I am always a sucker for this cliche. It's an oldie but
a goodie. I was going to put "tale as old as time" here too which works perfectly
since Belle and Beast become friends before they fall in love. Plus, these
relationships are always so cute and healthy. They already know how to talk to each
other so it's always great for them to find their happiness in the end.
3) Fiesty red headed heroine- I like my heroines with a little fire and if they are
people that are willing to speak their mind. I also happen to love red-heads so this is
a win-win for me.
4) Sexy supernaturals- I'm not saying I need my vampires to be gentle or my
mermaids not to lead boats into rocks. I'm just saying I want them to be hot while
doing it. I don't care if it's the main character that is something other or the love
interest but I do like the supernatural to be a little mysterious and just a little bit up
to no good.
5) Absent parents- I'm not picking up a YA to become parent of the year. I hate it
when parents get all meddlesome and become an obstacle. I'm not saying that I
don't want a family there at all. I'm just saying that I don't want Mom grounding
heroine to become the main obstacle keeping the heroine from doing what she
needs to save the world.
6) Forbidden love- I'm not just talking vampire and human either. I like forbidden
love of any kind whether it be warring families, a 17-year-old falling for a college
tutor or anything in between. There can be a zillion different spins on this and it still
makes it exciting.
- See more at: http://amberinblunderland.blogspot.com/2012/03/saturdaydiscussions-ya-cliches-you.html#sthash.BAe0v8w0.dpuf
A writer’s job is to write stories—not to steal or borrow them and, with a coat of fresh paint, pawn them
off as original.
That should be obvious, but it’s not always completely clear. Our own private thoughts, dreams, intuitions
and fantasies are inevitably colored by what psychiatrist Carl Jung called the collective unconscious—the
vast, reservoir-like body of shared human experiences and of myths, symbols and legends.
Most sensational subjects have been treated to death. Result: a minefield of clichés. And, as novelist
Martin Amis tells us, good writing is a “war against cliché.” The story’s problems might be partially
redeemed by crisp dialogue, vivid descriptions and an impeccable edgy style—but the plain fact is,
they shouldn’t be solved. Steer clear of tired plots and you, your characters and your readers will avoid all
kinds of heartache.
Resist The Lure of the Sensational
For beginning and experienced writers alike, the temptation to choose intrinsically dramatic subjects is
hard to resist. Drug deals and busts gone wrong, kidnapping, abortion, car crashes, murder, madness,
rape, war—with such sensational raw material to work with, how can writers go wrong?
They can and they do.
A writer who chooses to set his story in a mental hospital, for instance, may bumble into a minefield of
clichés. He will need to avoid all the stereotypes of loony-bin lore coined by Ken Kesey in One Flew Over
the Cuckoo’s Nest, and recycled in a myriad of TV shows and books.
Not that you can’t set a story on a mental ward, or that you can’t tell stories about mental patients and the
abuses they suffer at the hands of their keepers. But if you do so, you need to realize what you’re up
against.
And what you’re up against is cliché.
Turn a Stereotype on its Head
Every milieu has its clichés, its stock characters and stereotypes. A common stereotype is that of the
starving artist. Just once, I’d like to read about a talented, hard-working painter, supplementing his small
income from gallery sales through teaching, grants and fellowships. This, after all, is the reality for many
professional fine artists.
Even poor Vincent van Gogh, that most depraved and deprived of artists, fails to live up to the image. The
letters he wrote to his brother Theo and others show how sane this “madman” was. True, he often went
hungry, and he suffered from incapacitating seizures. But the cartoon of the foaming madman does him
no justice.
The real problem with clichés is that they deprive us of genuine details, which, though less sensational,
are both more convincing and more interesting. A deeper look into the life of any artist will reveal facts that
have it over all clichés.
The truth is the best weapon we have for authenticity and against cliché: Whether it’s the literal truth or
the truth of imagination doesn’t matter.
Tell the Story Only You Can Tell
When we produce stories that are derivative, we’re not being honest with ourselves. We’re borrowing
someone else’s aesthetics and selling them as our own.
In choosing intrinsically sensational subjects, writers think they’re getting a free—or a cheap—ride. But as
with most things in life, you tend to get what you pay for.
The best way to avoid cliché is to practice sincerity. If we’ve come by sensational material honestly,
through our own personal experience or imagination, we may rightly claim it as our own. Otherwise, we’d
best steer clear. Our stories should be stories that only we can tell, as only we can tell them.
Keep it Real by Taking it Slow
My favorite exercise is to ask my students to write two pieces, one at a time, each about a minute long.
Piece 1 should rivet the reader; Piece 2 should bore the reader stiff. Each student reads both pieces out
loud.
Whenever I’ve done this experiment, in almost every instance the result is the same: The “riveting” piece
bores, while the “boring” piece holds interest. There are several reasons for this. In their effort to grip us,
beginning writers tend to rush: They equate their own adrenaline with that of the reader. Conversely, when
trying to bore, the same writers take their time; they don’t hesitate to lavish 250 words on the subject of a
wall of white paint drying. And—to their consternation—the result mesmerizes. At any rate it holds our
attention.
But far worse than rushing, in trying to interest us, most writers abandon sincerity and, with it, authenticity.
They choose sensational subjects on the basis of little personal knowledge and no genuine emotional
investment. They do so on the assumption that their own stories aren’t interesting enough, that what they
have to offer isn’t suitably “sensational.” In fact, every human is in some way unique, and this in itself
makes us each “sensational” in our own ways.
In pretending to be anyone other than themselves, writers sacrifice the very thing we most crave from
them: authenticity.
Deliver Your Story From Circumstantial Cliché
As the moth is attracted to flame, less-than-vigilant writers are attracted to the bright light of intrinsically
dramatic situations, where the drama is preassembled, ready to use—convenient.
We’re drawn to clichés because they’re convenient. And convenience for writers—convenient plots,
convenient characters, convenient coincidences, convenient settings or situations or strings of words—
almost always spells doom.
A writer sets her story in an abortion clinic. What are the expectations raised by such a setting? To the
extent that the common expectations raised by this setting are met head-on, the story fails. It descends
into cliché and denies the reader an authentic experience.
What will the author do to rescue that drama from our expectations, from cliché? Steer clear of such
territory to give us a story that reawakens our senses to a subject that has in and of itself become a
cliché.
Elevate the Ordinary
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath.”
Either your chosen subject plunges you into the imagination’s deeper waters, or your story will probably
drift into one of two shallow waterways:
1.
the autobiographical estuary, in which you write strictly about characters and events from your
own life; or
2.
the brackish bay of stereotype and cliché.
The way to rescue this and other clichés may lie in exploring those parts of the story that don’t belong
firmly to the cliché. By investing our characters with concerns and struggles that point away from the
hackneyed and sensational and toward the earthier dramas of “ordinary” existence, by taking the most
trite elements of our stories out of the foreground and putting them in the background, we begin to lift
them out of cliché.
Rescue Gratuitous Scenes From Melodramatic Action
Overly convenient subjects are prone not only to cliché, but to melodrama.
We call a story or a scene melodramatic when its protagonists are too obviously heroes or victims and its
antagonists are obviously villains. Another acid test for melodrama is the tendency to resort to violence,
either emotional (catatonic seizures, gasps, screams, floods of tears, verbal confrontations) or physical
(fisticuffs—or worse, depending on the caliber of melodrama and available firearms).
Gratuitous violence is synonymous with melodrama. So is the gratuitous gesture, as when a character
who has just come into a fortune tosses fistfuls of greenbacks like confetti into the air—a cliché that
probably has never once happened in real life. (When it does happen, I want to be there.)
Any over-the-top action results in melodrama. A male lover, freshly dumped by his girl, throws himself into
the nearest river. Melodrama. Or, being told by the same girl that she loves him, he boards a crowded
subway and kisses everyone in sight, including a blind man and the conductor. Melodrama. The specific
circumstances mightexplain such behavior (and casting a young Jimmy Stewart would help). But the
likelihood is slim.
Fight Overly Convenient Plot Points With Authenticity
Melodrama is to authentic drama what “crab sticks” are to the real thing: an inferior substitute.
When people punch each other in stories, suspect imitation. In real life people seldom use their fists. It’s
dangerous, and illegal. A solid fist to the bridge of a nose could result in death, and appropriate charges.
Sometimes the mere piling on of sensational events results in melodrama. Another result of cramming too
much drama into too few pages is a paucity of authenticating detail,the sort of small, precise, carefully
chosen and calibrated descriptions that help suspend a reader’s disbelief and make it possible for her to
enjoy a story no matter how unlikely or outrageous.
By slowing down and taking the time and trouble to imbue our stories with authentic, rich, specific
moments and details, we achieve real drama and avoid its floozy cousins, sentimentality and melodrama.
Curb Melodrama with Substance
In real life, people do throw water in their spouses’ faces, and shout accusations at each other; they even
commit murder out of passion or for vengeance. Such things can happen in your fiction, too. But when
violent confrontations become the story, when they are the rule and not the exception, then violence
usurps drama.
The result is melodrama, what soap operas are made of. And soap operas are not dramatic; they are
intrinsically nondramatic, since their perpetuity depends on nothing ever being resolved. The characters
never change.
In soap operas we get wish fulfillment and negative fantasy in place of real resolutions. When a
relationship is “dramatized,” nearly all of the dialogue is head-on and histrionic, vomiting up plot and
backstory. Accusations and apologies are served up along with great gobs of personal history.
A more dramatic, less histrionic approach would convey the status quo between characters up front,
through exposition, leaving subsequent scenes free to explore behavior and character. We read the story
to see how these characters will cope (or not) with each other under specific circumstances (e.g., they
have to pick a coffin for their mother’s funeral). When authors explode drama rather than describe it, their
material deteriorates into soap opera and blows up in everyone’s face. Avoid the temptation to do so, and
your fiction will be more powerful for it.
1) Love triangles- I might be the only one here but I love a good love triangle. I
think it comes from the desire to feel wanted. I might not want my love life that
complicated but I love my fiction to be that way. I like trying to figure out which guy
the heroine is going to choose out of two good choices. And often times, each guy
represents a different live that she must choose from. In a lot of ways, love triangles
are just a great metaphor for the hero/heroine choosing how they want to live their
life.
2) Best friend love interest- I am always a sucker for this cliche. It's an oldie but
a goodie. I was going to put "tale as old as time" here too which works perfectly
since Belle and Beast become friends before they fall in love. Plus, these
relationships are always so cute and healthy. They already know how to talk to each
other so it's always great for them to find their happiness in the end.
3) Fiesty red headed heroine- I like my heroines with a little fire and if they are
people that are willing to speak their mind. I also happen to love red-heads so this is
a win-win for me.
4) Sexy supernaturals- I'm not saying I need my vampires to be gentle or my
mermaids not to lead boats into rocks. I'm just saying I want them to be hot while
doing it. I don't care if it's the main character that is something other or the love
interest but I do like the supernatural to be a little mysterious and just a little bit up
to no good.
5) Absent parents- I'm not picking up a YA to become parent of the year. I hate it
when parents get all meddlesome and become an obstacle. I'm not saying that I
don't want a family there at all. I'm just saying that I don't want Mom grounding
heroine to become the main obstacle keeping the heroine from doing what she
needs to save the world.
6) Forbidden love- I'm not just talking vampire and human either. I like forbidden
love of any kind whether it be warring families, a 17-year-old falling for a college
tutor or anything in between. There can be a zillion different spins on this and it still
makes it exciting.
- See more at: http://amberinblunderland.blogspot.com/2012/03/saturdaydiscussions-ya-cliches-you.html#sthash.BAe0v8w0.dpuf
