herbology | advice for authors

。clichés

No matter how much you despise them, no matter how much you loathe them, you will always find clichés in every single story out there, simply because they are unavoidable. You can try to write a totally original story based only on your imagination, but the truth is that your brain creates things based upon what it has seen/lived in the past. Everything you create was inspired by something else, and that's actually how those detested clichés are born—due to a constant repetition of a plot you've seen over and over again.

Google defines them as "an overused idea that betrays a lack of originality," which is a perfect definition in the sense where, well, you can usually tell which plots are overused simply by glancing at the summary of the stories here on Wattpad.

It's okay to have clichés in your stories. You just have to make sure that there aren't too many in it. Too many turns your story into every story out there and it makes it completely uninteresting to read.

Be original.

While reading, try paying attention to things that you notice reappear in different stories from various authors.

e.g: a Gryffindor witch with extra powers (like a metamorphormagus, an animagus, a parseltongue or something else), possibly some important character's twin sister, played by a Teen Wolf or Riverdale actress. Or a k-pop singer.

It can be smaller things too, like the character's personality or their background. They're usually muggleborns in the Harry Potter universe because the author probably finds it easier, but just TRY AND TAKE SOME RISKS. Write about a half-blood and it's the end of the discussion. Writing about magic is easy. You can invent your own spells based on Latin words and just do whatever, they have fucking magic. Cliché characters also tend to be petite and adorable and innocent yet super clever, which is really annoying? It was cute at first, but then it kind of got out of hand when that character reappeared in twenty other stories.

Try writing a character that is maybe less gracious, clumsy even, yet still really fucking chill and open about things, you know? You have to make them likeable but still have flaws at the same time because otherwise it would just not be realistic, you know. Look at Tonks's character! She's super underrated and her character is amazing! She's got both flaws and qualities and is the most badass character ever.

But we're not here to talk about characters (at least not in this chapter).

Your story can contain a certain amount of clichés that are acceptable. There's just a limit to how many you use, because after a while it just gets boring and redundant, you know?

The whole bumping into a stranger in the street is, for example, wayyyyyy too cliché and overused and should just burn in the pits of hell. This is not a Hugh Grant movie. This is fanfiction. And the whole childhood sweethearts scenario is also dead.

Your characters don't have to be life long friends to date. They could have just met at the most incongruous moment, or known each other for not too long (eg: work colleagues, classmates, at a concert, I don't know). But just avoid the hipster coffee shops please, as well as the whole neighbour thing with one of them crawling into the other's bedroom in the middle of the night, I mean, WHO ACTUALLY DOES THAT?

Drop those. Innovate. Create.

I want to see some darker stuff, I want to see prostitution and death and toxicomania and more death, I want unnecessary blood and I want it written like fucking poetry, making you drown in a different world where you just melt into it, you know? I want dark shit hidden behind pretty words and metaphors and I want FEELS, okay?

But there's probably just my bleak and morbid mind that enjoys those, so don't follow that advice.

Your character can have problems too. They can be an alcoholic, a junky, a nymphomaniac, suffer from a disease (STD or not). It can be anything, and it doesn't even have to be the centre of the story. It's accessory, it's only a part of the character, not of the story. Give your character a real back story that doesn't have to be the centre of attention.

That would make things already way less cliché.

Just try having different things in your stories. Real books are of a huge help as well. And I don't mean books like the Hunger Games or Twilight, or even Harry Potter, I mean books by smaller authors or classic shit, you know? Oscar Wilde is super inspirational to be honest and his books need to be read at least once in one's life.

My forever favourite book which will always give me inspiration is Notes from Underground by Kenneth Cook, which is about an alcoholic Australian miner in the 70's called Simon King who finds himself in a more or less sticky situation in a small town in the desert, and it was just perfect. It wasn't even that special. It just, I don't know, created this mental thing in my head, you know? Like a click or something that triggered this epiphany of some sort. I don't know, it just changed me. It was beautiful.

Anyway, try having different story lines and different details to what you usually see. Your story can be insalubrious as well as really fucking hilarious, it can be cute but don't go overboard. You have to remain moderate in everything for it not to be too heavy for the readers.

Make characters that stick out from the lot, make them different, avoid basic and avoid good, try excellent and try bad. Make them original and make them admirable because in the end, the characters are what the readers will look at most. The surroundings, the descriptions and even the plot line are accessory almost all the time.

Anyway I think that's about it. I hope my text-shouting and my gifs somewhat made you understand that clichés are rather easy to avoid, even if some of them are necessary (kisses, insecurities, ruptures, heartache, pain).

Goodbye my friends.

(written by kencbi)