Writing Tips and Clichés to Avoid

cliché #4

So this was requested by my smol bean ricemunchkin and it is the cliché of the main character- or minty Oreo in this case- waking up to start the story.

This cliché automatically pegs you as an amateur writer and doesn't look very good. I do NOT suggest EVER using this cliché in your story because it's extremely overused and just boring and bland at this point because it is the same every time; minty is dreaming about something, minty wakes up, minty begins the story by getting out of bed.

It isn't even in the slightest bit intriguing, in fact, it's a red-alert for all readers that hey, maybe you're really not all that great at chapter planning and making things interesting.

I'm going to provide some examples of great introductory sentences in different books that really engaged me automatically and hopefully help you guys get creative ideas.

"The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years- if it ever did end- began, as far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain."
(Stephen King's IT)

"Most people would call me a ghost. I am, after all, dead. But I don't think if myself that way."
(Christopher Pike's Remember Me)

"My mother hid the knife block."
(Megan Miranda's Hysteria)

"On that Tuesday in January, when her life changed forever, Martine Rhodes woke with a headache, developed a sour stomach after washing down two aspirin...."
(Dean Koontz's False Memory)

"It was a pleasure to burn."
(Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451)

"In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it was quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three."
(Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle)

See, starting your story off with that horrible waking up cliché can really make or break your book. You can be sooooo creative and actually try to say something essential to the plot like in Fahrenheit 451 the main character burns books for a job so it is established right away that the character takes pleasure in his job which is essential since he goes through major character development.

You can literally DO ANYTHING. Hell, talk about a piece of paper like damn, you can do absolutely anything. A piece of paper? You may be asking me how one could even make a blank piece of paper intriguing to talk about. Here;

"A piece of paper was one of the most complex things to the human eye; it held millions of possibilities. Once could make a drawing so captivating that art critics would praise it for years to come or perhaps one could even create a magnificent piece of literature with it and a fountain pen in hand. It was something so simple and undemanding yet limitless and opportunistic."

SEE, EVEN PAPER CAN BE COOL Y'ALL. I literally just made that up off the top of my head so it just goes to show that you can absolutely make an interesting introduction without some vivid dream and clichéd waking up to the blinding sunlight opening.

Thanks for reading and if you have any requests ask away :)

-Anri