don't get me wrong, everyone loves a good cliche.
Just every once in a while, when you see a cheesy cliche in one of those teen fiction or romance book you read, you know you still get that warm, bubbly feeling when you see a cliche moment. I love me some classic, teen fiction and romance novels, but what I've noticed is that these days, cliches are everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Everything on my recommended feed, I bet you, contains at least one of the following cliches.
bad boy + good girl
fake girlfriend/fake boyfriend scenario
a paired project together (love interest)
problematic ex
The list goes on and on. I've gotta admit, I've committed to these cliches before. But I try to avoid them as much as possible. Trust me, although you might think that writing a cheesy, cliche story would attract more readers, but what readers really want is refreshing, creative and original stories. These cliche stories have been around forever, and eventually, readers would want new stories ideas and plots that we interesting to them.
I'm not against any cliches, as I think that it's an essential part of pop culture. Without cliches, your stories wouldn't relate to other things the reader has seen. It's just that when you overuse cliches, it gets annoying. I've seen bad boy x good girl, fake boyfriend/girlfriend plots being used in almost every teen fiction I read.
~~
There's this thin line between plagiarism and cliche/inspiration. It's hard to identify them sometimes. I don't think a cliche would be considered plagiarism, but if your story is awfully similar to another story, stop, rethink, rewrite of necessary, and then post it.
Having a similar scene does not count as plagiarism. It's probably an overused cliche, like a kiss in the rain. These cliches are everywhere, but that doesn't mean the authors are copying them. Cliches are pop culture, and it's sometimes like when you make a reference, but on a larger scale.
Plagiarism, on the other hand, is in fact, illegal. Copyrighted materials/original content are protected by the law, wherever you live. If you straight up, word for word, copy a story, then that's plagiarism. But it gets interesting when you're in the grey area of "inspired". Human is programmed to take in information from things you read or see, and your brain might accidentally list those as ideas when you're writing. That's why you should always double check. Make sure you're not plagiarising someone, like having very similar/identical characters or plots.
"But I don't have a good imagination!" You said. "I can't think of any story plots right now!"
Well, go and find inspiration. Sometimes inspiration doesn't just come to you, and you've got to look for it. It's really not hard, look around you. Interact with people or objects. Do something exciting and new. Search online. Okay, maybe not the last one, because you might accidentally end up plagiarising someone.
I know that sometimes it's hard to think of a good plot or completely original ideas and make it popular. But it's worth a try, no?
quote of the day
❝"I love you." She said. "I love you too." He said as they kiss under the rain. They think about what happened over the past month. When bumped into each other in the hallway, they knew that their lives were forever changed. They got paired up in their project. He asked her to pretend to be his girlfriend, and she reluctantly agreed. How could this work? He was the bad boy of the school and she's just another nerd. Read this non-existing cliche story on nowhere now. Send me your credit card number. Bye.❞
okay, maybe i got carried away with that one.
