I Don't Even Know (Wattpad Rants)

Double B Clichés Pt. 5

CONCLUSION

Ah! Finally!

We have reached the conclusion points of this mini cliché series. In my conclusion, I will talk about my thoughts on clichés and what you could do as a writer to improve your stories with or without using them.

Before I go in-depth about clichés, I'm going to do a pro and con list about them.

Because I'm a SaltE grain of the Salt-shaker family, I shall start with the CONS!

CONS

🔘 Cliché is outright defined as something being so overused that it becomes bland. The first con is obvious. Clichés can ruin your stories by making them very average and redundant. There would be no way to distinguish your story from other stories that have the exact same clichés. The only stories that avoid this are the stories that started the tropes in the first place.

🔘Clichés make your story predictable. Have you ever watched a movie and knew immediately who the girl would end up with just by the introduction of the characters? Yeah. That's probably because that movie is cliché and you have watched other movies with very similar storylines. 

For me personally, as an avid horror fan, I know the exact moments jump scares and deaths happen in movies because so many movies have the same tropes. Clichés can make your story very anticlimactic, and thus very pointless to read.

🔘 Because clichés are so unoriginal, they may end up sullying the message you are trying to spread. Say you are writing a story about anti bullying. If your story is filled with unoriginality, your message may end up drowning in bad writing and poor plotting, and your anti-bullying story might end up being a bland, borderline Stockholm Syndrome or abusive relationship type of story instead.

PROS

🔘 There is a reason why clichés are so popular, and it's because they work. Stories about bad boys and good girls are so popular because there is just something about a handsome guy who doesn't care about anything or anyone having a soft spot for the girl with no friends. When done right, clichés can be used to hook in an audience.

🔘 Writing a story filled with clichés may actually help you practice your writing. Say you are a new writer. The best way to improve is to read and try your own hand at writing. Creating a story is a craft and if it means you get started by writing a generic love story because that's what got you inspired in the first place, then go ahead. Your own original ideas can come later. You just need to ease into the craft.

🔘 If you put a little spin on clichés, they can actually enhance your stories instead of dragging them down. For example, instead of a cliché scene in which the girl walks into the boy and thinks he's a wall, what if you spin it and make it so that the girl bumps into the boy and ends up making a huge lipstick stain on his shirt? Just little things that can make a scene a whole lot more interesting and comedic.

MY THOUGHTS

So, yeah. Now you know the good and bad sides of clichés. Basically all my points have been made, and I have nothing much else to say.

When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter if your story is filled with clichés. I have said it in multiple points of my chapters until now, and I will say it again.

 Clichés aren't necessarily a bad thing!

Sure, clichés might make readers feel like they are reading the same stories over and over again, but there is a certain charm to them that keep audiences coming back. Take a look at Wattpad's most popular books. Some of them might be the most cliché books out there, but they work because they utilise clichés efficiently.

Granted, there are books that are just meh and bland that have no reason to be popular, but there is a reason that both writers and readers come back to clichés. 

Some clichés come from the very experiences people have in real life. Others spawn from the imagination of writers who fantasize about certain things happening because they know it would be close to impossible in real life. 

Books exist to take readers into another world — to pull readers from their own reality into the minds of fictional characters. Series like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games appeal to so many people because of compelling characters, amazing storylines, and worldbuilding that just makes you want to be a part of the world.

Romance novels are often seen as a negative because they plant false hopes in girls who have little to no experience with dating or relationships, but the fictional things that do happen in them satisfy the wishes of readers by putting them into the position of the characters. It makes them happy, sad, or whatever else the characters are feeling.

My point here is that no matter how cliché a story is, if you're happy with it, then don't let anyone else tell you to completely change it just because it's "cliché." Take people's advice to make your story better, but there's no need to completely change a certain element if you really feel like you don't need to. Some people actually like clichés. It's just a matter of preference, and you will not be able to please all your readers.

Sure, an original story is like a breath of fresh air, but cliché stories don't have to die out. I feel like some Wattpad rants (mine included) make clichés out to be this abomination that ruins Wattpad books, but I think clichés also deserve some credit. 

And like I mentioned in one of the pros, if you put a certain spin on clichés, you could actually reap some originality into your story. So I say, take advantage of clichés. Popular concepts have been handed to you on a silver platter (for free!), so why not take it and weave a story inspired by them? (⬅This here isn't to say that you should plagiarise. If you plagiarise, you are a thief, and you will not receive the respect a writer deserves. DON'T STEAL!)

Anyway, clichés generally annoy the heck out of me, but even I sometimes return to a cliché story or two once in a while.