Star Wars Writing Tips and Tricks.

Dangers of Clichés in Stories.

Many of you will either know of or have seen used a myriad of common clichés found across numerous genres, fandoms and other sources of works across the globe.

And you will probably know that they're kinda boring after seeing them so many times.

You are then able to predict how a story will go and it loses a lot of its magic and potential when clichés are present.

So what specifically is a cliché?
As told to me by Dictionary.com, a cliché is a trite, stereotyped expression or anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse.

Why are they considered poor forms of writing?
It can feel to some essentially like plagiarism of someone else's original ideas. This is not always true, but when used in frequent manners, people grow bored with clichés and want something new and different from generic stereotypes of dumb, blonde cheerleader chick and generic, super-buff football jerk. It's contrite, it's asshole-ish, it's degrading and it can often be insulting for those who fit these stereotypes descriptors but could in actuality be a smart blonde cheerleader or a decent fellow of a buff football player.

Consider the target audiences carefully.
If you're write specifically for teen audiences, then you'd be more likely to include clichés that relate to that audience like ones involving relationships or generic school character stereotypes. Writing for a more adult audience brings its own clichés with it as well. Considering most authors on here writing Star Wars fics with a littering of common mistakes in writing tend to be between 13-18, myself included, it is not terribly common to see more adult clichés in many Star Wars stories.

However, not all uses of clichés are bad and will end in disaster, thus crushing your readership and leaving people thinking you are nothing but a young upstart who doesn't know a thing about crafting a well written and well thought out story for others to enjoy.

That got depressing fast...

So, can cliché use be a good thing in stories?
With great difficulty is the basic answer.

Like said before, knowing your target readership can help you know which clichés you are most likely to use in your story, but realising why something is cliché can also help identify why, how and when to use it.

For example, the stereotypical characterisation of a bad boy character is for them to either be all dark and brooding or just a complete asshole to everyone around them. They will usually have some sort of tragic/traumatic past that made them the way that they are in the novel and the lead female, who apparently is a teenage psychologist, helps them overcome this past and move on with their life. This became so common so quickly in Teen Fiction that Bad Boy/Good Girl stories were, and still are, everywhere and people began to get sick of them.

So then the Bad Girl made an entrance onto the scene.

The Bad Boy trope was inverted and at around the same time there was a call for stronger female characters in stories. This seemed like the answer, but it really wasn't quite there yet. There should be a connection between novel characters and their intended readership. If that is missing, then the characters do not resonate with their audience and as such it can lead to what people view as poor characterisation on the author's behalf.

This is an example of overuse where authors tried to invert the commonplace trope and invariably may have made it a worse cliché than before.

How can they be used?
As mentioned prior, knowing why something is cliché can help understand how to use it. Stereotypes are, regrettably, all based on some truth within the <insert particular ethnic community you wish to insult here>.

Take the previous example. This Bad Boy trope can take many forms if someone just stretches their mind a little. I can give one example of a bad boy-like character from the series I have been writing, Star Wars Rebellion Chronicles (SWRC).

Potential spoilers for those who haven't read it yet.

In Book 4, titled Rising Resistance, Aidan Starstryder, who goes by several names throughout the book, is on a revenge mission against those who have wronged him. He lost his birth family when he was ~4, then his subsequent adoptive families when he was ~9, ~14 and ~20. He will causally use other people as he sees fit to further his own goal and revenge mission, but as a mutual friendship, later a romance, between a young 'local' girl, who shares a very similar past to him but went down a different path, begins to grow, he begins to see how he can still possibly live a normal life without his revenge mission driving him.

But the lure of revenge was still quite strong for Aidan as he still seeks his betrayers for most of the book.

This ultimately culminates in a fight between himself and his most recent betrayers when he has the choice between completing his revenge mission or saving the life of an abducted innocent child caught up in the strife of his vengeance with his betrayers.

End spoilers.

So, in a way, Aidan can be considered a Bad Boy character, though I will not say that I set out to make one. He is a combination of dark and brooding as well as hints of being and asshole to those around him as a method to protect himself from further hurt.

So cliché tropes can be used, if carefully thought out and implemented by the author.

Next, we will cover Original Characters...