Cliche

A cliche is an expression, idea, or narrative element that has been used so often it has lost its power to evoke a genuine response. "It was a dark and stormy night," "her heart skipped a beat," "he breathed a sigh of relief" are all cliches at the sentence level. At the story level, the detective who plays by his own rules, the small town with a dark secret, and the villain who explains their plan before executing it are narrative cliches. In every case, familiarity has replaced impact.

George Orwell argued in "Politics and the English Language" that cliches are a sign of lazy thinking: the writer reaches for a prefabricated phrase instead of crafting language that precisely captures their meaning. In White Teeth, Zadie Smith avoids cliche by finding unexpected angles on familiar situations, describing ordinary life with language that makes readers see it differently. Raymond Chandler transformed the detective genre by replacing its cliches with language so original it created a new set of conventions.

Eliminating cliches requires vigilance during revision. When you encounter a phrase that feels comfortable and familiar, that comfort is a warning sign. Ask whether the expression is doing specific work or simply filling space. Replace cliches with concrete, sensory details drawn from the particular world of your story. That said, characters can and should use cliches in dialogue, because real people speak in cliches constantly. The key is ensuring that the narrative prose itself, the author's own voice, remains fresh.