Cliches that should be put to bed...

Gideon just reminded me of another one. This is especially obvious in movies, but I've read it in books also. Every single time a character is running through the woods, especially if they're running from danger, they're gonna trip over something and fall down, likely twisting their ankle in the process or incurring a giant bloody gash. Characters seem to be particularly clumsy running through the woods.

Unless your me @ 50 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtX7Xxz_9ao

I literally fell in the woods. Hurt like heck. Giant bruise. 

Otherwise, I totally agree. Clumsy people suck. 

@tj_knight 

Oh. Mah. Gah. What the heck did I just watch?!? You're famous!

I think woods are specifically bad for running in. Its more surprising when people don't stumble or run into trees than when they do. So I dislike running through woods scenes for that reason - AND for the fact its never the pursuer that falls over and that the fall always happens at just the 'right moment' for the story beat

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

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@tj_knight 

Oh. Mah. Gah. What the heck did I just watch?!? You're famous!

If you mean blurry, clumsy me, yes. 

That's when I first learned to throw axes! Haha. 

 

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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so - I think there are differences in types of cliches. There are ones that are specific word combos and there are ones that are actions (there may be more). I think the latter can be done in an original way as long as they're real things people do - my issues with people biting the inside of their mouth is... I don't think people really do it. At least nowhere near as often and deliberately as its portrayed in fiction. But the having the last word from the door? I do it myself! My spouse does it. My two teenage kids do it. My mother does it. My mother in law does it. My cowrokers do it! Now maybe I just live in a very dysfunctional world, but that then means to me, though I might need to come up with a less jaded/pat way of describing it and watch how frequently I use it, its a very real human psychological trick, and therefore removal of it would actually make the book less real....

My other issues with cliches is when they're stereotypical in a bad way (movies where the woman always falls running away and has to be rescued, or evil people are always fat (or vice versa) or the one minority was always funny or the unattractive girl becomes pretty by taking off her glasses - I'm sure one of our recent active members would have pointed to a movie such as Not Another Teen Movie as poking fun at these specific things). Those are cliches that don't stand up well.

And then there are cliches of prose itself. If your hero's heart pounds every time, and her 'blood runs cold', or her "knees go weak' then those are opportunities for less well trod word choices. 

The villain cliché is important to mention I think, how often they have scars, are disfigured, disabled, and/or have a mental illness. I hope no one does that. I enjoy many of the Bond films but they (as in Ian Fleming's original stories) were terrible for it. Misogyny was a cliché too, especially in lots of sci-fi and fantasy, and thankfully that's all but disappeared - at least in contemporary fiction I read.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/mar/14/the-disabled-villain-why-sensitivity-reading-cant-kill-off-this-ugly-trope

 

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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I think woods are specifically bad for running in. Its more surprising when people don't stumble or run into trees than when they do. So I dislike running through woods scenes for that reason - AND for the fact its never the pursuer that falls over and that the fall always happens at just the 'right moment' for the story beat

Funnily enough, after watching Dustin's video, I know it's quite common for actors to fall during filming and get back up and continue running. The three that come to mind were all the pursuer and accidental. A mob villain in the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, the villain headteacher in The Demon Headmaster (90s TV series I loved as a kid), and then a "goodie" - in one of the M:I films, Tom Cruise broke his ankle and carried on running in pursuit.

I don't know why that's something that's stuck in my head. None were woodland scenes.

Perhaps one way for the falling cliché to work is for your character to be known as clumsy, or perhaps have something like dyspraxia. I thought dyspraxia was portrayed quite well in one of Doctor Who's companions a few years ago, though I didn't actually notice it in myself till after a neurologist said I might be dyspraxic. I always thought I was just clumsy.

@gideonpsmith You make a good point with the doorway thing.  There are scientific papers about the way going through thresholds effect us. I think they like to refer to it as the "location updating effect." Mostly they talk about it making you forget things (why did I walk into this room again?) but I'm sure approaching that threshold can also remind you of things, hence, those last minute comments.

Posted by: @alexh

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The villain cliché is important to mention I think, how often they have scars, are disfigured, disabled, and/or have a mental illness. I hope no one does that.

James Adomian does a hilarious bit about the trope of the "gay villain" which has also been very overused.  He compares Megatron to a grand dame drag queen. "If you knew homophobia was based on gay robots, it would fall apart overnight." 

 

I'm tired of the cliche of the subverted icon; the bad angel, the good demon, etc.

The creature that deliberately turns Barbie into glop is just a misunderstood romantic, and if we explore how that poor, twisted soul came to exist, we'd all fall in love and want to bear its children.

It's been done - done well a few times - and now it can go away for thirty years. No more brain-eating super-zombies solving crises in the Middle East. No more archangels feasting on baby dolphin hearts on the sly.

Go ahead and bring 'em back after the worm has turned, but I'm tired of them for the moment.

Posted by: @kent

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I'm tired of the cliche of the subverted icon; the bad angel, the good demon, etc.

The creature that deliberately turns Barbie into glop is just a misunderstood romantic, and if we explore how that poor, twisted soul came to exist, we'd all fall in love and want to bear its children.

It's been done - done well a few times - and now it can go away for thirty years. No more brain-eating super-zombies solving crises in the Middle East. No more archangels feasting on baby dolphin hearts on the sly.

Go ahead and bring 'em back after the worm has turned, but I'm tired of them for the moment.

Hear! Hear! 

Recently I read a 450 that tickled me. The protag had a supernatural (magic) defense mechanism. You should hear me rage about how in like every horror movie only the antag has powers and the hapless protags have only their (lack of) skills to keep them alive. Talk about overdone! So imagine my surprise when ... surprise! I can actually defend myself with the power I have... 

That's what I wouldn't mind seeing more of (and not just in superhero fashion where we assume everyone has something). The bad guy in a mask attacks and gets a face full of, I don't know, magical instant growth fingernails and is repelled. 

 

@kent it's funny as I find we agree on most things but for me, I would separate tropes and cliches. 

Tropes: the chosen one, the fallen angel etc.

Thing with tropes is, there's no set time period before they become new again. But there are new ways of doing them. And I think as sick of them as we might be, they worked for a reason at some point (and not usually just because of 'freshness') but because of plot dynamics, ability to create story tension. And so their re-use is still valid *if executed in a way that makes it original*. And often times we don't know what that is, until we see it, and then recognize that this author has done something totally new and worthwhile with the trope.

Cliches on the other hand are, to me, irredeemable. It is never going to be immersive or evocative to write "it was raining cats and dogs". (and ok, we can also separate out idioms and world appropriateness especially if there are no cats and dogs in this world lol) but literally that wording is so tired its *invisible*. It does not evoke a new image for me, I don't 'feel it'. So for me at least, those are the 'never again's, whereas tropes are 'you can, but you better be good, and I'm here for it if you are'. lol

@gideonpsmith 

I'm concerned with the icons. Good that has been historically good, no matter the social structure. Evil that has historically been irredeemable. In a society that has placed great importance on the shock value of entertainment, it has become cliche to denigrate that which has been held to be good, and to uplift that which has always been despised.

Cliche: An idea overused to the point of loss of meaning, an impactful element that has lost its edge due to repetition.

I have come to see this abuse of icons as lazy, relyant on shared meaning to set up a (not so) shocking twist rather than creating desperately flawed characters within the depth of one's prose. Subverting icons has become meaningless in its predictability. So, why use an icon at all, because the author of such fiction doesn't have to work to create the character, just pull it from central casting and move on. The reader can just go to Wikipedia and look it up if they don't know the name.

Overdone. Boring. The antithesis of...

Have fun.

An angry, "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I just found out five minutes ago!"

Or they were trying to tell and Character A wouldn't listen, or they got repeatedly interrupted, or something.

When character 1 is saying something important, and character 2 says something like "Hmm?" because they were doing something else and didn't hear it, and then character 1 just says "Never mind." And character 2 just... drops it?!?

I think I hate this mostly because I have ADHD and audio processing issues, so if I'm in the middle of a task, and someone says something to me, it's going to take a minute for my brain to process that someone is speaking, and then it'll be mid-sentence which makes it harder to parse what they're saying. Then if someone gets annoyed/offended when I say "what?" like "Weren't you listening?!" it's really frustrating. Like, I tried to listen, but you got a head start on me, and I missed something. Please just say it again. Also, if someone just said "Never mind" no way in heck would I drop it.  That's like when someone says they're "fine" when they're obviously not. Clearly you're mad that I missed what you were saying, please just say it again so I can hear it this time.

Posted by: @bootzenkatzen

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When character 1 is saying something important, and character 2 says something like "Hmm?" because they were doing something else and didn't hear it, and then character 1 just says "Never mind." And character 2 just... drops it?!?

Agreed! Especially when it's something we want them to be together on. For the most part, tension comes from what you know, not from what you don't. I want two characters I like to work together on something, instead, most times a story (or mostly film, I think) forces the character to be in some kind of trouble - and alone. Grrr.