Sta.sh
Not Impressed Specifically, I'm taking about things such as:
1). OMG ur charackter iz insane THAT'S CLICHÉ!!1
2). OMG ur charackter haz a depressing past THAT'S CLICHÉ!!1!1
3). OMG your character was raped at one point THAT'S CLICHÉ!!1one!
4). OMG your character has blonde/black/red/brunette hair THAT'S A CLICHÉ COLOR!!
5). OMG your character has green/blue/yellow/red//brown eyes SO CLICHÉ!!1one!
Etc, etc. I could go on for days with this list, but for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to stop now, and get to the point. Which is, STOP. It's getting old. Everywhere I look, I see comments, journals, and artworks dedicated to mocking all things that might possibly be considered overdone, and while yeah, there's a lot of shit out there that truly is ridiculously cliché, the way people generalize everything into this category without much outside thought is fucking retarded. Just because something has been done more than once, or is common, does NOT automatically make it fall into the category of literary clichés.
Let me give you example. A typical cliché is "a boy with comes from a sad past and suddenly gains magic powers and rises from nothing to become a talented wizard/witch/sorcerer/whatever and eventually has to battle against dark forces to save his world." One could say that this type of plot has been overdone; the first examples of this were fairytales and stories from hundreds of years ago, with various minor differences, of course. However, that's more of less the basic core plot of J.K Rowling's Harry Potter books, which are (arguably, I suppose) pretty fucking amazing, and well-written. The depth of the writing, and her use of details makes a somewhat-cliché plot come to life, and made one of the best book series I've ever read.
Example number two: Another cliché is "Insane character with tragic, depressing past serial kills/tortures/eats/murders a bunch of people, ends up getting apprehended/arrested, then later escapes and manages to get away from the authorities." This sort of shit has been done a lot, so it's easy to overlook a story like this as being cliché. However, this is a (very basic) summary of the plot the Silence of the Lambs movies/books, specifically how it pertains to the character Hannibal Lecter. This is a very well-written, engrossing story that uses a somewhat-cliché character type. But, they do it well, and make it believable. What matters isn't that it is, god forbid, a bit 'cliché,' what matters is they've used this sort of character and made it work. I won't even go into Lecter and Clarice's relationship; that would certainly set off the
Example number three: Apparently, it's cliché to have a character come from a abusive/troubled/tragic/fucked-up past, and grow up to be a 'psycho' or killer. I'm sure this sounds pretty cliché- "Man was teased as a kid, abused by his father, had a fucked-up childhood/adolescent life, and grew up to become a serial killer, targeting young boys specifically." Well, that's the story of John Wayne Gacy, known as the 'Killer Clown,' who was an actual person. Also, the killer Robert Hansen, another REAL person, was known to have had a 'depressing' past; he was bullied at school, had a rough relationship with his parents, etc. And he grew up to murder over 15 prostitutes by releasing them in the Alaskan wilderness to hunt like animals. Ed Gein, who killed two people, and exhumed bodies to fashion things out of their skin and bones, was seriously abused by his fervently religious mother, and teased by kids at school. Richard Chase, AKA the Sacramento Vampire, who killed six people, cannibalized them, and drank their blood, was known to have suffered abuse from his mother. And yet, characters with fucked-up pasts growing up to be fucked-up is so cliché and unbelievable. (Note: I am not condoning their behavior because of their pasts, nor am I saying fucked-up past automatically= psycho). Wikipedia- bite me, I know it's not the most reliable source- cites a study done on incarcerated serial killers that states, "…Almost all of the serial killers in the study had experienced some sort of environmental problems during their childhood, such as a broken home, or a lack of discipline in the home. It was common for the serial killers to come from a family that had experienced divorce, separation, or the lack of a parent. Furthermore, nearly half of the serial killers had experienced some type of physical and sexual abuse and even more had experienced emotional neglect. When a parent has a drug or alcohol problem, the attention in the household is on the parents rather than the child. This neglect of the child leads to the lowering of their self-esteem and helps develop a fantasy world in which they are in control…the child becomes sociopathic because the normal development of the concepts of right and wrong and empathy towards others is retarded because of the child's emotional and social development occurs within his self-centered fantasies. A person can do no wrong in his own world and the pain of others is of no consequence when the purpose of the fantasy world is to satisfy the needs of one person." Well, fuck, someone better go tell all those real-life killers that they're being cliché, because tragic pasts are overdone. Therefore, they obviously couldn't be a believable type of character, because having a fucked-up past and growing up to be a nut job is just SO unrealistic.
This leads me to the point, I suppose: it's not necessarily what you write, it's how well you write it. If everyone just labels things as cliché from a first glance, or because something an author chooses to do has been done before, you're missing out on what could be potentially good works. Honestly, originality is dead. Got an idea you want to write about? Well, tough shit, because it's probably been done before. Got a story you want to tell? Well, someone's already had characters that are similar to yours, sucks to be you. EVERYTHING has been done before by someone else, at least to some extent. So, fuck clichés. If you write something well enough, you can get away with using types of characters/plots that have been done before, so long as you simply DO IT WELL.
Running around calling everything cliché and overdone just because it's a commonly used character type or plot is pretty damn stupid, in my opinion. Look at the work as a whole, don't pick it apart looking for clichés because you think pointing them out makes you 'cool' or 'edgy;' in fact, screaming CLICHÉ at everything you see rather makes you look like a jack-ass.
Things like this annoy me as a writer because they really discourage people from going out and creating their own stories/inventing their own characters/whatever else for fear of being seen as cliché, or even worse, as the dreaded 'Mary-Sue.' That in itself being another term that irritates me, but that's a journal for another time. Limiting one's creativity because they're so worried about the judgment or opinions of a bunch of stupid internet people is pathetic. Who cares if someone calls your work cliché? Go for it anyway; if it genuinely does suck, then usually, it'll get better with time, as more development is put into it. And if it doesn't…well, it's not like it's gonna get published if it's utter shite, so fuck it. I guess my point is, if you wanna write something, write it. Don't waste your time catering to the standards of the internet community, because really, how much do those people's opinions even matter to you anyways?
