100 Things You Should Know About Writing (Part 2)

27) About Ideas and Cliches

So if you want to actually finish a book, make damn sure you're writing something that YOU like. Not your best friend. Not your mom. Not the thousands of hypothetical readers that you MIGHT one day have. And DEFINITELY not people on Wattpad who don't even know you. 

Even that's not a guarantee that you'll actually see a project to its end, but it's the best chance you can give it. So what if Erotica with Unicorns makes like a ton of money these days? If you don't like writing it (or any other genre, for that matter), the whole process of writing will kill your inspiration. 

As for what you like: Why are you asking us? Only you know what awesomeness you're envisaging. 

So every time I find a post in the IYW club that centers around "Is this a good idea?" my first reaction is to cringe (I'll explain why in a second). My second reaction is: I don't know, but if you came up with it, it's probably worth writing at least a few chapters to see how it pans out. See, the good ideas aren't the ones that get limitless praise before you've even written a word. It's about how very excited you are to write it. 

If you're not excited/thrilled/intrigued to write your story, your idea probably needs some refining. 

Never throw an idea away, though. Write it down somewhere. Your brain might one day find that one missing piece that does make your idea exciting/thrilling/intriguing enough to write. 

And now, to the reasons I cringe. 

Firstly, ideas aren't copyrightable. Which means that although individual chapters you may write is technically protected, you can't do anything to protect the idea behind them. So if you have this awesome concept that's going to set the world on fire and everyone simply loves it because it appeals to everyone? Someone else *might* just have the missing pieces you're currently lacking. And they *could* put a minor spin on your story and steal your idea. 

Do you know what you can do if that happens? Absolutely nothing. 

Which is the reason why I don't even post any of my fiction on here until it's done on my computer and I can prove that I've had the thing done for long before it was made public. My entire book has been written, which means the copyright belongs to me. Your first five chapters to an unfinished book can be easy to alter. Especially given that you've gone and gave away the hook, the character, the concept, possibly the middle, the main conflict and the stakes away. 

Worst case scenario here is that that book based off your stolen idea goes on to make a million bucks. But even so, I've known some writers that have been plagiarized and they compare it to having their mind defiled by the plagiarist. 

Don't let it happen to you. 

"Oh, the people on Wattpad aren't like that! They'd never!" 

Don't be naive. Thieves lurk everywhere. 

Moving on to my next reason why I cringe when new kids share ideas and the one thing almost guaranteed to piss me off whenever I read someone saying it: 

"It's a bit cliche."

Grrrrr... just writing that phrase gives me the heebie jeebies. Why? you might ask. Oh, let me count the ways...

Because I've seen way too many people discouraged from even trying an idea because some fool (and yes, cliche-callers are being foolish whenever they cliche-call) told them that their idea is cliche and therefore not worthy of being tried. 

Yeah, I'm definitely hearing howling now. And quite loudly too. Wow. There are are seriously a lot of you guys. 

Because 99.9% of all story ideas are cliche. Even the cliche-callers'. 

"A man is trapped in a thing and must find a way to survive the villains while saving a bunch of hostages." (Die Hard, Under Siege)

"A man is not trapped in anything but a sucky situation, but must save x from y." (Most superhero comic books)

"One woman must choose between two guys vying for her love." (Twilight, and a whole host of other YA and romance books.)

"One woman must overcome the many struggles on the way to be with the one man she loves." (Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Cold Mountain.) 

"The one person discovers that he's the chosen one who haves to save the world." (Harry Potter)

"A group of people who have nothing to make them special have to save the world. Or their favorite pizza joint." (Lord of the Rings--arguably--and recently Red vs Blue. Or how about Guardians of the Galaxy?)

These are the sorts of ideas that are called cliche. And by now you probably realized that the list goes on and on and on to cover every single plot premise in existence. EVER. 

You can't win. There's no way you'll even be able to find something that hasn't in some way been used before. 

And if you don't know this fact and call any such premise a cliche, you have obviously put zero thought into what actually goes into creating stories. And as such, the person you're criticizing as having a cliche idea would be better served if you had shut up and clicked on to some question that you actually know something about. 

Which brings me to the next reason that makes me gnash my teeth when I see cliche-calling. Calling a plot/character/idea/scene/anything cliche is like someone going to the doctor with sniffles and them replying with: "By GOD! You're sneezing! That's $500 please." 

Plots/characters/ideas/scenes/anything else in a story that I can't think of right now that gets called cliche become trite, hackneyed, or overused through a lack of forethought and development by the author. In other words: any of those things being cliche isn't the problem. It's the symptom. And your calling out the symptom helps exactly zero writers. 

So stop. Just. Stop. 

Rather point out something like: "Well Bob, I'm seeing that you haven't really put thought into using conflict to make your plot more tense. And on the subject of conflict, why don't we let it be in his head instead of letting there be an antagonist?" See? Helpful stuff. Stuff the writer can actually work with. 

Okay? 

Okay. 

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooosaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Thanks for reading, all! I hope this trip to my dark side was exciting for you and not too gnarly. Here, have a cookie. If you think I made a good point, please feel free to vote. 

Also, please feel free to comment on thoughts, opinions and suggestions as well as to ask some questions. (Please not: How do I make my stories less cliche?) As always, I'll answer questions in the comments, and if your comment inspires me to write a new section, I'll dedicate that section to you.

Coming up in 100 Things: 

The Excuses We Use

Dealing with Fear, Doubt and Insecurities

Writing Multiple Points of View (MarissatheMarvelous)

How to Keep Dialogue Real (MarissatheMarvelous)