Clichés: Know them, Destroy Them

It was a dark and stormy night...

How many times have you seen the weather outside, then, cozy in your blanket or beside your cat, said, "Yeah...No."?

But for a lot of writers, nights like those are the perfect background visuals for their stories.

And storms are really good mood-setters, right? And depending on where you live, stormy nights could be quite common (Florida) or a rare event worth noting (desert).Or if your character is trapped on a boat as a hurricane rockets up the coast- yeah, I doubt the hurricane is gonna be filled with dancing stars and soft breezes.

So why do people call this line cliche?

For one thing: Multiple people have begun their stories with these exact words!

It's been used, and it's been used by famous people.

Yep, Snoopy used it. [Charles Schulz]

And the lovely Madeleine L'Engle.

Heck, even Edgar Allen Poe, Neil Gaiman, and Terry Pratchett have poked fun at it! And Ray Bradbury and Alexander Dumas have also drawn on it.

So if they got away with it, why can't you? And why is it considered bad?

We'll look at it's origins, first.

Washington Irving used it as part of an opening sentence for The History of New York. The person who gets made fun of (there is even a contest in his [dis]honor), however, is Edward Bulwer-Lytton in Paul Clifford.

This is the opening line:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents-except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Technically, it's not garbage. You might say it's even better than a lot of what you read on wattpad and in some other stories. It's just what many consider an example of purple prose- flowery, excessive writing that often draws as much attention onto itself as it does on the story. [real world example of purple prose: Kids use purple prose all the time when they're trying to hit whatever arbitrary word count their teacher assigned them.]

Why does it work for some of these people?

Satire. Making fun of it. A lot of people are cool with this.

"It wasn't a dark and stormy night. It should have been, but that's weather for you."

- Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

That, and not everyone thinks this is a terrible line/theme to start a story with.

Some people think it's one of the greatest opening lines!

So where is the problem?

1. Some people find it cliche to use a sentence that has been used before, and used a lot. I mean, people come to your story wanting to read your story ...Why do they want to read someone else's words? It's not at all original. What you do with it might be, but the words themselves aren't, sorry.

2. Some people take "dark and stormy night" cliche to mean ANY time a story starts with a dark and stormy night, it's cliche. -Heck, they might say ANY time you start with weather, it's cliche!

Basically, if you use these exact words and it isn't in a slightly humorous fashion, you're kicking your story in the leg and dropping it into a wolf den. If you just set the mood in other words, the story might survive, but there's still a good chance someone is going to come along and take a bite out of it.

Where can it be okay? Weather is happening every day, all the time!

1. When it's relevant to the story. Ask yourself- what is so important about the weather that it deserves to be my opening sentence? Do I have to establish the weather in order to tell the first part of the story? Is it making that much of an impact on what the first character I introduce is doing? ...Or would they still be doing the same thing, no matter if it was snowing, raining, or a full moon?

For example, Josie can't steal the diamond out of the Smithsonian during the day, because there's a million tourists and security guards in there.

2. When it is actively effecting/affecting something. For example, Sue is waiting for her workday to end so she can grab drinks with her hot boss and coworkers -this is the first time the temp worker has ever been included- and she wants to leave a good impression. And of course, she looks outside and it's pouring. And she has no umbrella, and her blouse today is white and since she's a temp, she has to park way down on the street.

3. When it's interesting. If you can write in a way that makes the weather or day/night sound interesting, by all means, give it a shot. If you're just going to establish the weather with: it was a million degrees and hot and sunny in the Sahara- well, that's not exactly an interesting use of weather. Or if you're saying the sky was blue... big deal. You still want to reel your readers in with a good hook. If your weather is just being described like weather, consider holding it off for a sentence or a paragraph and bring the reader something more intriguing.

For example: Everyday, a little past noon, the sun beat down on the Whispering Grub's back alley and turned the gravel beside the dumpster into fetid, oily hot coals. It was here that Pam Carbuncle's body baked, until even the bar's most plastered denizens noticed the rotten aroma.

Don't forget that in most cases what matters is the story, not the weather.