The Ultimate Guide to Harry Potter Fanfiction

Are Cliches Always Bad?

If you had asked the Elli who was writing this book in 2016 this, she would have said yes without hesitation. The Elli of 2020, however, has some reservations about that. 

Over the years, I've gotten countless comments and direct messages from people. They want to ask me about their story, if I have any tips, what I think about this or that storyline or detail that they're thinking about. People comment on nearly every chapter where I've said something is cliche and to be avoided asking if their story might be the one exception. I've spent years replying to these messages, trying to approach each one as an individual with a unique story to tell.

Do you know what I've realized? 

There are exceptions to every rule. 

Every single thing that I've ever said in this book has an exception. 

Every trope, every cliche, every horrible Mary Sueish power or plot point or character can work, sometimes. Sure, you have to work harder to pull it off. Sure, you have to compensate. But it can be done.

What I've found is that 90% of the time, when I'm talking to someone about some trope that they're worried about using, I find that I can think of several ways it can be pulled off all right. And this has made me realize that while cliches certainly don't make a story, I'm not sure that they, in and of themselves, break a story either.

A prime example is my own work. I'm still not sure why it's been as popular as it has, because to me, I look back at the earlier books and they're riddled with cliches and bad writing and cringe-worthy content. However, something I poured my heart and soul into from the very beginning was making my characters are real as possible. That happens to be one of my strengths in writing, and it's paid off big time, and made up for a lot of the mistakes that I've made over the years. 

Another thing is that when I've been able to, I've tried to find ways to justify and/or balance out my inclusion of different tropes and cliches (Let me give a quick spoiler alert here, just to be safe). For example: my main character, Astra is incredibly overpowered, to an insane, embarrassing degree. She can do nonverbal magic with no training or even awareness that it's a thing as a first year, and gets her Patronus down in just a couple of months. She has crazy, plot-convenient dreams that don't get explained for until the sixth book when it comes out that she's a seer, which makes her even more overpowered. Because of all of this, I take every chance I can get to make this all work against her. Her dreams give her a lot of confusion and anxiety, and she never understands what they mean. Being a seer puts her in actual danger and only makes her life worse. Being effortlessly good at magic is no help when that just makes your least favorite teacher hate you back. 

That's a way I've found to approach cliched, Mary Sueish character tropes: always balance it out. This is a principle you can take to your stories, too, in whatever way works best for you! Don't be afraid to cause your characters trouble, to actually hurt them in meaningful ways. It'll only help your story and make your characters grow!

Now, as for cliche plot tropes, those are harder to get around. However, I've found that you can pull off nearly any cliche if your characters are strong enough. I know I mention it a lot, but I pulled off a freaking Triwizard Tournament, for crying out loud! Everyone tells me its incredibly cliche, but everyone also keeps reading. Why? I'm not sure, but I think it's because my cast of characters is compelling enough to make the cliche a little more forgivable. 

While I still advise you to avoid cliches, I also think it's okay to use them. Your reason can literally just be because you love it, too. That's totally okay! If you put your effort into crafting well-rounded, real characters, anything else is forgivable. 

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This might not be the best articulated chapter I've ever written, but I think it's one of the most important. This is something that I feel everyone, especially new writers, needs to hear. It's okay to use cliches! That doesn't make your writing bad! There are exceptions to every rule. Maybe one day you'll look back and realize that your story wasn't the exception, and wonder what could have induced you to write it. Maybe you won't. Either way, writing it now is only going to help you grow as an author, so no matter the quality, it's good for you to write it!

Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about this topic, or any other!

Until next time (whenever that may be),

~Elli