Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Avoiding Cliches in Plot or Story Lines #MFRWauthor #amwriting

Avoiding cliches is hard. I'm typing two manuscripts - one very revived and most of the cliches are gone. The other is a rough draft and almost every scene is a cliche. I will attack them in other re-writes and hopefully they will be gone or most of them gone. So let's look at some cliche ridding methods.

Many stories are based on a twice-told tale. Think of all the romances you've read or written. Or the murders the characters have committed or solved. They all cry out to become cliches. The first thing you need to do create original situations with fresh complications. Suddenly the cliched plot takes new dimensions and though the majoy complication is there the story is different.

Create a major complication around a somethingnew in the present. Something that didn't happen in the past. I'm working on a story that's a custody battle of sorts. Not a hidden baby but one with a twist. Both of the major characters are related to the baby but not to each other unless you think in-laws are related. Gives a new complication to the major one. Think of Solomon wanting to divide a baby in half.

Base your story around something that's unique to a certain part of the country or the world at a particular time.

Create your plot of story line around an idea that exposes something about people or something that has been taboo in the past.

Remember when looking at plot or story line believe you have something interesting to tell. This is the first step toward avoiding one kind of cliches.