Have you ever been in “the zone”? You know, that experience where everything just flows and you write with uninterrupted joy and it all just comes together naturally and pours out onto the page? That’s what writing is supposed to be like, right?
Well, maybe. But more often than not, the stuff I produce in this exalted state is among my worst samples of writing. So, why is that the case?
Everyone is different, so your experience may vary substantially from my own, but I’ve come to realize lately that there are good reasons why my writing is worse when it is the result of “inspiration” rather than “toil” and I thought I’d share those reasons with you.
Reasons Cliche Comes Easily
Firstly, I live in a story-saturated world.
“So what?”, you might ask. Well, hopefully my point will become clear as we progress.
I have grown up with access to more books, more drama, more plays, etc. than any generation that has preceded me. I have imbibed thousands upon thousands of hours of storytelling (and I am all the richer for it). But on the other hand, I have seen many, many, stories delivered up in the same way. So many, in fact, that my first thoughts about a story are often based on this accumulated history. I am so immersed in story that my first thoughts about stories are almost invariably the thoughts of others.
Does this mean I am advocating cutting myself off from the stories of others so that I can be more original? Definitely NOT. I have written elsewhere about how important it is to learn from the work of others.
What I am saying, however, is that the story-saturation of our culture, while on one level creating a sophisticated audience, also creates a powerful library of cliché that sits very near the surface of my thoughts and must, as a result, be actively resisted.
When I am looking for ideas, it is only natural that I turn to what I know. And the things that come most readily to mind are the ideas with which I am most familiar – namely clichés.
It is not surprising, then, that when I “get into the zone” and the writing just flows, the result is often a stitch-up of ideas we’ve all encountered a thousand times before. This is because the ideas I am drawing from are the most readily accessible, and familiar, ideas I have in storage. I might feel like I am bursting with creativity, but what I actually accomplish is the recording of a bunch of tired, overused, and worn-out thoughts that have been done-to-death, often more effectively, by others.
This is not always the case. There are times when I do achieve originality “in the zone”. The preconditions of this are very specific, however, and arise from research.
Avoid Cliche through Research
What do I mean? Here I’m referring to “research” as the pre-work I do getting to know the world and characters I am writing about. When I know my fictional world well, having researched it effectively, that knowledge sits above the body of accumulated cliché that fills my consciousness. It doesn’t mean that cliché doesn’t still filter through – it does – but when it does, it is because that section of the world that I am writing about is insufficiently fleshed out and is, therefore, less familiar and authentic to me than it should be.
The kind of research that is necessary to better writing, for me, is two-fold. It involves researching facts in the real world. If I want to write about online dating, I need to understand how online dating works. If I want to write about life in an auto-mechanic’s shop, I need to understand what really goes on in an auto-mechanic’s shop. A lot of that knowledge won’t find expression on the page, but if I don’t do the research, my writing will lack authenticity and originality, turning the story into a rehash of elements from other books, films, and shows I have absorbed that add-up to a surface representation of the IDEA of online dating or work in an auto-mechanic’s shop rather than the real thing. And if I am only offering up the idea of a place or process, it will always seem generic and dull.
This is no less true of fantasy writing. If you know nothing about the reality of what’s involved when hunting large predators, you are not going to produce a very interesting story about hunting a dragon. The result will, in all likelihood, be a collection of clichés about dragon hunting cribbed from other fantasy works that is both derivative and boring. If your monster is intelligent, then learning about how law enforcement seeks to track and trap a fugitive in the real world can help you add that extra layer of authenticity and originality to your dragon hunt as well.
Research into facts helps me avoid cliché, but so does research into my own imagination. My characters need to be extremely well understood if I am to produce authentic reactions to the world in which they live. If I know the upbringing, values, preferences, traits, traumas, friends, enemies, and thoughts of my characters intimately, I am less likely to rely on clichéd reactions to circumstances. But this level of knowledge requires research and preparation. I need to have thought my characters through, deliberately; getting to know them in such depth that I can “know” exactly what they will do when they come across a dead body for the first time, or how they will react when dumped by a romantic partner. I need to know them well enough that I can understand and predict their thoughts, their feelings, and their actions authentically. This is true even where I am using archetypes as the starting point for my characterization.
Avoid Cliche through Brainstorming
A further technique that I find helpful is brainstorming. I have learned, over time, not to trust my first intuition (for the reasons mentioned above). The first few ideas I generate are typically the easiest and laziest ideas I can find and need to be purged in order to reach the more original ideas I am capable of.
Let’s say, for example, that I want to tell a love story. How are my characters going to meet? At a singles bar? At a nightclub? These are way too commonplace. Arguing over a book-reservation at the local library? From different sides of a protest rally? These ideas are more original. At a jail visiting their incarcerated partners? The more ideas I generate the more likely I will be able to find genuinely original and interesting ideas into which I can insert my characters to avoid cliché.
My ideas are never my best without a significant amount of research into the real-world equivalents to, and imagined setting and people of, my fictional world. But even then, I need to brainstorm, filter, and actively weed out the clichés in search of the gold of originality that will, hopefully, get those who hear my plays to say, “wow, I never saw it quite like that before”.
For this reason, and in the hope of growing in my creativity and competence as a writer, I rarely trust my first intuition in writing anymore. For me, being “in the zone” has become a warning sign that I need to, at the very least, double-check whether I am relying on easy, familiar and worn-out clichés to tell my stories.
What techniques do you use to avoid cliché in your writing? Post your suggestions in the comments below.
Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2020 .
This is a very timely post and so true – whichever medium someone is writing for. “In the zone” is a description that I have been using myself for years, despite family and friends not really understanding what I meant. I particularly like your brainstorming thoughts.
Great article – thanks for sharing your experiences.
You’re welcome. And thanks for the kind words.