Clichés

By Saarh Jevsa

So, I'll start out with an example character named Marek, a mouse.

He's tall, strong, handsome, fit, an excellent warrior with a quick smile and an even quicker sword arm. He's a bit of a loner, he’s fearless, and he won't stand for injustice. His parents are dead from some raid or other and now he's out to take revenge on the fox who did it.

What's wrong with this character? He has everything he needs to be the perfect warrior. And that is his problem: he's perfect. And there are so many perfect characters like that out there that he's become a cliché.

Now if Marek was adjusted a bit— Try this:

He's short, but strong for his size. His head-fur is insistently ruffled, causing him to look little-boy cute. He laughs at everything he finds funny, which is nearly everything. He uses a short sword but is clumsy with it, though if the need arises, he can fight fairly well. He likes a lot of friends and is brave, though he does have his fears. His parents are alive and well in the North.

The second example is the exact opposite of the first. And still cliché. So what can you do to make him un-cliché?

The problem with all clichés is this: they give no personality to the character. If there was some scrap of individuality at some point, it was worked out in the process of making them perfect. To fix Marek, he needs some substance, not just how he acts. Just as an example, you could make him over-emotional, or perhaps give him phobias of certain objects/persons. Perhaps make him a lovesick poet, or have him always quoting certain persons. Perhaps he acts like the typical hare in the way that he always seems to have/want food. If written properly and well, he could be just as or even more enjoyable than the stereo-typical warrior. Here's an example of what he might be like with a few of the traits listed above:

He's average size for a mouse, very scruffy looking, giving him resemblance to a shrew. He quotes his great uncle constantly, and will often take everything that is said to him the wrong way or too harshly. He has a weakness for anything food-wise, though his plans to raid the pantry are always thwarted by his strict younger sister. His family is large and he always acts as if they're all imposing on him. He is clumsy with weaponry but fancies himself a legendary warrior and is always waving a butter knife around.

See the difference?

Even though I changed Marek into a non-warrior, that doesn't mean you can't write about warriors. I've read plenty of stories with original warriors, but I can't seem to write about a warrior unless they’re cliché, so I turned the example into something I could write about. I've found that if you have difficulty writing about a certain type of character unless they're stereo-typical/cliché, you ought to try writing about a different type of character. (For example, me writing about a scholar instead of a champion.)

I've always wondered if a cliché could be all right if it was well written. Such as, taking one of the first two examples as a character and writing about them. The character is bland, but the writing is fabulous. Is that okay?

I've come to the conclusion that if you have a bland character, you get tired of writing about them. My opinion is that you shouldn't waste your skills on bland characters, as it could cause your idea to fail and you might not know what caused the failure.

You should write about original characters, as it's much more enjoyable to read and write, but you shouldn't make a character that you dislike. Funny doesn't mean your character is stupid, which I made the mistake of assuming a while back. She was canned half-way through the story. If you've read Mossflower by Brian Jacques, you'll see that Gonff is hilarious, but very intelligent.

I hope this was helpful to those that read it. So there you have it, my two cents on clichés.