Avoid Stolen or Borrowed TalesA writers job is towritestoriesnot to steal or borrow them and, with a coat of fresh paint, pawn them offas original.That should be obvious, but its not always completely clear. Our own private thoughts, dreams, intuitions and fantasies are inevitably colored by what psychiatrist Carl Jung called thecollective unconsciousthe vast, reservoir-like body of shared human experiences and of myths, symbols and legends.Most sensational subjects have been treated to death. Result: a minefield of clichs. And, as novelist Martin Amis tells us, good writing is a war against clich. The storys problems might be partially redeemed by crisp dialogue, vivid descriptions and an impeccable edgy stylebut the plain fact is, theyshouldntbe solved. Steer clear of tired plots and you, your characters and your readers will avoid all kinds of heartache.Resist The Lure of the SensationalFor beginning and experienced writers alike, the temptation to choose intrinsically dramatic subjects is hard to resist. Drug deals and busts gone wrong, kidnapping, abortion, car crashes, murder, madness, rape, warwith such sensational raw material to work with, how can writers go wrong?They can and they do.A writer who chooses to set his story in a mental hospital, for instance, may bumble into a minefield of clichs. He will need to avoid all the stereotypes of loony-bin lore coined by Ken Kesey inOne Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest,and recycled in a myriad of TV shows and books.Not that youcantset a story on a mental ward, or that you cant tell stories about mental patients and the abuses they suffer at the hands of their keepers. But if you do so, you need to realize what youre up against.And what youre up against is clich.Turn a Stereotype on its HeadEvery milieu has its clichs, its stock characters and stereotypes. A common stereotype is that of the starving artist. Just once, Id like to read about a talented, hard-working painter, supplementing his small income from gallery sales through teaching, grants and fellowships. This, after all, is the reality for many professional fine artists.Even poor Vincent van Gogh, that most depraved and deprived of artists, fails to live up to the image. The letters he wrote to his brother Theo and others show how sane this madman was. True, he often went hungry, and he suffered from incapacitating seizures. But the cartoon of the foaming madman does him no justice.The real problem with clichs is that they deprive us of genuine details, which, though less sensational, are both more convincing and more interesting. A deeper look into the life of any artist will reveal facts that have it over all clichs.The truth is the best weapon we have for authenticity and against clich: Whether its the literal truth or the truth of imagination doesnt matter.Tell the Story Only You Can TellWhen we produce stories that are derivative, were not being honest with ourselves. Were borrowing someone elses aesthetics and selling them as our own.In choosing intrinsically sensational subjects, writers think theyre getting a freeor a cheapride. But as with most things in life, you tend to get what you pay for.The best way to avoid clich is to practice sincerity. If weve come by sensational material honestly, through our own personalexperience or imagination, we may rightly claim it as our own. Otherwise, wed best steer clear. Our stories should be stories that only wecan tell, as onlywecan tell them.Keep it Real by Taking it SlowMy favorite exercise is to ask my students to write two pieces, one at a time, each about a minute long. Piece 1 should rivet the reader; Piece 2 should bore the reader stiff. Each student reads both pieces out loud.Whenever Ive done this experiment, in almost every instance the result is the same: The riveting piece bores, while the boring piece holds interest. There are several reasons for this. In their effort to grip us, beginning writers tend to rush: They equate their own adrenaline with that of the reader. Conversely, when trying to bore, the same writerstake their time; they dont hesitate to lavish 250 words on the subject of a wall of white paint drying. Andto their consternationthe result mesmerizes. At any rate it holds our attention.But far worse than rushing, in trying to interest us, most writers abandon sincerity and, with it, authenticity. They choose sensational subjects on the basis of little personal knowledge and no genuine emotional investment. They do so on the assumption that theirownstories arent interesting enough, that what they have to offer isnt suitably sensational. In fact, every human is in some way unique, and this in itself makes us each sensational in our own ways.In pretending to be anyone other than themselves, writers sacrifice the very thing we most crave from them: authenticity.Deliver Your Story From Circumstantial ClichAs the moth is attracted to flame, less-than-vigilant writers are attracted to the bright light of intrinsically dramatic situations, where the drama is preassembled, ready to useconvenient.Were drawn to clichs because theyre convenient. And convenience for writersconvenient plots, convenient characters, convenient coincidences, convenient settings or situations or strings of wordsalmost always spells doom.A writer sets her story in an abortion clinic. What are the expectations raised by such a setting? To the extent that the common expectations raised by this setting are met head-on, the story fails. It descends into clich and denies the reader an authentic experience.What will the author do to rescue that drama from our expectations, from clich? Steer clear of such territory to give us a story that reawakens our senses to a subject that has in and of itself become a clich.Elevate the OrdinaryF. Scott Fitzgerald said, All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath.Either your chosen subject plunges you into the imaginations deeper waters, or your story will probably drift into one of two shallow waterways:1. the autobiographical estuary, in which you write strictly about characters and events from your own life; or2. the brackish bay of stereotype and clich.The way to rescue this and other clichs may lie in exploring those parts of the story that dont belong firmly to the clich. By investing our characters with concerns and struggles that point away from the hackneyed and sensational and toward the earthier dramas of ordinary existence, by taking the most trite elements of our storiesout of the foreground and putting them in the background, we begin to lift them out of clich.Rescue Gratuitous Scenes From Melodramatic ActionOverly convenient subjects are prone not only to clich, but tomelodrama.We call a story or a scene melodramatic when its protagonists are too obviously heroes or victims and its antagonists are obviously villains. Another acid test for melodrama is the tendency to resort to violence, either emotional (catatonic seizures, gasps, screams, floods of tears, verbal confrontations) or physical (fisticuffsor worse, depending on the caliber of melodrama and available firearms).Gratuitous violence is synonymous with melodrama. So is the gratuitous gesture, as when a character who has just come into a fortune tosses fistfuls of greenbacks like confetti into the aira clich that probably has never once happened in real life. (When it does happen, I want to be there.)Any over-the-top action results in melodrama. A male lover, freshly dumped by his girl, throws himself into the nearest river. Melodrama. Or, being told by the same girl that she loves him, he boards a crowded subway and kisses everyone in sight, including a blind man and the conductor. Melodrama. The specific circumstancesmightexplain such behavior (and casting a young Jimmy Stewart would help). But the likelihood is slim.Fight Overly Convenient Plot Points With AuthenticityMelodrama is to authentic drama what crab sticks are to the real thing: an inferior substitute.When people punch each other in stories, suspect imitation.In real life people seldom use their fists. Its dangerous, and illegal. A solid fist to the bridge of a nose could result in death, and appropriate charges.Sometimes the mere piling on of sensational events results in melodrama. Another result of cramming too much drama into too few pages is a paucity ofauthenticating detail,the sort of small, precise, carefully chosen and calibrated descriptions that help suspend a readers disbelief and make it possible for her to enjoy a story no matter how unlikely or outrageous.Byslowing downand taking the time and trouble to imbue our stories with authentic, rich, specific moments and details, we achieve real drama and avoid its floozy cousins, sentimentality and melodrama.Curb Melodrama with SubstanceIn real life, peopledothrow water in their spouses faces, and shout accusations at each other; they even commit murder out of passion or for vengeance. Such things can happen in your fiction, too. But when violent confrontationsbecomethe story, when they are the rule and not the exception, then violence usurps drama.The result is melodrama, what soap operas are made of. And soap operas arenotdramatic; they are intrinsically nondramatic, since their perpetuity depends on nothing ever being resolved. The characters neverchange.In soap operas we get wish fulfillment and negative fantasy in place of real resolutions. When a relationship is dramatized, nearly all of the dialogue is head-on and histrionic, vomiting up plot and backstory. Accusations and apologies are served up along with great gobs of personal history.A more dramatic, less histrionic approach would convey the status quo between characters up front, through exposition, leaving subsequent scenes free to explore behavior and character. We read the story to see how these characters will cope (or not) with each other underspecificcircumstances (e.g., they have to pick a coffin for their mothers funeral). When authors explode drama rather than describe it, their material deteriorates into soap opera and blows up in everyones face. Avoid the temptation to do so, and your fiction will be more powerful for it.1)Love triangles- I might be the only one here but I love a good love triangle. I think it comes from the desire to feel wanted. I might not want my love life that complicated but I love my fiction to be that way. I like trying to figure out which guy the heroine is going to choose out of two good choices. And often times,each guy representsa different live that she must choose from. In a lot of ways, love triangles are just a great metaphor for the hero/heroine choosing how they want to live their life.

2)Best friend love interest- I am always a sucker for this cliche. It's an oldie but a goodie. I was going to put "tale as old as time" here too which works perfectly since Belle and Beast become friends before they fall in love. Plus, these relationships are always so cute and healthy. They already know how to talk to each other so it's always great for them to find their happiness in the end.

3)Fiesty red headed heroine- I like my heroines with a little fire and if they are people that are willing to speak their mind. I also happen to love red-heads so this is a win-win for me.

4)Sexy supernaturals- I'm not saying I need my vampires to be gentle or my mermaids not to lead boats into rocks. I'm just saying I want them to be hot while doing it. I don't care if it's the main character that is something other or the love interest but I do like the supernatural to be a little mysterious and just a little bit up to no good.

5)Absent parents- I'm not picking up a YA to become parent of the year. I hate it when parents get all meddlesome and become an obstacle. I'm not saying that I don't want a family there at all. I'm just saying that I don't want Mom grounding heroine to become the main obstacle keeping the heroine from doing what she needs to save the world.

6)Forbidden love- I'm not just talking vampire and human either. I like forbidden love of any kind whether it be warring families, a 17-year-old falling for a college tutor or anything in between. There can be a zillion different spins on this and it still makes it exciting.- See more at: http://amberinblunderland.blogspot.com/2012/03/saturday-discussions-ya-cliches-you.html#sthash.BAe0v8w0.dpuf