Every Cliché has a Silver Lining

After several months away in sunny Florida, I looked at my office with fresh eyes and decided to sort through my bookcase. Deciding which books to donate and which to keep is always a hard choice for me. Books are for me what shoes are to my eldest daughter. Still, I vowed, this time, I would be ruthless. I grabbed a paperback entitled, "The Dictionary of Cliches, Over 2,000 entries," off the top shelf. Easy, I thought, this is one easy choice since not using clichés has always been emphasized in writing courses, writers' magazines and my writers' groups. As writers, we're challenged, instead, to new ways of saying things rather than lazily using clichés.

Still, I was curious. After all, the author, James Rogers, had found clichés noteworthy enough to collect and publish them in dictionary form. I opened the book. Generally, Rogers agreed, clichés are fairly considered overworked and banal ways of expression. But, he asserts, "clichés can serve as the lubricant of language: summing up a point or a situation, easing a transition in thought, adding a seasoning of humor to a discourse."
I continued to read and quickly became immersed in the whole concept of what makes a cliché a cliché, where they originated, and how, if used wisely, they might actually enhance my writing. Here's some of what I learned.

What is a cliché? A cliché is language that's lost its originality, been overused over time, or a new phrase that's been repeated too often. All we have to do is watch the news and hear phrases like "connect the dots," or "at the end of the day," to know it isn't not only old phrases like "butter wouldn't melt in her mouth" (first coined in 1546) or "footloose and fancy free" (first uttered by Will Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream) that qualify as worn-out expressions.

Origin of clichés. When I began reading the entries, I couldn't stop. Many, I found, were Biblical in nature ("Makes your hair stand on end, Job 4:13-14), while others were from great literature and poetry ("A horse of a different color," Twelfth Night – Shakespeare, once again). Here's a sampling of where some others began.
A-OK: Coined by a NASA official in 1961 to indicate that the mission was going well.
Between you and me and the lamppost: The first recorded use was by Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby,1839). 
Cried all the way to the bank: Liberace used this phrase in his 1973 autobiography.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth: A Latin version of this expression appeared in a work by St. Jerome in A.D. 420.
Throw the baby out with the bath water: Used more than once by George Bernard Shaw. One example was in 1909 (Pen Portraits and Reviews).

When to use clichés. Like Rogers, I believe there are instances where clichés are appropriate and can actually help move your story forward or help catch the reader's attention.

As titles. Consider the cliché "time to kill." John Grisham put that cliché to good use in his book, A Time to Kill. or, "saving grace," as evidenced by Julie Garwood's bestseller, Saving Grace, as well as, Burden of Proof (Scott Turow) and Stone Cold and True Blue, both by David Baldacci, one of my personal favorite mystery writers.

As a title with a twist. The title of this blog, for example, uses a cliché with a twist by substituting "cloud" with the word "cliché." This works especially well, I think, in an opinion humor piece. A title can also be twisted by substituting a synonym for one of the words in a cliché. Something like "Beyond the pail," or "make head or tale of it," or "the American weigh." I haven't written any of these articles, but I can picture the first as a woman with morning sickness, a compulsive liar as the second, or a look at obesity in the third, a really heavy (excuse the pun, please) topic right now. Another example is Jodi Picoult's book, "My Sister's Keeper," altered from the original cliché, "my brother's keeper."

As a way to make a point with as few words as possible. The columnist, George Will, for example, wrote an article in which he said the Chicago Cubs fans support their team "through thin and thin." In fiction, a term like "Trojan horse" can encompass an entire concept that could require several paragraphs to explain that could distract from the main fiber of the story.

As a tool to show minor characters without a lot of verbiage. Letting a minor character use some clichés can help develop a personality without a lot of description.

As a marker of a particular era. Allowing a minor character to use a phrase like "the cat's meow," helps the reader to visualize the 1920's.

Caution: It takes some skill to know "when to hold them and when to fold them," clichés, that is. For example, while they can help "flesh out" minor characters, allowing main characters to do the same creates a stereotypical, flat character, so avoid that "like the plague." So, "when in doubt, leave them out," or run them by your writers' group. For now, I'm going to put my cliché dictionary back on the shelf. It's earned a spot in my reference library.