Cliche is the New Cliche
I have absolutely nothing new to add to this topic. Even my title isn't entirely original. I'm not even sure why this topic is so popular.
Is it that people are actually reading a lot of cliches in urban fantasy? There does seem to be a lot of repetition in character (vampires, werewolves, faeries, dragons) but the same could be said of white women in literary fiction, or child abuse victims in memoirs. Oh wait, real people can't be cliches.
Or can they?
Many writer's seem to be concerned about writing a "Mary Sue," which I'd never heard of before setting up a livejournal. What's weird about the concept is that this cliched character is seen as a negative, some cookie cutter individual that ends up polluting every newbie or hack's manuscript, as though siphoned from a medical waste dumpster.
It strikes me as ironic.
Over the course of my other career as a psychotherapist, I must have worked with well over a thousand individuals. And the one thing that unified them (and us, really) was that human beings are surprisingly similar and ultimately predictable. I've yet to meet a unique precious flower. Mary Sues exist, people. They're all around you. They are you.
So, as a writer, my character's reflect that belief. I guess that's what makes them unique, or at least unique from each other, or their own cliches. I say don't worry about it. Everything comes full circle. What is cliche was once original. Now people are flipping cliches inside out and playing with the results. So many people, in fact, that it's become a cliche in itself.
Cliche is the New Cliche. Like I said.
Or someone did.
I've bored myself.
Is it that people are actually reading a lot of cliches in urban fantasy? There does seem to be a lot of repetition in character (vampires, werewolves, faeries, dragons) but the same could be said of white women in literary fiction, or child abuse victims in memoirs. Oh wait, real people can't be cliches.
Or can they?
Many writer's seem to be concerned about writing a "Mary Sue," which I'd never heard of before setting up a livejournal. What's weird about the concept is that this cliched character is seen as a negative, some cookie cutter individual that ends up polluting every newbie or hack's manuscript, as though siphoned from a medical waste dumpster.
It strikes me as ironic.
Over the course of my other career as a psychotherapist, I must have worked with well over a thousand individuals. And the one thing that unified them (and us, really) was that human beings are surprisingly similar and ultimately predictable. I've yet to meet a unique precious flower. Mary Sues exist, people. They're all around you. They are you.
So, as a writer, my character's reflect that belief. I guess that's what makes them unique, or at least unique from each other, or their own cliches. I say don't worry about it. Everything comes full circle. What is cliche was once original. Now people are flipping cliches inside out and playing with the results. So many people, in fact, that it's become a cliche in itself.
Cliche is the New Cliche. Like I said.
Or someone did.
I've bored myself.
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