Is it really a sin to...

You can write anything that moves you. No one can stop you from writing it.

If you intend to seek publication...well...

The thing is, you're aware it's been done before, forever. So I'm sure you know things like (a) exactly how cliche it is (b) how hard it is to get published from that kind of story (c) anything else I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Hell, go ahead and write it. And have fun doing it. Who knows, you might write it in such a familiar-yet-fresh way that it'll get snapped up

Not such a sin

You know, I find when reading agents' websites that they are always looking for something "fresh" or "different," but I think they say that b/c they get bored reading querys after querys that all sound the same.

The irony is: I find many of the books that I enjoy the most have somewhat cliche plots, or at least themes in common.... As long as there is something in there that gives it a unique voice or makes it uniquely your's, I think it absolutely can be enjoyable (at least for me, I don't know about the agent!!)

I think you have to write what your heart tells you--when your heart is in it, it comes out right.

Eh, turn the cliché on its ear. Make the farmboy a farm teen, and make the farm a body farm. And make the kingdom Hell. Darken it up? I don't know, just change the conventions to put your own personal brand on it. But most of all, have fun!

Just a few examples of this plot, from well known sources:

1. The Inheritance "Cycle" (and you know you want to be careful doing something Paolini did...)

2. The Wheel of Time

3. Star Wars

4. The Lord of the Rings


Now, each of these--'cepting Paolini--has a slightly different spin on it. So yes, it is cliche, but no, it's not necessarily a sin.

Liosse de Velishaf said:

Just a few examples of this plot, from well known sources:

1. The Inheritance "Cycle" (and you know you want to be careful doing something Paolini did...)

2. The Wheel of Time

3. Star Wars

4. The Lord of the Rings


Now, each of these--'cepting Paolini--has a slightly different spin on it. So yes, it is cliche, but no, it's not necessarily a sin.

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You know there are other types of work than farming, right? City kids can be just as poor, and can be put into different kinds of peril that is special to their milieu. Can't it be a fisherman's son/daughter? A slave boy/girl? Cooper? Brewer? (Tavern owner's children are a little cliche, too.) Cheesemaker's child? Tailor's son/daughter? Tanner's child? City guard's kid?

Farmers are easy to write because no research has to go into what they do (or little research). It's the easy way out.

As far as rising to power: I don't think that's cliche. It's destined to rule that's the biggy. Or the Prophesied One , which has been used in everything from the bible (the original messiac story) through the Lord of the Rings to Dune and The Matrix back again. It's well worn-out. It's that part of writing that's exploratory that beckons us past the cliche, the part where we wonder what it'd be like if. And, while it's easy to imagine yourself in a world that's pre-created, going on your own adventures, why would you want to be mired in the same deep-rutted paths? It's so much more exciting to explore a world you've never seen before, and hack your own roads out--even if you have to back up and adjust your course now and then.

WinterDusk14 said:

Not totally cliche. Like a cliche-non-cliche kind of story.

I've written a lot of stories far from being cliche, and as much as I could tell, are original. Thing is, just for once I want to write something simple and move along the depth of the story as it progress.

Destined One? I think I'll leave that part off. I hate those such events about prophesies and chosen ones, etc.

You guys got the point about farm boys, etc... I could think of a different way than that.

Here are my views I wouldn't include in this 'cliche' story.

- Chosen One
- Evil Empire
- Father being the Right Hand of Evil Emperor
- Death of the Master
- Death of the Uncle
- Mystical Artifacts that can save the world
- Prophesies

That's what I could think off for now. I've already outlined how the story would go, and cause of it my previous manuscripts are placed onto a hiatus. The only thing stopping me right now, is that I am looking to get published, and worried I could be making a mistake and waste some years of my life in vain.>__>

Oh well, I'm young. Cheers!

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I look forward to reading it.

I have the perfect example of how not to do it: read the three books (if you must) that Christopher Paolini started writing at AGE 15. The first was made into the movie "Eragon". It is the motherload of sword 'n' sorcery cliches as written by a teenager. Even adult screenwriters couldn't fix the chaos. I only finished watching the movie because the person who paid for the ticket was next to me.

The third book just came out and a fourth is planned. I couldn't even make it through the first book (after viewing the movie) because of all the tripe. I get why he wrote them (and the literary campaign around them) but they're just so Bad that it angers me something much better wasn't published instead. And no, I have not read Harry Potter.

It's not a sin at all. The only "problem" with those stories is that they've been done a million times and agents are tired of them. But they still sell, so all that really matters is how good the book is. A fresh spin would certainly help though.

If you're going for YA, I'd suggest reading some of the YA fantasy out there to get a feel for the pacing. It's a lot faster than adult novels.

It's not what you do -- it's how you do it.

I've got clichés - My MC is an orphan bar wench who doesn't know who her dad was. But instead of it being a Shock Revelation at the end, it's a Shock Revelation in chapter four, which helps drive the rest of the book.

I've got a bloody great warrior with a magic sword too. But personality wise he isn't quite what people expect I don't think. He's far and away the fave character as far as my betas are concerned.

People like something they know, something comfortable, as long as it's not too comfortable. So by all means have a cliche or two in there, turn 'em on their ear as someone said upthread and make those characters / situations yours.

Do it with style. And there will be no reason you can't sell it.

IMO it's not a sin if you can put a unique twist on it or at least write it in an interesting way (usually through the characters). The fact that such plots have become cliche means that SOMEBODY likes reading them.

Granted, it'll be a tougher sell. I know I'm heavily biased against vampire stories or anything that mentions elves or orcs or boy wizards, for example. I won't completely reject reading such stories, but it's harder to convince me to do so.

Inarticulate Babbler said:

You know there are other types of work than farming, right? City kids can be just as poor, and can be put into different kinds of peril that is special to their milieu. Can't it be a fisherman's son/daughter? A slave boy/girl? Cooper? Brewer? (Tavern owner's children are a little cliche, too.) Cheesemaker's child? Tailor's son/daughter? Tanner's child? City guard's kid?

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Exactly.

Another consideration is how many of the clichés you use. One cliché in a novel that is otherwise fresh and innovative will probably go unnoticed, especially if you avoid the cardboard stereotype by writing a fully fleshed-out farmboy who isn't just like every other farmboy in every other story. But if you pile cliché on top of cliché on top of cliché it's going to sink like a stone.

Show of hands.

Has anybody on this thread ever been a farmer?

raises hand

but really, you don't have to make him a farmer. Nivarion starts out a humble lumber jack, so its not a farm boy cliche.

have him do something on a farm other than farm. a farming community had lumberjacks, coopers, thatchers, fletchers (optional for wheat farmers, not so much for live stock), blacksmiths, cobblers, miller, carpenter, mason

depending on the type of farm you can have other things. like a thatcher in a cold area with a lot of snow wouldn't have work, because thatching doesn't hold a lot of snow, so you would have shinglers. in a place without stone, you would probably not have a mason. if you are in a grassland, lumberjacks and carpenters are out of the job. if the ground has a lot of clay, then you would have a kin and a bricklayer.

your setting is important to what type of farm you have, and your options for jobs. he can still be a farm boy, just don't make him a shepherd and don't make him some plodder that picks weeds out of the rows all day.

Watt-Evans wrote his trilogy about Arlian specifically to use as many cliches as he possibly could, and it got published. Then again, he wasn't a new writer when he decided to do that.

Smiling Ted said:

Show of hands.

Has anybody on this thread ever been a farmer?

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I grew up on a small ranch, if you're willing to stretch the definition that far.

It's reasonable for a pseudo-Medieval setting to have a lot more farmers than the modern world, but that doesn't mean there aren't other occupations as well.

I've been a bar wench, and I've worked on farms.

Let's face it, in a small village there's only so many jobs you can do.

Why does any character have to be an ignorant bumpkin from the hinterlands?

People can have a surprising amount of knowledge and insight mixed in with superstitions, and that doesn't even cover the jaded whores, street-savvy pickpockets, footsore caravan guards, and a host of other merchants, traders, mercenaries, landless younger sons, pilgrims, refugees and all other types of folk that don't live in idealistic pastoral settings.

The young farmer is usually a vehicle of conveying the world to the reader through eyes unfamiliar. But there are other ways to do it.

WinterDusk14 said:

Write a novel with cliche points. Like farm boy living happily in a village, gets raid by the king's men, flees, rises to power, etc and etc.

Cause, just this once, I want to write something like that. Something of a farm boy rising into glory of his own.

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The Eye of the World starts with a farmboy, and the series is *about* his rise to power. I think you can publish anything if you write it well.

Go ahead and make him a farmboy if you want--it gives you a very simplistic board to start with. Then, you'll be surprised once you start writing him: you'll instantly know if he's too cliche as you create his internal character/struggles, which will be uniquely his (or your's). Then the plot may be similar, but the character can turn out to be refreshingly different.---Still may be tough to sell(!) and will have to have a very original sounding query.

Bartholomew said:

The Eye of the World starts with a farmboy, and the series is *about* his rise to power. I think you can publish anything if you write it well.

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But he is forced to do so due to prophecies, and the member whose post you quoted wanted him to rise to power by himself and not being forced to do so by prophecies etc...

Stories use archetypes all the time without being cliché. They do it by finding something fresh, interesting and relevant about the archetype.

A farmboy archetype is used in a 'hero's journey' sort of story because symbolically, farming means a humble, simple, unimaginative existence. But because it's also cliché, 'generic' farming adds no interest nor thematic significance to the story.

You can still write a good story from it though -- either choose another symbol for a simple existence (e.g. shelf-packer in a supermarket), or make the farmboy background interesting and relevant to the story.

For example, a farmboy whose parents are dead, who has five younger siblings to support but who is only sixteen, has a very different existence to a swineherd who has known no other life. A farmboy whose farm suffers drought, locusts, cattle-theft and native attacks may lead a very practical life, but not a boring one.

My suggestion: for each cliché you use, make it suck for the main character in a new and interesting way so that it engages the audience and is no longer cliché.