Is this terribly cliche?

jallenecs · Jul 17, 2010

Like I have said before, I usually stick to the fantasy/SF forums, so I hope you'll forgive me for asking what may be an obvious and stupid question.

I have a current WIP going, but I expect the first draft to be finished by the end of August. I have two possible stories to pick up and run with in September, and both of them could safely fall in the horror genre.

Idea One: I have seen dozens of tv "reality" shows about "ghost hunters" and "ghost busters." I've also seen "Supernatural" and I like it well enough, for a TV show. I had this idea about a ghost hunter team, three people, who go on a ghost hunting expedition, hoping to make one of those TV reality show type documentaries.. But the ghost hunt goes terribly terribly wrong.

Idea Two: This disaffected young teen -- emo, goth, whatever the heck they're called nowadays -- becomes fascinated with this old house that she finds sitting back on the wooded property near her home. It's not necessarily that the house is haunted, not in the traditional sense, with apparitions and such. More that the house kind of haunts her: she becomes obsessed with improving and protecting the house, and the house somehow encourages this behavior. "Improving and protecting the house" starts small (attacking kids who come to throw rocks at the windows, like kids do), and starts to escalate and escalate, until the house is "demanding" that she bring her friends here and kill them. All the while, her friends are trying to break this symbiosis-thing going on, and it all gets very ugly at the end.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious, I guess: my favorite horror story is the haunted house. What I want to know is, are these stories incredibly cliched and done to death? Is the haunted house story dead? Is it alive and well, and just MY ideas trite?

FOTSGreg · Jul 17, 2010

Yes, it's terribly cliched. Write it anyway. First, you'll benefit from the process. Second, you'll likely find that the story you end up with isn't quite as cliched coming out as it might have been going in.

Calla Lily · Jul 17, 2010

Yes, they've been done, but as Greg says, write them. Everyone's take is different. The 2nd one does remind me of Burnt Offerings. Still: it's your idea. Give it life.

jallenecs · Jul 17, 2010

Oh, I fully intend to write at least the first one. My daughter is 19, LOVES to write (but has no aspirations, enjoying it solely as a hobby), and she and I dreamed up this story idea to write together, sort of a writing-geek mother-daughter project. No intentions of selling it whatsoever; we're going to write it, print up copies for friends, bind one copy for my future grandchildren, and be glad to have enjoyed writing one together.

The second one kinda reminded me of Christine, by Stephen King, only with a house instead of a car. But I think it has possibilities, if the execution is good enough. Whether I can give it the proper execution? Now that's another conversation entirely.

ODDin · Jul 18, 2010

Horror usually concerns itself more with execution than originality. Take Stephen King's Salem's Lot. The plot? A vampire comes into town and starts preying on the populace. You really don't get any more cliche than that. Still, it's a great book.

jallenecs · Jul 19, 2010

ODDin said:
Horror usually concerns itself more with execution than originality. Take Stephen King's Salem's Lot. The plot? A vampire comes into town and starts preying on the populace. You really don't get any more cliche than that. Still, it's a great book.

Really, seriously? I'm new to professional horror writing (though I've always loved reading them). Virginal, in fact (beyond a few short stories in my twenties), so forgive me for being clueless. I've always stuck to the SF/F end of SF/F/H.

Maybe I'm old fashioned and the most trite person on the planet, but I just ADORE haunted house stories. I think they're the coolest scary stories ever invented. You can keep your gore and your vampires and your Lovecraftian nightmares. Gimme a creaking floorboard and boogeymen in the closet, any day of the week. Shirley Jackson is my hero in this realm.

Yes, feel free to point and laugh. I probably won't notice; I'm having an epiphany here.

I'm a big believer in keeping an idea notebook (I know some aren't; it's a personal thing to the writer, I think). My notebook must have fifteen haunted house stories in it that I've always wanted to write, but told myself, "No way, it's a waste of your professional focus, haunted houses are the biggest cliche going."

It's more about execution than originality.... I'm getting pretty good at the execution part. MY characters, MY take on certain tropes, MY ideas of what's scary and what's not.... Is that where the originality comes in: how I interpret a classic (cliche) idea?

Maybe I SHOULD take a stab at it. It's only a couple months to do an outline and first draft. I'm not kidding myself that I can compete with you guys who have been focusing on horror for ages. But if nothing else, like somebody said, it would be a learning experience at the very least. And it could be fun.

FOTSGreg · Jul 19, 2010

jallenecs, It's not a competition. Write what you write and how you write. I'll do the same on my end. Neither of us is likely to enter into any kind of competition with the other regarding agents, publication, or sales.

It's that kind of thinking that gets writers depressed and recalcitrant and to plunge them into depression and writer's block.

It's not a competition. It's luck, and it''s skill, and it's talent, and it's luck.

But mostly it's skill and talent.

With a smattering of learning and craftsmanship

And some luck.

ODDin · Jul 19, 2010

Well, I'm not a professional horror writer either (or a professional writer at all, I've never been published yet), but that's the impression I get. Originality is always awesome, of course, but there are *lots* of different stories with the more or less same elements when it comes to horror.
There are lots of horror stories about haunted houses, the dead rising from the grave, a monster that's been asleep somewhere and has awoken and bad things ensue, somebody tries to summon a demon and bad things happen etc.
Personally, when I read a story or watch a movie that features, say, a haunted house, my initial reaction isn't "oh damn another haunted house story what's up with that," but rather "ooh, nifty, a haunted house, now let's see they have to say about it." The bottom line is that a horror story needs to grab me, immerse me into it and make me care for the characters and be afraid with them. A wholly original plot isn't necessary for that.

jallenecs · Jul 19, 2010

FOTSGreg said:
jallenecs, It's not a competition.

Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I never think of writing as a competition. So far as I'm concerned, there's always room for another story in the world.

I meant I'm a horror writing virgin. I have not got enough arrogance to think that I can do as well as you all, who have been focused on it for a long time. I'm going to make some stupid mistakes that you guys would never make.

but it could be a lot of fun, so I got nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by trying.

EFCollins · Jul 19, 2010

jallenecs said:
Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I never think of writing as a competition. So far as I'm concerned, there's always room for another story in the world.

I meant I'm a horror writing virgin. I have not got enough arrogance to think that I can do as well as you all, who have been focused on it for a long time. I'm going to make some stupid mistakes that you guys would never make.

but it could be a lot of fun, so I got nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by trying.

Bolding mine.

Ha! We make stupid mistakes all the time. I know of only one of us that is close to perfect and well, Lily is an ex-nun (Ha! Sorry Lily. I had to.). I myself have sent in the wrong file, left notes to self in the draft (sheesh), and just two weeks ago had events in one story happening out of sequence. I still can't help but load my stories with cliches... just to see if I can make them work without being called on them (and many times, I'm not called on them.

) I've had a girl with no arms waving at the cops, a dude with four different eye colors (on the same page... I apparently had a tough time with that bit and kept rewriting it over and over until my brain would move on. Brain stutter!!), a four armed girl whose extra set of arms is never mentioned until well after it should have been... it goes on.

The point I'm trying to make is that everyone makes mistakes. Nutshell it!

quicklime · Jul 29, 2010

FOTSGreg said:
Yes, it's terribly cliched. Write it anyway. First, you'll benefit from the process. Second, you'll likely find that the story you end up with isn't quite as cliched coming out as it might have been going in.

cliche smiche......turns of phrase that are cliche are bad, everyone reads them and groans. "Ideas", well, there's only so many out there--how many steps removed is Twilight or Bridges of Madison County from Romeo and Juliet? Especially tweilight...star-crossed lovers, warring houses.....and the story was old when William took his quill pen and sat down.

what makes the story unique is in a large part your voice, your scenes, and how YOU tell it.

That's not to say if you re-wrote turn of the screw with all black people and changed the dialogue to hackneyed ebonics and kept the rest the same you'd have a bestseller, but superficially almost any idea today is a sort of cliche of something done before--the details beyind the superficial are what count.

Write the one that calls to you, and make it yours

Kitty27 · Jul 30, 2010

jallenecs said:
Like I have said before, I usually stick to the fantasy/SF forums, so I hope you'll forgive me for asking what may be an obvious and stupid question.

I have a current WIP going, but I expect the first draft to be finished by the end of August. I have two possible stories to pick up and run with in September, and both of them could safely fall in the horror genre.

Idea One: I have seen dozens of tv "reality" shows about "ghost hunters" and "ghost busters." I've also seen "Supernatural" and I like it well enough, for a TV show. I had this idea about a ghost hunter team, three people, who go on a ghost hunting expedition, hoping to make one of those TV reality show type documentaries.. But the ghost hunt goes terribly terribly wrong.

Idea Two: This disaffected young teen -- emo, goth, whatever the heck they're called nowadays -- becomes fascinated with this old house that she finds sitting back on the wooded property near her home. It's not necessarily that the house is haunted, not in the traditional sense, with apparitions and such. More that the house kind of haunts her: she becomes obsessed with improving and protecting the house, and the house somehow encourages this behavior. "Improving and protecting the house" starts small (attacking kids who come to throw rocks at the windows, like kids do), and starts to escalate and escalate, until the house is "demanding" that she bring her friends here and kill them. All the while, her friends are trying to break this symbiosis-thing going on, and it all gets very ugly at the end.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious, I guess: my favorite horror story is the haunted house. What I want to know is, are these stories incredibly cliched and done to death? Is the haunted house story dead? Is it alive and well, and just MY ideas trite?

How dare you,sir/madam? Emo and Goth are not the same.

*Hmmph*

Write them anyway. What makes a story unique is your way of telling it.

jallenecs · Jul 31, 2010

Kitty27 said:
How dare you,sir/madam? Emo and Goth are not the same.

*Hmmph*

Write them anyway. What makes a story unique is your way of telling it.

It's madam, and I claim ignorance and being too old. My daughter claims she's an emo, but mostly what I can see is that it makes her bad-tempered and she won't keep her hair out of her eyes.

And I think I will write the story, if there's enough plot (I haven't outlined it yet). I just adore haunted house stories, cliched or not

Kitty27 · Aug 2, 2010

jallenecs said:
It's madam, and I claim ignorance and being too old. My daughter claims she's an emo, but mostly what I can see is that it makes her bad-tempered and she won't keep her hair out of her eyes.

And I think I will write the story, if there's enough plot (I haven't outlined it yet). I just adore haunted house stories, cliched or not

Hello,Madam! All is forgiven and you are not old! You're just mellowed out like a fine wine.

Tell her to come on over to the Goth side. Emos are swaggerjackers.

I LOVE haunted house stories. Write it and have fun with it. You love it so that'll make the process easier. I write about the most overdone supernatural creatures ever aka vampires. But I wuv them!

jallenecs · Aug 3, 2010

Kitty27 said:
Hello,Madam! All is forgiven and you are not old! You're just mellowed out like a fine wine.

Tell her to come on over to the Goth side. Emos are swaggerjackers.

I LOVE haunted house stories. Write it and have fun with it. You love it so that'll make the process easier. I write about the most overdone supernatural creatures ever aka vampires. But I wuv them!

Well, apparently, she has given up being emo this week, and gone straight to full-on bitch. Turning eighteen must be rougher than it was when I was a kid.

I actually dig vampires, too. But I want them to be SCARY, not sparkly or angsty.

Umm..... not to show my age, but what is a swaggerjacker?

Camilla Delvalle · Aug 24, 2010

Both stories sound interesting to me, and I would read both if they are written with quality.

nkkingston · Aug 24, 2010

1 - watch Ghostwatch. Bear in mind it was aired in 1992, before any of those reality TV haunted house shows were common, before most people had any kind of on screen TV guide, and that Micheal Parkinson is essentially Britain's Oprah.

(preferably watch in one chunk wi8thout rewinding at any point, rather than on YouTube. Yes, this does mean piracy, since the only produced DVD went out of print years ago and the BFI don't seem to understand how much I'm willing to pay for it...)

Basically, yes, it's a cliche, but when it's done well you won't be able to look a cat in the eye for months.

Satori1977 · Aug 26, 2010

Kitty27 said:
Tell her to come on over to the Goth side. Emos are swaggerjackers.

I LOVE haunted house stories. Write it and have fun with it. You love it so that'll make the process easier. I write about the most overdone supernatural creatures ever aka vampires. But I wuv them!

I agree, goth is better. I just don't understand the whole emo thing, guess I am too old as well (though I don't consider 30's to be old). And don't worry about vamps, they might be overdone at the moment, but they are classic and I love them too!! Have my own vamp story in the works.

jallenecs said:
Well, apparently, she has given up being emo this week, and gone straight to full-on bitch. Turning eighteen must be rougher than it was when I was a kid.

I actually dig vampires, too. But I want them to be SCARY, not sparkly or angsty.

Umm..... not to show my age, but what is a swaggerjacker?

Try not to worry too much about your daughter, she is a teenager, they all go through that. And yes, I think it does keep getting harder. It is much different now than when I was 18, and that was only 14 years ago. I am really scared for when my 7 and 3 year olds become teens.

And if you want to write scary vamps, go for it!! We need to get back to that, I hate sweet, loving, sparkly vamps. My vamps are evil, just the way they should be.

And if you want to write a haunted house story, do that as well. It is a cliche and overdone because it makes for great books (and movies). And because people love them. As long as you have something new to add, it is all good.

jallenecs · Aug 27, 2010

Since we've wandered off onto the subject of vampires, I have to say that I really loved the original Dracula, by Bram Stoker. OK, the epistolary style sucks 95% of the time, and I'd hate to write one like that. But you gotta consider that, for its time, it was an incredibly sexy, almost pornographic book. Very racy stuff for those Victorians.

In the movies, Frank Langella just oozed sexuality when he played The Big D. I wonder if there are any books out there nowadays that play to that: vampires are evil, undead, bloodsucking creatures of the night, but really really sexy and dangerous at the same time?

Other · Sep 3, 2010

When it comes to writing, cliches are cliches because they work and people love them. Have fun with it!

Geoff Gander · Oct 21, 2010

Both of those ideas are a little chiche'd (sorry, can't put in the accent), but as others have said write them anyway. You'll feel better for having done so, and even if nothing comes of those stories you'll have characters, scenes, and other material that can be ported to other projects.

Hope this helps,

Geoff

Is this terribly cliche?

jallenecs

Searching for Wonderland

FOTSGreg

Today is your last day.

Calla Lily

On hiatus

jallenecs

Searching for Wonderland

ODDin

jallenecs

Searching for Wonderland

FOTSGreg

Today is your last day.

ODDin

jallenecs

Searching for Wonderland

EFCollins

World Class Rambler

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

Kitty27

So Goth That I Was Born Black

jallenecs

Searching for Wonderland

Kitty27

So Goth That I Was Born Black

jallenecs

Searching for Wonderland

Camilla Delvalle

Dreaming of other times

nkkingston

Bemused Girl

Satori1977

Listening to the Voices In My Head

jallenecs

Searching for Wonderland

Other

Geoff Gander