Is Your Writing As Flat As a Pancake

Is Your Writing as Flat as a Pancake? (And Other Worn-Out Clichés)

Vonda Skelton

Do you feel like you’re caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to your writing? Are you looking for a way to write outside the box? Are the editors as mean as snakes when it comes to their rejections? Join the fun as we tackle a list of overworked clichés…and soon you’ll be whistling a new tune!

Cliché:

1) a trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse, as sadder but wiser, or strong as an ox.

2) a trite or hackneyed plot, character development, use of color, musical expression, etc.

3) anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse.

(From Dictionary.com)

Writing in clichés is the lazy-man’s writing. The least effective speaker/writer uses the most clichés or dimwitticisms. It’s easier to use clichés than to look for a more accurate, more vigorous word or description.

Is your description witticism or dimwitticism? ;-)

What more accurate, more vigorous words or descriptions could you use in place of these tired, old clichés?

· a bad penny:

· a beehive of activity:

· like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders:

· flat as a pancake:

· mean as a snake:

· like beating a dead horse:

· hard as a rock:

· in the wrong place at the wrong time:

· jumping with joy:

Redundancies: true fact, cooperate together, continue on, reason why, sit down

Sometimes we purposely use clichés for titles or emphasis on the cliché itself:

God Uses Cracked Pots, Patsy Clairmont

Hand Over the Chocolate and No One Will Get Hurt, Karen Linamen

The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, Erma Bombeck