Cliches of Life

As some of you know, I'm a writer. Well, obviously if you're reading this blog, you know that. But I mean I write stories-- novels, works of fiction. This stems back to my childhood before I could even write. I would make up my stories and then draw them out, sort of like a comic book. I made up stories all the time and, not to toot my own horn, I was pretty good at it for my age. I started actually writing my stories out in novel form in my tween years. I still remember the first one I actually finished. It was the first in a series of books called "The Crossed Swords Series". They were strongly influenced by the Zorro stories, with lots of my own twists thrown in. Now, I'm still working on my BOM-historic novel that I hope to someday get published. I've written and rewritten it several times and I'm still unsatisfied with it.

Anyways, my point is that I've had a lot of experience with fictitious writing (as well as non-fiction stuff, like essays for school and stuff). Now there are several different directions in which I could take this post, but the topic I really want to focus on here is cliches. I don't want to talk about cliches in writing, I want to talk about them in life.

People don't really give me credit for how observational I really am. I notice a lot more than people think, I normally just don't say anything, or I ignore it, or I pretend I didn't see it for whatever reason (I also have a history as an actress. I can really put on a face if I want/need to). I often perceive life as a story, because to quote Doctor Who, "we're all stories in the end", so I look at life like a book or a movie.

All. Stories. Have. Cliches.

At least one. This is a fact. I mean, I seriously cannot think of a single story that did not have at least one cliche in it somewhere. Whether it was in the plot, the dialogue, the setting, the type of character, etc. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. No, no. If they're done properly, at the correct time, and/or there are not too many of them, I fully appreciate the cliches in the story. Sometimes even if they're painfully obvious, I still will sometimes enjoy a good cliche, because nowadays people are trying too hard to be original that I enjoy seeing stuff that's old hat. However, if I am bombarded with cliches, then the story automatically loses several points in my book.

I feel the same way with life. I see cliches all the time. After all, the stories in our books and movies are based off of our everyday life. The cliches had to start somewhere. Of course, it goes both ways. Something may have started on TV or something and now it's happening everywhere.

So, if I am bombarded with cliches from someone or something in real life, they automatically lose several points in my book, just like a book or a movie. I'm praying to high heaven that he never finds my blog and reads this, because that would be extremely embarrassing, but I went on a date this last Saturday. Now, it was a good date, I had a really good time, so don't get the wrong idea here. But it was full of cliches. The date itself was original: drive into Hollister, lunch, then drive to Carmel, and walk around the mission. Nothing really cliche there. However, how I was treated was the cliche part. He always opened the door for me (all the doors), he offered me his jacket, he paid for everything, it was always "ladies first", and if you can think of any others, he probably did it. Now I know that some of those are expected from a gentleman on a date. And maybe I'm just different from other girls, because I'm fiercely independent and don't fall all over that stuff (my friends would love it, I know that). But mostly I'm not impressed by it all because they're cliches. Now I wouldn't have minded if he had hit me with just one of them, or if he did all of them, but did them jokingly like he knew they were cliche and was just trying to be funny, but he wasn't.

When I'm writing, I try to be original, but I throw in cliches every once in a while just to spice it up a little. Like I keep saying, one or two of them are OK, but when you're flooded with them, it's a turnoff and you're probably going to get a bad review. At least, that's how it is for me.