If you’ve read Personal Demons, you know I had a lot of fun with clichés. I mean lets face it, could Luc or Gabe possibly be any more cliché?
Luc: Dark hair and eyes, piercings, drives a black Mustang, and his name is LUCIFER CAIN!
Gabe: Light, blonde and blue, makes everyone feel all warm and fuzzy, and his name is GABRIEL!
(You see what I did there, with the cliché colors...? ;p)
I’ve caught some flack in reviews for “not being creative enough to come up with something better,” and I could see their point if I hadn’t been so totally in the readers face with the clichés. I find it amusing that when clichés are so obviously done on purpose, not everyone sees that they were done on purpose. I like to write with humor, and sometimes, using clichés is funny.
Something else I’ve seen in reviews feeds into the reason why I used these cliché angels and demons. Comments such as, “How could she (Frannie) have not known he was a demon?” pop up occasionally.
This was exactly my point!
Think about this… In your real life, wherever you are today—in Starbucks, or the store, or at work—imagine a dangerous looking boy with dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes and piercings drives up in a vintage black Mustang. He gets out of the car and walks up to you. “Hi, I’m Lucifer Cain.”Ask yourself this: Are you going to think, “OMG! He must be a demon!”?
I think not. Because that's TOTALLY CRAZY!
That’s exactly what I was going for. When I was writing Personal Demons, I asked myself that question: If angels and demons truly did walk the earth, if they looked exactly how we expected them to look, and acted exactly how we expected them to act, would we recognize them for what they were?
I really loved toying with this concept throughout Personal Demons, and I’m happy with the result. Most readers seemed to have picked up on the fun in it, so thank you. *smooches*
So, question of the day: Is it ever okay to use cliché in fiction? When you see it, do you find it funny? Can you think of some clever uses of cliché?
And, our Original Sin Teaser! This, once again is from Frannie’s POV.
#OriginalSin p23 Frannie: Gabe saunters over to Luc’s wall mural. “You know you’re playing for the other team now. You’ve really got to do something about this,” he says, running a finger over the roiling orange and gold molten surface of the Lake of Fire.
Luc smiles. “Hey, you can take the demon out of Hell, but you can’t take Hell out of the demon.”
I loved your use of puns and twists on phrases about hell. Your opening lines was why I purchased the book in Borders! So keep at it!
ReplyDeleteI loved Personal Demons, I thought the way you handled the cliches were great. There are ways to use cliches and there are ways to abuse them. You did the former.
ReplyDeleteAnd that, right there, is one of the reasons I loved the book as much as I did. Plus, y'know, demons are awesome.
ReplyDeleteI think if well done, cliches can make dialog fun.
ReplyDeleteYou're certain you used the cliches on purpose?
ReplyDeleteI think cliches can only be fun in parodies, used in regular works of fiction, cliches point to uninspired and lazy creative choices.
ReplyDeleteEven if you're certain you used them on purpose you still missed the mark of 'funny.'
ReplyDeleteI think your use of cliches are really well done! They made the characters and dialogue interesting. They were not overdone, and I think they worked for the story really well! You should not listen to anyone who says otherwise. :) It is your story, and you should be able to use whatever cliches you want.
ReplyDelete