Killing Cliches: A Writing Exercise

Nothing ruins good writing like a bad cliché. Here are a few examples to give you an idea of what I mean:

Michael stood in the doorway, mouth gaping like a fish. There she was, his wife, stretched out luxuriously on their bed, in their bedroom, with his boss. Michael's blood boiled and his face turned red as a beet.

Of course rage is the appropriate response to finding one's wife and boss in bed together. But how distracting are the incongruous clichés? "Gaping like a fish" and "red as a beet" just sound silly. They evoke comical images that are completely out of place in this context.

Using the same story as above and a some creativity, you get loads more impact. Compare:

Michael stood in the doorway, skewered in place with shock. There she was, his wife, stretched out luxuriously on their bed, in their bedroom, with his boss. Michael's blood rose, pounding out a battle cry in his veins, his face flushed scarlet with fury.

As you can see for yourself, the cliché is not your friend. So how do you dump that cliché anchor? Try this exercise from a creative writing class I took a few years ago.

Step 1: Make a list of common clichés.

List as many clichés as you can. Here are a few to get you started: quick as lightning, black as night, hot as hell, green with envy, cold as ice.

Step 2: Split each of your clichés in half and write them into two columns.

Using the example list above my first column would contain: quick as, black as, hot as, green with, and cold as. My second column says: lightning, night, hell, envy, and ice.

Step 3: Recombine to make new sayings!


This is the fun part. Just take a line from column one and try it with the words in column two. You can come up with some wonderfully descriptive new phrases:

• He ran quick as night.
• Her hair was black as envy, her wit was quick as ice.
• By midday the sun was hot as lightning and twice as bright.

The more clichés you can think of, the more creative and descriptive your new phrases become. So unleash your creative powers and start writing cliché-free today!

Purple Haiku & History

Yahoo! recently purchased the content writing website Associated Content, and have sponsored a poetry contest to celebrate. They're offering $100 for the best haiku about the color purple and I just submitted my entry called A Piece of Purple. I also added a great little piece about purple and the history of purple dye.

Here's a snippet as a teaser...

Hazy heather hill
Mystic king in royal robe
Deep lavender sky

Purple is rare in nature, and seems to occur only in the most remarkable and beautiful things: sunsets, starfish, sapphires, and seashells. It evokes a sense of mystery, luxury, and royalty. Purple was a very difficult color to reproduce in the ancient world - a feat that wasn't accomplished until approximately 1,900 BCE.

Read the rest of my History of Purple here and then let me know what you think!

Flipping Out over Fast Flip

It's called Fast Flip and it's the coolest new thing to hit the web. And who else but Google does that?

It's a website, that looks like a magazine, that acts like Facebook or Gather - and it's customizable.

"Google Fast Flip is a web application that lets users discover and share news articles. It combines qualities of print and the Web, with the ability to "flip" through pages online as quickly as flipping through a magazine. It also enables users to follow friends and topics, discover new content and create their own custom magazines around searches."

Google currently include published content from 92 periodicals. With titles ranging from Elle to Popular Science to the Washington Post, everyone will find something to read. Fast Flip is still in the Google Labs testing phase, but mobile apps are already available for the iPhone and Android, and Google's looking to partner with more publishers soon.

My mind is already reeling with all of the research, writing, and brain-candy fun I'll be having with this tool in the future! Writer's block? Open Fast Flip. No more excuses for lack of inspiration!

Persons Unknown - the New Lost?

A sunny day at the park for mom and her five-year-old daughter turns terrifying when mom is abducted. The next morning she wakes in a hotel, in a ghost town, with seven strangers; and someone, or something, refuses to let them leave.

© NBC Universal

Persons Unknown is the new thriller from NBC that airs on Monday nights at 10/9 central. With the same otherworldly suspense, mystery, and interpersonal strife as Lost, this new series has real powerhouse promise. And with the recent demise of Lost sci-fi TV fans everywhere can find sweet comfort in the addition of Person's Unknown to the summer lineup.

Trapped in a small town, monitored by security cameras, and unsure of whom to trust, desperation and paranoia will test the limits of each hostage. Who's behind the cameras? Why can't they leave the town? How does everything that's broken get instantly replaced? Like Lost every episode leaves you with more questions than answers, in the most delightful way. As one IMDB user said, "Simply fantastic."

The series premiered on June 7, 2010 and episode 4 will air June 28. You can catch up on the first three episodes over at Hulu's Person's Unknown page. You can also watch full episodes at the Person's Unknown homepage.

Get Paid to Write on Associated Content

These "get paid to write" websites are popping up like clichés in a first draft. After looking at about seven of these sites, I've opted to start with Associated Content. With an eye on quality and keywords, Associated Content pays for quality work up-front, as well as offering residual income. It is true that they were recently acquired by Yahoo! but no major changes are foreseen so far.

I submitted my first article, which you can see at Managing Your Online Reputation, and within 48 hours I was offered $4.00 for exclusive rights (and half that for non-exclusive). 24 hours after that I'd received my PayPal payment.

Those few dollars might not sound like much, but the piece only took about 15 minutes to write, I'll continue to get residuals from it, and the return was almost instant. If nothing else, the practice does me good! Associated Content also lets you select subjects you want to write about, then displays optional, paying "assignments" based on your interests.

What's the verdict? Can you really make money writing for Associate Content? As of now it's too soon to tell, but so far it looks good. While I doubt you could make a real living at it, writing for this particular "get paid to write site" really does pay.

Welcome to the Rampant Writer

We all come to a point when we're fed up with humdrum, we put down whatever baggage we're carrying, and we start doing what we love. That's the moment in a person's life when they stop surviving and start thriving. And that's where I am right now.

My name is Shana Diamond and I'm a writer. How exhilarating it is to say that! Over the last two decades I've spent astronomical hours filing, crunching number, and answering phones. I've burned my fingers on other peoples' pizzas and bruised my heels behind a cash register. I've blurred my eyes with web design, fretted over hex colors, and found the KEI for thousands of keywords. And I did it all for other people. As petrifying as the prospect sounds, it's time to cut the strings and go it alone. It's time to do these things for me. Therefore, I am officially announcing the start of my new career as a freelance writer! I'm now offering my services as a website content writer and copywriter, and I'll also be submitting articles to a few periodicals.

All I've ever really wanted to do was write, and I have been published before. What do I write about? Anything and everything. My interests are as varied as they are obscure: Dark Age England, etymology, astrophysics and cosmology, sci-fi TV, video games, eastern philosophy, color therapy, pop culture.

There's no telling what I'll write about when I left my curiosity run rampant!