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!