“Sick as a Dog”: Avoiding Clichés in Flash Fiction

Flash fic­tion pieces are so short that we need to make every phrase, every word count. Each and every word needs to pro­pel the theme of the piece in some way. Each word/ phrase should also be new and excit­ing to the read­er. One of the most hor­ri­fy­ing aspects of read­ing prose is stum­bling upon a cliché, even more so in flash, because in short­er pieces where every word counts, clichés “stick out like a sore thumb.” This arti­cle offers some quick tips for avoid­ing clichés.

1. Per­son­i­fy unusu­al ideas/ thoughts/ objects. 

Instead of per­son­i­fy­ing objects/emotions in famil­iar ways (oppor­tu­ni­ty knocks, the cam­era loves me, etc.) per­son­i­fy objects/emotions in ways that the read­er won’t expect or hasn’t read before. In “Fen­way” (2001) fea­tured in This Won’t Take but a Minute Hon­ey, Steve Almond per­son­i­fies fate when he writes, “I’m not one of those jerks, yodel­ing woe every time fate shifts on her throne.” It’s not usu­al to think of fate as being on a throne, or as being female for that mat­ter, and so the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion adds to the effect of the sen­tence. After fin­ish­ing a sen­tence, try going back over it to see whether or not an unusu­al per­son­i­fi­ca­tion might be added to an idea or object. Make sure that any per­son­i­fi­ca­tions you might have already have aren’t things that read­ers might have heard before. Mak­ing sure your per­son­i­fi­ca­tions aren’t clichéd will only add to your sto­ries. If you aren’t sure, try vis­it­ing web­sites for lists of com­mon­ly used per­son­i­fi­ca­tions.

2. Check your sim­i­les.

It is extreme­ly easy to write clichéd sim­i­les, and when it hap­pens they stick out like a sore thumb. Why? We rec­og­nize sim­i­les eas­i­ly because of their for­mu­la as “like” or “as” phras­es which we have been taught to us since grade school. As soon as some­thing is “like” some­thing else, we rec­og­nize that we are read­ing a spe­cif­ic gram­mat­i­cal form. Just as clichéd sim­i­les stick out “like” a sore thumb, unfa­mil­iar sim­i­les will jump out at read­ers in a pos­i­tive way. In her sto­ry “Sweep” Kathy Fish writes, “Lean on the broom han­dle and watch the clouds, roil­ing like indi­ges­tion.” Though we don’t often think of clouds roil­ing in like indi­ges­tion it makes sense as an unusu­al sim­i­le. One way to avoid clichéd sim­i­les is to write down an exist­ing sim­i­le that you might have heard before, such as “strong as an ox,” and replace either ‘strong’ or ‘ox’ with some­thing read­ers might not have heard before. Maybe your char­ac­ter is strong as a raw pota­to. It can also be use­ful to famil­iar­ize your­self with com­mon­ly used sim­i­les.

3. Use adverbs and adjec­tives spar­ing­ly.

Using poor or unnec­es­sary adverbs and adjec­tives will dull the effect of any sto­ry. Read­ers will not fin­ish the sto­ry if they feel like they have had to fight through all of those ‘ly’ words. A good exam­ple of using effec­tive adverbs and adjec­tives is in anoth­er of Kathy Fish’s’ pieces, “Stam­pede.” In “Stam­pede” she uses adverbs in the first para­graph, “Her broth­er, Bob­by, pre­dictably and inevitably, names his pump­kin ‘Jack.’” Here she uses two adverbs right next to each oth­er. Why does it work? It works for Fish because she rarely uses them, and so when we read two like this in the same sen­tence we know that they must be essen­tial to the sto­ry. These are the only two that she uses in the sto­ry, and we come to find out that it mir­rors a deep­er side of Bob­by as he plans to pop out of an actu­al cof­fin that his moth­er was able to get for Hal­loween. This action is the oppo­site of the two adverbs above and shows that Bob­by is unsta­ble and also empha­sizes the insta­bil­i­ty of the fam­i­ly. Try going back into your sto­ries and reeval­u­at­ing your adverbs and adjec­tives. Are they real­ly nec­es­sary? What do they do to pro­pel the sen­tence or the theme of the piece?

4. Cre­ate con­flict­ing images.

One way to avoid poor word choice or clichés is to take what read­ers would expect in a char­ac­ter and turn it upside down by choos­ing con­flict­ing images. Steve Almond is won­der­ful at this. Report: Skin­ny Mon­keys Live Longer” is nar­rat­ed from the stand­point of some­one who rec­og­nizes that food, when eat­en in excess, is dan­ger­ous. He makes an argu­ment that “they” want us to get fat. Almond writes about vis­it­ing his grand­moth­er and how she would cook large amounts of food for him, “She fed me this dope like a nurse tend­ing a lunatic.” The focus is on the word ‘dope’ as a stand in for food. We don’t nor­mal­ly think of grand­ma and dope in the same sen­tence. This is one rea­son that the word seems fresh and strange. It works for the scene, how­ev­er, because the food is like dope to the nar­ra­tor: he takes too much and he ends up pass­ing out in the guest room. This could have eas­i­ly have been a “food is a drug” cliché. Almond, how­ev­er, avoids this by spec­i­fy­ing a drug and pair­ing it with his Grand­ma. It’s dif­fer­ent to think of your grand­moth­er forc­ing you to do drugs, which here is the stand-in for food. Try using this for­mu­la to rein­force your sim­i­les and per­son­i­fi­ca­tions by pair­ing them with a con­flict­ing idea or image.

5. Con­cen­trate on metaphors. 
 

Metaphors are often what can pro­pel, or kill, a sto­ry because often a lot of the mean­ing of an entire piece rests on a metaphor. For a good exam­ple, I go back to Kathy Fish’s piece “Sweep.” Fish writes, “Sweep the feath­ers off the porch before the rain comes and makes a paste of them.” We won­der who is she talk­ing to, us, her­self? By the end, we real­ize she must be talk­ing to her­self since most of us do not know the Ph.D can­di­date prone to sinus infec­tions in the sto­ry. The thought that the rain can make a paste of the leaves is a great fresh phrase which imme­di­ate­ly leaves an image of soaked and stuck leaves on a rainy day. In very few words—the sto­ry is only 66 words#8212;we under­stand that she is “Sweep”-ing this man out of her life. Hav­ing the char­ac­ters pre­form an action which mir­rors the thoughts of the nar­ra­tor can be effec­tive, if the images used to pro­pel the metaphor are new to the read­ers.
 

The best way to ensure that you are not using dull word choic­es and clichés is to go back to the skele­ton of your sto­ry and look at the gram­mat­i­cal back­bone. Go back to the begin­ning and look at your sim­i­les, metaphors, images, adjec­tives, and adverbs. Are they going to leave your read­ers inter­est­ed? Is each and every word doing its job? Famil­iar­ize your­self with com­mon clichés and start a list of new and inter­est­ing ones. Doing come cliché main­te­nance on your pieces will ensure that read­ers don’t leave the piece feel­ing dis­ap­point­ed. Remem­ber: “A cliché a day keeps read­ers away!”

FF.Net Author’s Note

Maran­da Stew­art holds a Bach­e­lors of Arts in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture from Kutz­town Uni­ver­si­ty. She is cur­rent­ly attend­ing Rose­mont Col­lege for her MFA in Cre­ative writ­ing with a con­cen­tra­tion in poet­ry. She has won the Ray­mond Ford Award for poet­ry and is enjoy­ing explor­ing the flash fic­tion genre. She agrees with William Car­los Williams who said, “It is dif­fi­cult to get the news from poems, yet men die mis­er­ably every day for lack of what is found there,” and believes that the same can be said about flash.