Thoughts Over Breakfast

So this weekend I went out and bought that book “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs,” and then I was inspired to actually buy some Cocoa Puffs cereal to go with it.  So while I was enjoying my chocolaty goodness I began thinking about cliches.  Poor cliches have a bad rap amongst literary types for it has been jammed into our heads that cliche = bad writing.  Now I understand why it is so easy to fall into this trap.  Cliches are cliches because hundreds of other writers have already used them and therefore they are “unoriginal.”  But really, I have to question whether or not there remains any original ideas out there? I think that the only thing any writer (whether it be a novel, short story, or screenplay) can do is face the facts that no matter what they write there will be at least one person out there who finds it to be trite, predictable, and/or cliche.

The key is to figure out how to harness cliches and make them work the way you want them too.  Take for example the idea of mistaken identity.  This is a ploy that has been used over and over again by some of the greatest artists of all time *cough cough* Shakespeare *cough cough* and the reason this “gimick” has survived is because it works.  Take for example, “While You Were Sleeping” a film whose entire plot is driven by this concept.  Girl saves boys life, hospital nurse thinks girl is boy’s fiance, and then boy’s family takes her in while boy is in a coma.  Of course the coma thing is essential because while boy “is sleeping,” girl gets a chance to meet and fall in love with the whole family.  What makes this cliche work is that one can really believe this character Lucy (played by Sandra Bullock) is so lonely that she’s easily swept up in the excitement of being welcomed into this family.  Her parents have died, she has no family, she works in a booth at the L-station, and she’s the one who works every holiday because she doesn’t have any family.  So, is it too unbelievable to suppose that she wouldn’t go along with this mistake especially when she has two older father figure types telling her that it’s the best idea for the time being? I think not.  Plus, if she doesn’t go along with it, how is she supposed to meet the cute brother that she ends up with instead? 🙂