As the Nonfiction Editor for this year’s magazine, I did not have very many nonfiction submissions. Poetry Editors had four times more pieces to read than the Nonfiction team. Unfortunately, something that did pop up in nearly every piece was a big ol’ dreadful cliché. There are many reasons someone might include a cliché in a true story. First of all, clichés are everywhere. Cliché things have happened to me. Someone has taken my breath away, and I’ve been swept off my feet, but all’s fair in love and war. I’ve seen all the bleeding heart clichés happen in front of me: eyes have welled up with tears and people lose their head in arguments. There have been affairs and divorce in my family, which just adds insult to injury. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but clichés are everywhere. Clichés are easy to write about, because many (too many) people can relate.

Clichés are sometimes written by mistake, simply because they sound right. They sound right because you’ve heard them before. People say catch phrases and hear popular song lyrics that are full of clichés because they are easy. One of the greatest pieces of writing advice I have ever received was to revise clichés into new and original words and phrases. After spelling, grammar, punctuation, et cetera, read your work and change anything cliché that you’ve heard before, read before, or seen before. I recommend doing a Google search of certain phrases in your writing to see how popular it is. The more the merrier would not work well in this situation.

I can’t recommend this enough:

Mark my words, this will be a wake-up call and will change your life; it will be your moment of glory, your ten minutes of fame, and you’ll change from a dime a dozen writer to a one in a million writer when, needless to say, you’ve got your back against the wall, you’re scared to death by the clichés in this sentence (and in yours), but remember: all’s well that ends well.

Taylor Trauger
Nonfiction Editor