: Re: Creating An Original World I've been thinking of a few ideas for characters and concepts, and I am aiming to create a massive world: a world with its own deep history and rich lore. However,

For me, writing boils down to resonating with myself and my audience which means both good news and bad news for anyone looking to avoid cliches:

Bad news: Cliches are the typical way to resonate with your audience

What makes cliches so common is that they work well and things that work well tend to be foundational. Stray too far from the accepted foundation and you tend to get either "new and brilliant" or "weird and ugh!".

Good news: The audience is constantly reevaluating what is ugh

Whoever said it's all been done was mistaken. Our culture is constantly churning over how we feel about stuff and unacceptable and acceptable start getting swapped around over time. The result is there is always something new. For example, sparkly, romantic vampires probably wouldn't have worked in the 50's, but it did in our era. What may not work today may very well work tomorrow.

Personally, though, I think a cliche is like a cookie. I'd much rather have an expertly baked cookie made with the boring ol' classic ingredients than taste test a bunch of cookies made with new and fancy ingredients, so don't worry too much about having some cliches around -- just make sure to make them solid. But try something new and if you can feel the audience isn't going to resonate, then fall back to the tried and true.

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: Is there a problem in switching from present to past for a backstory sequence? My understanding was that it's fairly normal for a present-tense novel to switch into past tense in a backstory

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: Should an author seek copyright clearance before finding a publisher? I would like to include some material which will need clearance. Is this something that needs doing before finding a publisher?

: Re: Creating An Original World I've been thinking of a few ideas for characters and concepts, and I am aiming to create a massive world: a world with its own deep history and rich lore. However,

More posts by @Kevin153

: Is there a problem in switching from present to past for a backstory sequence? My understanding was that it's fairly normal for a present-tense novel to switch into past tense in a backstory

: The fine line between accurate science, and confusing my reader I recently wrote a blog post (original here) about a scientific study. At the end, I included some "fine print" which states,

: How To Write Concisely I am a high school student, and am concerned with my recent compositional tendencies. This past year, I took AP English Language and Composition. It was a rather difficult

: Should an author seek copyright clearance before finding a publisher? I would like to include some material which will need clearance. Is this something that needs doing before finding a publisher?

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