: Re: How to deal with cliche dialogue? The following is from a story I'm writing: "Goodbye Choco," my mother said, to end the prayer, “may your soul rest in peace,” and crossed herself.

@Bryan361

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Oh, you are doing well here. Very well. You are breaking a rule about cliche dialogues exactly where it should be broken.

You are writing a meaningless, dull prattle that lulls the reader into slightly bored indifference and then you drop the bomb of “Animal Self-Destruction Observation Group” which makes me go "What?!" - and then you drop another - “That’s good.”, the mother completely missing it, suddenly adding a lot of depth to the story, by showing how shallow and ignorant a person she is. And from that point on what was so far dull and boring, despite not changing the tone the least bit, looks sinister and gritting.

This is exactly a very well executed trick of lulling the reader into boredom only to shock them out of it. Well done and don't change it!

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