Cliché Stories?

[Deosil Fox]

Heya, I was just curious about something. I wanted to ask if people still enjoy Cliché anthro stories? Like the main Character suddenly waking up on an operation table with no memories in an Anthro body etc...

I personally don't mind it and since it is an easy way to start off a story many people do use it. So I just wanted to ask is it preferred by the reader to have a unique starting scenario or a Cliché one?

 

[Xipoid]

There's a reason why cliché stories are cliché. They work, and people like them. Now having said that I don't believe you should just write some run of the mill story. I think it would be more effective to take a cliché and change it up to make it fresh and different or at least unique enough to be interesting. Think of the cliché as a grain of sand and yourself as a clam. You use it as a base, add new things, refine it, and up up with a pearl.


Or you could just write something out of left field.

 

[Stratelier]

I wanted to ask if people still enjoy Cliché anthro stories?

When/where the answer is 'yes', then it's become Troperific.

 

[Deosil Fox]

Cool, thanks for the responses ^^

 

[TakeWalker]

People are always being introduced to furry, and when you're seeing something for the first time, everything is exciting. There will always be a place for cliched furry stories, not to mention they will always be produced.

 

[M. LeRenard]

Cliché stories will probably net you fans, but they won't net you a lot of merit as a writer. Yes, people still enjoy them, for the reasons others have stated above, but for people like myself who have already read them, it seems pretty pointless without something new and interesting to complement it. So obviously it just depends on the reader.

 

[Altamont]

Yeah, I agree with M. Le Renard. The thing for me though is that I really care about how well a story is told, whereas its originallity is genrally scrutinized after the fact.

Take Avatar, for example. The story for that film: Amazingly unoriginal. But James Cameron told the story so deftly and lovingly that I cared not, because it was still able to suck me in to its world and give me an experience like no other. Written stories often work the same way; there are plenty of ideas that will always be used over and over again, but all it takes is the slightest fresh twist and/or a lot of lovingly crafted storytelling to make it all work.

In my opinion, at least.

 

[Deosil Fox]

Yes I agree with all of you, everything you have all said holds a very valid argument. But the thing is, how can one come up with something truly "unique"? As you said Avatar was incredibly unique and gripping but there was still parts where we knew what would happen. I need to know how can some one create something so unique that no one has ever done it before? Is that even possible? I mean how can't we base our fiction ideas off some form of reality that we have experienced/seen/heard about? My goal is to create something really new and unique but might still hold some thing that the reader might be able to connect with or even interpret in their own way. Thoughts on this?

 

[M. LeRenard]

That thread down there I started a long time ago, Fresh Ideas, discusses this very thing. I think the conclusion everyone came to was that it's nigh impossible to come up with a 100% new idea, and trying to do so might be counterproductive, as you'd be focusing more on novelty than trying to write a decent story.
Anyway, I'm seeing flaws in my logic in that first post; even QM was based off of celestial mechanics and thermodynamics. The new idea introduced there was a last-ditch effort on the part of Max Planck to fix the math so that it fit with observation. Hence it's based on orbital mechanics and observation, and isn't completely new and original. Everything is linked to something else, so that ideas build off of each other to advance one particular line of thought. That's how it's done in the human brain, so there's no shame in building off of a cliché idea.
Though there is shame in re-writing a cliché idea without changing it.
What I would suggest is to go the rare route; in other words, if you write a fantasy novel, set in a place akin to ancient Mesopotamia, or Africa during the Stone Age, or a tribal community in Siberia, or northern Canada in the 1950s, or modern day Afghanistan, or underwater, in space, at the center of the Earth, in Heaven, etc. etc. You know; anything but medieval Europe. Take the road less traveled. That way you win because people will still be able to relate to it, but you'll be doing something that seems much more original.

 

[AshleyAshes]

I think there's something to be said if a writer can take a cliche and put new life into it by doing a great job at it. I imagine it'd take a lot of creativity to take a cliche and make it work and be fresh afterall.

That said, I doubt few could pull it off and of those who could, many would probably prefer to do other things.

 

[Völf]

lol. If you think about it, taking a cliché and changing it seems to have become one in and of itself.

 

[randomonlooker]

You could start it differently, with no background information, like this:

It was late in the evening when K. arrived. The village was
Deep in Snow. The Castle hill was hidden, veiled in the mist and
darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to show
a castle was there. On the wooden bridge leading from the main
road to the village K. stood for a long time gazing into the illusory
emptiness above him.
Then he went to find quarters for the night. The inn was still awake,
and although the landlord could not provide a room
and was upset by such a ;ate anf unexpected arrival, he was
willing to let K. sleep on a bag of straw in the parlour. K.
accepted the offer. Some peasants were still sitting over their
beer, but he did not want to talk, and after himself fetching the
bag of straw from the attic, lay down besides the stove. It was a
warm corner, the peasants were quiet, and letting his weary eyes
stray over them he soon fell asleep.
But very shortly he was awakened. A young man dressed like
a townsman, with the face of an actor, his eyes narrow and his
eyebrows strongly marked, was standing beside him along with
the landlord. The peasants were still in the room, and a few
had turned their chairs round so to see and hear better. The young
man apologised very courteously for having awakened K., introducing
himself as the son of the Castellan, and then said:
'This village belongs to the Castle, and whoever lives here or
passes the night here does so in a manner of speaking in the
Castle itself. Nobody may do that without the Count's permission.
But you have no such permit, or at least you have produced none.'

F.K.

See, this could lead to an interesting story without relying on clichés (that I know of)
Really, there is no reason to have to start a story on something usual, nor to end any that way.
I can't think of two books that I own that have similar beginnings (some are similar, but far apart if you know what I mean, like someone arriving somewhere, but then the actual beginning is different, i.e. not a mysterious place or what not)

 

[DustRunner]

My take on cliches, any cliches really.
Don't do it just "because". But don't avoid em just to try to be original either.
The most original works are unreadable, because they throw out everything that works.

 

[Rainwhisker]

Take Avatar, for example. The story for that film: Amazingly unoriginal. But James Cameron told the story so deftly and lovingly that I cared not, because it was still able to suck me in to its world and give me an experience like no other. Written stories often work the same way; there are plenty of ideas that will always be used over and over again, but all it takes is the slightest fresh twist and/or a lot of lovingly crafted storytelling to make it all work.

My feel for Cliche.

Truly; I don't mind cliche, as long as it's done perfectly. You have to KNOW you're doing a cliche story to make one. It's important in that sense or else you'd create something like the first RPG I made; badly made, super super cliche story of 4 random adventurers awakening an evil in some tower and now the evil tries to take over the world.

If you can't come up with an original story at the beginning (there's so few of those nowadays since there are millions of stories written worldwide) use a cliche as a base, then alter it, cater it, let it grow the way your mind wants it to as you would want a child. (Weird metaphor I know, but we were all between X Y chromosomes or X X chromosomes once.)

Of course, how well it grows depends entirely on your mindset. =p not to mention how it's accepted. But usually I find in most cases if you let your mind flow you'll enjoy the process of writing the story while at the same time you will write a very good story.