Self-Edit Checklist: Clichés and Idioms

Pull yourself together. Why are you bent out of shape? Hold your horses. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Hang in there. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Don’t jump the gun or rock the boat. Don’t cry like a baby or open a can of worms. Bite the bullet. It’s a blessing in disguise. Jump on the bandwagon. Count your blessings. Keep your chin up. Shoot for the moon.

We’re all familiar with clichés. Original and thought-provoking when we first heard them, these phrases have become overused and repetitious.

A dime a dozen, people use them like they’re going out of style. But be careful when using clichés in your writing. They can be fun, as they are easily recognized and understood, but use them sparingly. Using too many clichés can make your writing seem unoriginal and stagnant, indicating laziness and lack of careful thought.

We speak in clichés and idioms because they have become a part of our everyday language. I love you more than life itself and what goes around comes around are now common phrases. We speak them so often we tend to think them, which makes them very easy to write. But they will not excite or impress your readers.

Clichés and idioms are a clever use of words, but they are boring. Because they are so generic, you can attach them to any idea, which is why they are ineffective.

How many stories have you read that start out It was a dark and stormy night? Unless it’s written in jest or ironically, it immediately makes me think the writer has no originality.

And let’s not forget the classic fairytale ending, And they all lived happily ever after. It is one of the most tragic sentences in literature, leading countless generations to expect perfection in an imperfect world.

There are many clichés involving time. Time flies, a waste of time, lost track of time, just a matter of time, the time of my life, in this day and age, at this moment in time, in any way shape or form, for all intents and purposes.  

Descriptions are full of clichés and idioms. He was old as the hills but fit as a fiddle. She was ugly as sin and as stubborn as a mule. He is honest as the day is long, a man of few words, a pillar of the community. She was older than dirt but strong as an ox.

How many times have you seen characters in gut-wrenching pain or heart-stopping fear or frightened to death? And fiction is full of moments that are the calm before the storm, before all hell breaks loose.

What about those clichés that don’t seem to mean anything but are still popular? You are what you eat. Ahh, no, I’m not a candy bar or a bean burrito. I’m a human, and I don’t eat other humans.

You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Really? I made it so I could eat it. Why would you not eat your own cake? If you’re not going to eat it, send it over here and I’ll eat it.

Take the bull by the horns. Well that sounds dangerous. How would you grab the horns in the first place? And if you did manage to grab the bull by the horns, then what? What do you do with two tons of angry muscle and hooves?

There’s no such thing as a stupid question. “How can I become a mermaid?” is a stupid question. “Don’t you get lonely being an introvert?” is a stupid question. Hello! Do you know what an introvert is?

The five-second rule. Come on, the ground is dirty, period. The dirt and germs are not repelled for five seconds while you decide if you’re going to eat what you dropped. And why five seconds, why not six or eight or two? Does it suddenly become bad on the sixth second?

Clichés are usually the first ideas that come to mind when you’re trying to present an idea. If you must write in clichés to get your ideas down, do it. But when you get to the self-edit stage, replace those clichés with more energetic, exciting phrases, phrases that give your story a unique spin.

Help yourself to the Self-Edit Checklist: Clichés and Idioms to check your writing. Express your ideas in fresh and interesting ways and who knows, in a few years your pithy, original phrases could be the new idioms on the tip of everyone’s tongue.