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Freedom costs blood. So does magic.

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The Magic of Cliches

If you ever find yourself in the unfortunate position of submitting stories to a fantasy or science fiction magazine (especially the bigger ones), you’ll inevitably come across their” do not submit if you have...” lists. It’s surprising how long these lists are, and I suspect they grow by the year, if not the month. A sampling from Clarkesworld Magazine includes:

* zombies, or zombie wannabes

* stories where “thou” or “thine” appear

* talking swords or cats

* stories about young kids playing in a field and finding something—ANTYHING

* stories about your RPG character’s adventures

* stories in which a milquetoast civilian government is depicted as the sole obstacle to either catching some depraved criminal or to an uncomplicated military victory

* stories were FTL travel or time travel is as easy as it appears on TV or in film

Those are just a few of the many warnings of what not to submit, though they claim that “no theme, setting, or plot is anathema to us”! However, all of these themes can be found in dozens if not hundreds of successful works. After all, Star Trek and Star Wars takes FTL travel as a given, and though much conversation is spilled about “warp core breaches” by various Starfleet engineers, it’s only a plot point—not a scientific conundrum. Not to mention that a talking cat is the essence of Alice in Wonderland! So if these have worked, and people love them, why are they absolutely banned by Clarkesworld Magazine?

Okay, I guess I answered my own question: because they’re too familiar. They’re cliches. Once one zombie story becomes popular, everyone writes a zombie story; and for every dystopian fiction with a weak, lunk-headed government preventing the coming utopia, there are a hundred others on an identical theme (only the names change). The problem with fiction is that writers read other writers; we’re inspired by their example; we borrow and steal; and sometimes, we simply write something to live vicariously through another writer’s ideas. Is there any way to write in a vacuum, or to be truly, divinely, original? Even a groundbreaking work like The Hobbit or Neuromancer has many predecessors, even to the point that Tolkein can read like Lord Dunsany or George MacDonald fan-fiction.

So what do we do with the cliches that the gatekeepers are sick of reading, but the readers aren’t? To be honest, I would gladly read a novel about a talking sword or a “milquetoast civilian government” since I enjoy those tropes, so long as the novel adds up to more than a tired rehearsal of those themes. What makes a work seem new isn’t novelty, per se. Instead, I think it’s a way of rearranging the puzzle so that we see the familiar pieces, but it takes us longer to put them back into shape. We “think” it’s a new puzzle, but only after a few hours of reading do we start to see the picture falling into place. It’s not a new picture, which is exactly the point: otherwise we might not know what to make of it (did I put it together correctly?). Art is in the illusion, and not the final product.

For this reason, I think it can be dangerous to outlaw cliches since a cliche is not the idea but the execution. Of course, that’s what Clarkesworld is getting at: an inferior writer won’t know what to do with a cliche other than give the reader the familiar puzzle with numbered pieces so we don’t even have to think. The danger of a well-worn path is that we simply take it because we enjoy the ride; that’s fine for a reader, but a writer has to be bold and experimental, even when employing the familiar cliches. If a writer makes life easy for him or herself, then we’re all cheated—and we don’t even need to read the book! One way of testing this is to summarize your story into a single paragraph: if something vital to the novel escapes your summary, something you can’t begin to put into words, you may have escaped the trap of cliche. Your story is more than the sum of its parts.

The most inventive writer can take a tired cliche (vampires invade a sleepy little town) and make it sound like vampires have never existed before this novel. Do you think vampire novels weren’t old hat before Steven King tried his hand at one in ‘Salem’s Lot? Or better yet, that Tolkein was the first to write about magic rings and elves and fairies (check out Wagner, which Tolkein more or less borrowed wholesale!). Of course, borrowing and inspiration is to be expected, and if Tolkein had simply rehashed the plot of Twilight of the Gods no one would have read it except a few stoned undergraduates.

Tolkein used familiar material ground in myth and legend to expound his own ideas about history and about the present; he collected raw materials to fashion into something familiar that was lost—the mythology of the British isles—which survives merely in scraps of this or that book. So when we read his books, we figure out it’s the old puzzle we all love (rings, dragons, heroes, villains) but it feels like something else—a world we’ve never seen before. And one we never want to depart from.

I would encourage writers to boldly embrace cliches while thinking about what made them new and fresh to begin with. Perhaps it’s best to start with cliches in language: consider a phrase like “she cast a spell on me,” or “life is a roll of the dice.” Boring, conventional phrases that are completely drained of poetry. But once, many moons ago, they were poetry, as each one is a metaphor—a way of translating one experience in terms of something unrelated, but as it turns out, quite similar.

What is love? Love is like casting a spell on someone, and when it hits you, you feel like the object of your affection has, indeed, concocted a nasty spell. It’s fun to think about all the ways that love functions as spellcraft, since one moment you’re fine and the next...life no longer works the same way or follows the same rules. It’s simply different. The same is true for approaching life as a game of chance, where each roll could increase your stakes—or ruin you completely. It’s a poetic perspective, a way of answering the question, “how should I live my life?” Why not like this? Roll the dice and see where it takes you. After all, anywhere is better than staying put and fretting about the road you didn’t take...

So in writing, remember why we coined a phrase, or created a character, or rehearsed a specific plot. Don’t take it for granted—look deep beneath the layers to find the fundamental human idea that makes it “go.” Cliches aren’t moribund; on the contrary, they’re familiar for a reason. It’s the job of the writer to make us forget how familiar they are until the last piece of the puzzle...and then familiarity becomes delight. As well as a successful work of art.

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In “A Time for Every Matter: Fantasy Tropes & Christian Themes,” I explore the rich intersection where imaginative storytelling meets eternal truth. As a fantasy writer grounded in Christian faith, I’ve always been fascinated by how classic tropes, like the chosen one, the epic quest, or the battle between light and darkness, echo deeper spiritual realities. In this post, I unpack how these familiar elements can point to biblical truths, stir the soul, and invite readers into a greater narrative of hope, redemption, and purpose…

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