| Current mood: |  good |
| Current music: | Josh Groban - My December |
| Entry tags: | writing |
Why is Ovid Snickering? Or, Cliches in Fiction
For writers, there's nothing new under the sun. Most of us in fandom
are rewriting or revisioning plotlines that have been done to death by
a million people. Hot, sexy incest stories? Check out the Bible, or
Ford's Renaissance classic, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.
I won't even touch true love, since its history, and the cliches
accompanying it, can easily be traced back to Ovid, notably by way of
the Gothic novel, Shakespeare, and the troubadours. Turning pale in the
presence of the beloved? Andreas Capellanus made fun of that in the
twelfth century. Not able to sleep 'cos you're so lovesick? Ovid's
snickering about that in Christian-era Rome.
Does that mean
we're being cliched every time we incorporate one of these or a
thousand other ancient bits in our fic? No. It's not the presence of a
ubiquitous element that undermines a story--it's the treatment of it.
Let's say that you have some pretty-boy blushing in your story, looking
down like an Ovidian maiden ("Shyness and modesty spark me off every
time--a demurely lowered face and I'm hooked. But it's just the same if
she's pertly forward; sophistication promises well in bed," says our
love poet in The Amores). Does this mean that your story sucks?
Well,
maybe. How are you presenting your cliche? What's the spin you're
giving it? What's its purpose in your story beyond the thrill of being
all cool and Ovidian? Because if you say, "Goddammit, Bry, you're such
a pretentious asshole for asking these questions--sometimes a cliche is
just there to moisten my panties," then I'll say, "Okay, sure, but then
we'd better not complain ever again about stories written for pure
panty-moistening goodness, even if they don't turn our cranks. Stories
about mpreg or stories without proper punctuation; stories about cheap
rape or stories without proper spelling. And so on. 'Cos--" and I know
you're gone by now, bored crapless with this speech that's growing
longer than John Holmes' infamous dick-- "'Cos if we make exceptions
for ourselves, then we've got to make it for them. 'Cos we are them."
I
see some really great writers out there whose work might contain
cliches--because everyone's work does--but who know enough to play and
spin and fuck around with the goods. That's what writing's all about:
we're given a box of cliches, then asked to thread them into something
new so we won't be naked emperors and Ovid won't be snickering.
![[info]](cliches_files/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
boyan_fraser) wrote,
