Michael Z. Williamson is an SF writer who stopped by my site and took umbrage with the Clichés page. People don’t like seeing some of their favorite plots in the list. Just because it is a good plot or idea or image, doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been used-to-death. Clichés are unavoidable because so many writers have been writing for so long. It is hardly likely that you will come up with a completely new plot, character or idea. I attempted to make my calm level-headed explanation,as though explaining to a small child, what is meant by Cliché.
He refuses, though, absolutely refuses to give up Nazis. I think that Nazis have no place in any literature. They are a lazy writers way of creating a villain. Just like serial killers, psychotic killers, and multiple personality disorders are cheap ways of making someone bad. It is much harder to show a villain as a disturbed character in need of help, than to paint them as essentially evil. Anyway, I am not much of a believer in evil people, only evil acts.
In any case, we very rarely encounter Nazis or Psychopaths and other evil people, so write what you know should be the whole of the law.
Just thinking back though, my barber (about 30 years ago) was a Nazi and once while shaving me, he whispered: “Hitler had the right idea.” into my ear. He had a straight razor in his hand, so I let the matter ride.
My piano teacher molested a small boy and did prison time.
When I was 10 my friend’s stepfather shot his mother with a shotgun and then turned it on himself.
In my life, I have known at least five murderers, before and after the fact.
None of these people were essentially evil, just sick, or desperate, or very confused. However, thinking back, the barber was pretty scary.
5 Comments
I agree with this. Nazi’s is not only a lazy man’s way to create opposition but shows ameture writing as well.
He might ought to rethink the Nazi angle if he expects to land a sale.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using Nazis if you’re writing in that era, or if you’re doing the old alternate history idea. I once read an article about using cliches, and with almost every one of them, it showed a modern writer who had found a new twist on it…so it’s all in how you do it.
As far as landing a sale? The guy’s credits are pretty impressive…a lot more impressive than most of the other people posting here.
Part of the reason that I blogged about Mr. Williamson was that I was surprised to see that an author with half a dozen pro novel and a bunch of pro story sales would care what I think about writing. I, after all, don’t expect any respect for my opinions. I do it for fun and I only half believe what I write, myself. If I ever make a pro sale I will demand respect and insist on outlawing all Nazis forever (along with Demons, Dark Elves, Vampires, Unicorns and Zombies).
When I wrote the No-Nazis rule it was in response to yet another lame Star Trek episode that used Nazis as the bad guys rather than create an original villain. I feel that the writers chose to avoid the hard work of making an evil villain and take the easy Nazis way out.
Boy meets girl is the oldest cliche and it never wears out. It is my personal opinion that Nazis are too well worn and too far in the past to even scare us much.
Williams said in his last email that we should use Nazis in our stories because it will make Mel Brooks laugh. That might be a good enough reason
This is a bit rushed today so here goes.
I think it's still a good rule Keith to avoid clichés anyway weather your a pro or not, especially for a pro author. Since there are no pro authors in this thread I think it's safe to assume we know better
and so should the pro author. Maybe some pro authors can get away with lazy writing and use worn out clichés in new ways. For instance that’s why I don’t read historical science fiction like Turtledove or Tad Williams. Historical Science fiction is like watching a reality based TV show. It's cheep and easy (sounds like some of my dates before I got married.) “Been there done that” I bought a television set to escape reality not to get hit over the head with it. If I want reality from television, I'll watch the evening news at eleven. Ahem, I’m very selective in my reading. I don’t care if Michael Z. Williamson has written 1 novel or 20 if its cliché ridden I won’t buy it. That's why we have reviews at Amazon. Nor do I read stories that contain gratuitous sex and violence for “shock value” purposes or any other reason. If I want shock value I’ll watch a horror movie and I hate horror movies, if I want sex, with her permission I'll make love with my wife.
That said, I also have an “opinion” about plot. Now I'm no expert, but there are/is no such thing as an original plot anymore. Themes/cliché's are not plots. Now it also seems to me that plot is character in conflict moving an idea forward exploring that ideas implications and on how these implications affect the characters and their environment making up the story. Nazi's, Time travel, “it was all a dream” are tired old clichés. They are not plot sorry. Even Star Wars and Star Trek as much as we keep coming back for more are tired and old. But it seems to me Keith that clichés do science fiction a disservice and as long as pro authors keep using clichés, science fiction as great as it is will never advance its art form beyond the droll mainstream and their expectations of it. The mainstream in other words will always think science fiction is synonymous with clichés without even consciously realizing they are aware of it.
Thanks Keith
Pardon the typos. Still recovering from laser eye surgery yesterday :-) See Blog.