When we develop our writing craft, we are often chastised for using clichés, whether they are in the form of characters, or simple turns of phrase. The latter is fairly easy to avoid - finding overused thoughts such as “don’t get your knickers in a twist,” “it’s hot as hell in here” or “she really is the bee’s knees” and changing them to something more interesting to enrich our description and dialogue is not a very difficult task. Cliché characters are another thing entirely, but should we really be afraid of using them?

There are many cliché characters in stories. There’s the damsel in distress and the knight in shining armour coming to rescue her, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed angelic little girl and the caring elderly babysitter looking after her. If we were to lay out these characters raw and untouched, not only would that be rather lazy, but also quite boring. There is little creativity involved in dragging up a person everyone has read about before. But let’s look at real life. If we strip ourselves back, we are all clichés. What makes us all different and interesting is each layer of detail on top.

Think of a bouncer, for example. He works in a nightclub, he’s well-built, strong, silent, perhaps he has an angry stare. Sound familiar? That is the cliché at the root of the character. Now imagine that the bouncer is a single father working two jobs to provide for his baby son. Perhaps you had at first presumed him to be a bachelor. What are his interests? Sports, going out drinking with his friends? Wrong. He likes to cook and play the piano.