And the readers choose.... CLICHÉS!

Popular writers on AFF, like the most popular I guess dbskgirl4ever and Goddess. Do you respect them? Do you think they write perfect stories? If not then why? If you hate them then why? Or do you love them? Jelaous much? U mad? Why did you ever bother to check on them? 

In my opinion, their stories are just fine, lightweight, entertaining, the grammar is more or less okay, sometimes pretty much less. Ultimate clichés? Yes, but whoever said that cliché was bad? Who? Oh let me ask, someone reviewed your story and told you it was a cliché? But what if it was better than the most popular story here? Why isn't yours more popular even though you write better than the hot authors here?! What is this unfair situation? I call it reality, my friend. AFF is just like the real world, just exactly alike. CRUEL! People come here to be entertained and indulge themselves in clichés.

Look at me, I just said the most popular writers around AFF are okay, I didn't bash them or criticize their stories. Why? Because I don't care, I just want to write my stories in peace, that's all. Everyone should know that the popular authors here are chosen by the readers!  FYI! The readers decide! You want to go for popularity then learn some grammar and readers' asses, that's all. Besides, the most popular here is not the worst so you will have to be a decent writer too. 

Now seriously, Twilight and Hunger Games? How did that become so popular? I mean Harry Potter wins them all without even a battle and what is Harry Potter? It’s a bunch of cliché’s put together, nothing new in fantasy world, nothing new. But why only so few people appreciate Tolstoi’s War and Peace and why doesn’t anyone read Dante’s La Divina Commedia aka Divine Comedy anymore? Why? Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, are you kidding me? The Kite Runner? Both originally Internet novels. What happened to heavy classics?

Like I mentioned before, people want to be entertained. From personal point of view I am not going to go and search for words of wisdom on some fanfiction site, I read heavy literature for that. The end. So if you want to go battle in the heavy weight series (original and meaningful) don't go for popularity but quality. You won't stand much chance as long as is good around here, and it's not any author's fault. It's no one's fault.

So many writing guides will tell you: "This is how you get popular!" but the real message should be: "This is how you get good!"

And you know what?

Being a good writer and being a good fanfiction writer are not exactly on the same side of the coin.

Reviewers, there is this majority who slaps you in the face for using one little cliché in one of the chapters of your amazing story, you get 63/100 just because your titles contained ‘arranged marriage’ and your story has been ‘seen million times before’, you can safely show them the finger and say something along: “that’s what people come to read here, go to libraries you jealous ‘effin cliché nazi nerds.”

And if anyone tells you something along: "If you want to get popular forget about clichés" then you send them to browse through popular stuff on AFF of which 80% is pure . Then there is that 20% which is actually some great stuff, albeit clichés again. What's going on here? There are some misunderstandings about clichés I gotta clarify right here!

I am now going to say something so horrible and every single person who writes any kind of writing guides is going to be so shocked.

Clichés are okay.

them:            me: 

First of all, why are you here on AFF? Why do you read these stories and bash the authors if you hate them so much? Because it's fun? Congraz, you got the right answer. Don't worry, I also often wonder how come the actually good stories don't become so popular around here? But I also wonder about many other things like why don't they make as good movies as they made in the 80's and 90's, like why newest Rambo so much compared to the oldest? It's just my personal opinion.

Anyway, my point is that you came to AFF for your dose of (usually) Korean related , romance, drama whatever, probably you have a bias like kaisoo, 2min or daragon, probably you use the tag filter: fluff, romcom etc and you probably know what kind of stories exist around here. Aha, you came for your daily dose of what? Clichés. If you haven't noticed those "original stories" are also pretty much clichéd in their own category.

Let me ask you one question: what is a cliché? Okay, probably you can answer that easily but then: What isn’t a cliché? I went through various review shops and there was one freaking word which kept repeating itself: “cliché, cliché, cliché”. Everyone is saying: “Your story is like them all, seen before, not original”. I want to bang my head on the table and scream. Why review something and give people ty feedback? Okay it's a cliché but why is it a bad thing? WHY? Tell me!  

What would become of AFF is every single story was original? Let’s say you like arranged marriage fics and prefer happy endings? What would you read then?! So people, cheer up. 

IT’S NOT ABOUT CLICHÉ’S but the IMPLEMENTATION! 

Either you can write well or then not, so simple. If you are really bad your story is going to turn out a horrible mess, you can still become popular but your story will be awful, nothing to be proud of. You can develop if you want to, you can. But then you can also be a good writer and your story will turn out to be just fine even though the plot is clichéd. You can be amazing and popular, or amazing and never recognized for your true abilities.

Let me tell you a cliché: Every single person on this earth is different, no one will be able to create an identical story. Okay, you might laugh at me now after going through some million generic stories on AFF but they all are different, different grammar mistakes and different crazy character traits, even different levels of stupidity.

What you do is own clichés like a boss!

You take a cliché and make it your own, add your own perspectives and ideas. For example, you take a love triangle with a hot guy and a cute guy, how about letting the girl end up with the cute guy for a change? Don’t only think about writing as one-sided process, think about your readers, play with them, surprise them, make them think, keep them on their toes, cheat them, make fun of them, let them assume wrong things (they will love you for this).

Writing is like playing ping pong with readers. 

-said by me. here. now.

Even if you don’t have readers and write only for yourself, then imagine if someone read your story how would they react. Be adventurous, tease your readers. I mean, you don’t always have to write down the first thing which comes to your mind, choose the fifth thing you come up with, think it over from a different point of view, write something different. You have a brain, use it. See, writing requires a lot of thinking!

Examples about challenging the cliché’s:

An idol manages to lure our protagonist girl into a slave contract, but she ends up dating his manager.

Maid in the house, became a maid because wanted to seduce the master, flirts with him all the time and makes him awkward. (Usually it’s an innocent girl vs a ert guy, right? Turn the tables)

How about the main girl is actually secretly or openly interested in the hot guy instead of hating him? And learns to hate him instead of learning to love him? 

How about you don’t begin your story with: “Mother yelled at me, I woke up and realized I was late for school.” or “A new student arrived.” or “they were the hottest guys in school and I loathed them”

instead ----> ”School was boring as usual, I was late too and got punished” or “this guy has always been there I just didn't notice him/ I always noticed him” or “they were the hottest guys in school and I thought they were cool”

But let’s be honest, won’t you be a bit disappointed if arranged marriage falls apart after all, best friends don’t end up falling in love, jerk guy plays the girl and leaves her behind, the nerd’s revenge is not successful, the gay she loved turned out to be just gay? I would be like:

But well, different kind of endings are not bad once in a while.

Think about your own preferences. What do you think when you read other stories, what do you concentrate on, what do you wish was written differently, what kind of twist you would have enjoyed? Why do you give up on some stories? Why do you think some are boring? Why do you even read some stories?

What do I like to read? Crossdressing, arranged marriage, bickering best friends, hate at first sight, from nerds to babes/hunks, fake marriages/ dating. As in genre: fluff, romance, romcom, angst, school life, gangs. No preferred couplings or idols.

What do I like to write about? Pretty much the same. Why, because it’s hard to find these stories to my liking even with such usual genres. Either the girl is boring or there is not enough chemistry, or then the main characters are too innocent, the writing style is not to my liking, story advances too slowly, or something else. That's about it with me.

Okay, so why do typical cliché stories usually ?

Because you don't use your brain while you write them.

Trust me, it’s not about the cliché, it’s all about the writing; because some of cliché stories don’t and you find yourself enjoying them. So why some stories and some not? There is one answer: they are one dimensional aka the writing lacks character and the text lacks the feel. It's just black on white and nothing more, the story doesn't come alive. The author is not experienced enough, their English is not good or their story makes no sense, which is often due to bad English but sometimes also due to lack of imagination.

That’s why everyone around AFF bashes Mary Sue characters, because they are one-dimensional, flat and dead. Mary Sue is okay but… in order to make your story come to life you must make your characters less perfect and more human (if it's about a human). They have to have flaws and there has to be a reason for every single thing they do, just like you don’t go around doing crazy without a reason, you also have many sides to yourself. Your main character can be dumb but she/ he has to be human, she/ he has to have a beating heart, FEELINGS, thoughts… no one is just simply dumb unless they suffer from mental illness aka are retarded. More about characters in following chapters.

You know, why doesn’t anyone mention that… many non-cliché stores too? They for exactly same reasons as clichéd ones. They lack something and most usually it’s the feeling to the story or bad grammar. But the most usual reason why non-cliché stories is because the cliché is missing.

Reconstructing one-dimensional:  

1. Because he bullied me I went home and cried myself to sleep. <-- descriptive enough, grammar okay, but lacks the feel.

Give me some feelings baby, don't be so cold!

2. Jae Hee got bullied in school and it was something she didn’t know how to cope with. It was only natural for her to cry herself to sleep that night because there was no one who would have listened to her problems, she was completely alone.

More advanced:

3. "Weak" character: On my way home from school his hurtful words kept dwelling in my mind, stabbing my heart repeatedly. I thought I was numb to his harsh treatment but no, he always managed to hurt me in the worst ways. It’s not that I couldn’t keep my tears in anymore; I just wanted to let it all out. How could he? His cruel voice still rang in my ears, I couldn’t shut it out. I just couldn’t.

4. "Strong" character: Who the heck does that jerk think he is? Was it that fun embarrassing me in front of the whole class? I didn’t know he was such an , picking on girls. Despicable! I’ll show him tomorrow, he is going to regret messing with me!

My hand shot up to my face and I wiped first tears from my cheeks. Just why was I crying over such insignificant matters? I wanted to  hide in my comfortable bed and cry myself to sleep.

Three words:

One dimensional

Your enemy is not any cliché, because everything is cliché and we like clichés, if not always then once in a while. Arranged Marriage doesn’t have to be a cliché, you can change the usual flow of the story very easily and surprise your readers with different kind of ending or something. And even if it is a cliché but the chemistry is a bomb or the comedy witty and makes me laugh then that's great.

Okay, there is this story ‘The Dull One’ by Goddess. So why do I follow it? I ignore the not so perfect grammar and annoying one-dimensional clichés like “a girl takes off her glasses and she is suddenly pretty”, that’s just an easy way out. Okay, there are some plot twists I didn’t like but anyway… the story has a soul, I’m telling you. The giddy moments make me feel giddy inside, the characters are not just simpleminded dolls, they have some depth to them and I like the genre. The writing could be better in many ways but I am willing to forgive that, she will get better with time. She is good enough fanfiction writer, gives me just what I want and writes simple English so it's easy to understand.

But a perfect example of a story which actually has a powerful presence aka it comes alive is Cantabile by insertnamehere1 and the rest of her stories. While reading you can feel everything and it's just amazing how her stories you in. She is a good writer and happens to write good fanfiction too.

The Dull One is entertaining, Cantabile is good. See the difference yourself.