The Truth Behind Clichés is Not a Cliché
These tired phrases endure for a reason, as every creator learns
Clichés are annoying precisely because they are what they set out to be: both true and so commonplace as to court contempt.
Shouldn’t truths be hard-won? Not simply standing around on every street corner?
How can a phrase we’ve heard a million times still catch our attention?
A handful of clichés have been on my mind a lot, lately:
No pain, no gain.
You make your own luck.
Success is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
I mean, really. Aren’t these obnoxious? We’ve heard them so often, we almost don’t hear them at all. We don’t trust them. And woe betide any writer who dares to use them in earnest!
And yet…they’re so darn…true!
I’ll go further and suggest that we can learn a lot from clichés (which almost sounds like a cliché, right?) But boy, they sure get a lot of disrespect. Merriam-Webster refers to a cliché as “anything that is so commonplace that it lacks freshness or offers nothing new in the way of interest or insight.”
So…clichés are true but boring?
The word originates from the French printing industry in the 19th century, when a “cliché” was an onomatopoeic word imitating the clicking sound made by a printing plate that was used to mass-produce the same version of a design over and over.
Soon after, a cliché began to refer to, simply put, “same old, same old.”
And as we all know, familiarity breeds contempt. (Oh, no! Is that a cliché?! But it’s true, right? It’s a truth about clichés themselves!)
I’m stuck on these three clichés in particular because I’m living inside them—living their truth. Maybe I’m as trite as a cliché; I hope not. I think I’m simply acknowledging the enduring reality of these sentiments.
Start with the one that cuts deepest: No pain, no gain.
This pretty much sums up all of life. There is no pleasure without pain; no light without darkness. For writers, especially, this cliché holds special (sometimes sadistic) meaning. The process of writing itself can be painful, of course. But the underbelly here refers to rejection.
I have withstood the pain of rejection literally hundreds of times. That’s the best way I know to develop a fairly thick skin. My tender feelings have grown calluses, which enable me to flick off most rejections and get back out there.
Only by enduring those rejections have I managed to get short stories, poems, essays, and even books published. That’s the gain. And indeed, I’ve endured the pain. But you don’t get one without the other.
I appreciate the cliché, make your own luck, because it carries within its kernel of truth an amusing contradiction. How on earth can you make luck, when luck is that special thing that materializes out of nowhere like a miracle?
You can’t make a miracle. But you can create circumstances that increase your odds of getting lucky—if we define lucky as getting something you want. (Getting a yes instead of a no.)
I think of this cliché as a form of healthy (and moral) cheating. You can stack the deck in your favor (cliché alert!) so that when an opportunity arises, you’re in a good position to get it—to get lucky, sure, but not randomly. You worked toward it.
Case in point: I’ve been invited to run workshops and master classes at two venerated writers’ conferences next year. These fulfill big stretch goals for me. How did I get so lucky? Well, I stacked the deck. I spent the last few years creating and running lots of different classes to build my credibility as an instructor—and refining my pitches to land those gigs. And then I pitched my expertise to these conferences.
I prepared myself for a win—and when it came, I wasn’t merely lucky, I was ready.
(Pure luck, in my view, arises from circumstances beyond your control, such as being born into a stable family with ample resources. What you do with that unearned luck is a separate question.)
I believe that no pain, no gain and make your own luck are closely related. Both are about making moves, striving to make things happen—whether that’s a connection, a prize, an invitation, or something else. And both carry seeds of failure, as not every effort is rewarded.
But you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs (yup, I did it again).
And finally, the inspiration/perspiration sentiment. It has such a sanctimonious ring to it. Positively Puritan. And yet, as lived experience goes, it feels very true.
When it comes to writing, we all hope for those moments of pure inspiration that may indeed provide the spark that leads to success. But most of life is about grinding it out, doing long stretches of work, and hoping they pay off (however we define that) down the line.
Let’s face it, we spend much more time perspiring than we do basking in the glow of inspiration. Hence the unbalanced equation in the cliché (99 to 1).
I recently devoted many, many hours to revising a novel I wrote over a year ago. The revision process turned out to be joyful—but it was also plain hard work: cutting, rewriting, reshaping, etc. In other words, lots of perspiration was involved. And along the way, brief moments of inspiration translated into fresh approaches to key scenes.
I don’t yet know what success will look like for this novel, but if I achieve any success at all, it will certainly be due to all the perspiration, not so much the inspiration.
Darn those clichés. They get me every time.
ORDER NOW!
WRANGLING THE DOUBT MONSTER: FIGHTING FEARS, FINDING INSPIRATION
“A great book that explores the power, rather than the impediment, that doubt has on creativity! A refreshing look at the creative process.” —Matt Pechey, Reedsy
Amy, you really hit the nail on the head.