Are you sitting on the fence about using clichés? Here are 101 reasons to quit cold turkey!

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Myra here. Today we’re talking about clichés, the bane of a writer’s existence. We’ve all used them, both in our everyday conversations and in our manuscripts. Clichés are comfortable as an old shoe, phrases we use in a heartbeat because the meanings are usually crystal clear. Clichés roll off the tongue (or onto the keyboard) like water off a duck’s back.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with clichés. They’re just . . . tired. Stale. Overused.

Admit it--clichés are an excuse to be lazy in our communication, and as writers we owe our readers better than that. Not to mention the difficulty clichés and other such idioms present to readers who may not speak our brand of English.

So if you must use a cliché in your manuscript, make sure you’re doing it with intentionality. You may be writing about a character for whom speaking in clichés has become a personality quirk. In deep POV narrative, sometimes a cliché comes across as perfectly natural or even expected. If at all possible, however, give the cliché an interesting twist. For example, not simply “a bur under his saddle,” but “a thorn bush the size of a Texas tumbleweed.”

Now it’s time to put on your thinking caps. Below you’ll find a list of 101 clichés. Choose a few and suggest simpler, clearer, or more creative alternatives.

I’ll start you off with a couple of examples.

1. bad apple--degenerate, troublemaker, the very last boy you’d want dating your teenage daughter
2. ball of fire--dynamo, high achiever, a car salesman who’s slapping the sold sign on your trade-in before you’ve driven your new car off the lot
3. barrel of laughs
4. by a whisker
5. by the same token
6. cold fish
7. cushion the blow
8. dead in the water
9. down to earth
10. drop in the bucket
11. eat like a bird
12. egg on one’s face
13. every trick in the book
14. fade into the sunset
15. fight like cats and dogs
16. fly off the handle
17. free as a bird
18. green around the gills
19. guilty as sin
20. hale and hearty
21. hang on every word
22. happy as a lark
23. haul over the coals
24. high on the hog
25. hit the jackpot
26. hold the fort
27. hungry as a bear
28. in a heartbeat
29. in a pig’s eye
30. in hot water
31. jump down her throat
32. just what the doctor ordered
33. keep a stiff upper lip
34. keep the faith
35. kick the bucket
36. last but not least
37. lay an egg
38. leave no stone unturned
39. like clockwork
40. lock, stock, and barrel
41. look before you leap
42. make a mountain out of a molehill
43. make tracks
44. mind like a steel trap
45. muddy the waters
46. nothing to sneeze at
47. nuttier than a fruitcake
48. off her rocker
49. off the wall
    
50. on pins and needles
51. on thin ice
52. out of the blue
53. out on a limb
54. parting of the ways
55. pick of the litter
56. plain as day
57. play it by ear
58. put on airs
59. put up or shut up
60. quick as a flash
61. quiet as a mouse
62. quit while you’re ahead
63. read between the lines
64. ready, willing, and able
65. rest on one’s laurels
66. rob Peter to pay Paul
67. round peg in a square hole
68. run of the mill
69. school of hard knocks
70. second to none
71. shoot the breeze
72. sick as a dog
73. signed, sealed, and delivered
74. small potatoes
75. sour grapes
76. sow his wild oats
77. straddle the fence
78. sweep under the rug
79. take with a grain of salt
80. thin as a reed
81. throw the book at
82. tickled pink
83. time will tell
84. toss and turn
85. turn a blind eye to
86. under the weather
87. under the gun
88. up a creek
89. up to my eyeballs
90. viselike grip
91. wake up and smell the coffee
92. waste not, want not
93. water under the bridge
94. wet behind the ears
95. when push comes to shove
96. white as a sheet
97. whole nine yards
98. wipe the slate clean
99. without further ado
100. you can’t take it with you
101. you get what you pay for

Did you have a ghost of an idea there were so many clichés? Believe me, these are only a drop in the bucket! Why, I could have gone on from dawn till dusk!

Don’t go off the deep end, but which clichés make your hair curl? Toss them to the curb and you could be singing a different tune. You may feel like a square peg in a round hole at first, but if you rake that manuscript over the coals and do a clean sweep of those pesky clichés, every Tom, Dick, and Harry will sit up and take notice.

So don’t beat around the bush. Tell it like it is, and one lucky commenter can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with a copy of The Dimwit’s Dictionary, by Robert Hartwell Fiske. Fiske’s compendium of “dimwitticisms” will help you polish your prose and weed out those worn-out words and phrases.