At the center of every cliché is a point that deserves to be made.
We need to learn to make these points in new and different ways.
Overuse make clichés predictable. Familiarity makes them sound “correct”, even though clichés are always a mistake.
A cliché is a phrase that is overused.
It is overused because it is familiar.
It is familar because it is overused.
Are you beginning to see the swirling pattern that accelerates and perpetuates the sucking of our language down the drain of imbecility?
Your goal as a writer should be to delight your listeners. You want them to be engaged in what you are saying.
There can be no delight without an element of surprise.
Predictability is the killer of surprise and delight. Clichés are the tombstones that mark the graves where their corpses lie.
Allow me to summarize: Clichés are bad. Do not use them.
NOTE: Every Large Language Model (LLM-AI) received its education by being immersed in an ocean of clichés.
May I teach you a new way to write that is new, surprising, and different?
Will you allow me to introduce you to meter?
Meter is music that is heard in the subconscious mind.
I will give you the names of a few different meters, but you do not need to remember them. The names of the meters are irrelevant. Your ability to create sentences that have rhythm is all that matters.
The most common meter in the English language is iambic pentameter, a rhythmic pattern created by an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
(da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM)
Robert Frost used iambic pentameter in Mending Wall
John Milton used iambic pentameter in Paradise Lost
Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in Hamlet
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit…”
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
to BE, or NOT to BE, that IS the QUEStion.
(da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM)
If you reverse the order to create
(DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da DUM-da
you are now using trochaic meter.
“Darkness settles on the city.”
“Children playing in the garden…”
“Winter brings a bit of sadness.”
“Silence covers hidden places.”
We will now playfully alternate those random phrases written in opposing meters.
Listen to the “call and response” that happens:
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”
“Darkness settles on the city”
“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit…”
“Children playing in the garden…”
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
“Winter brings a bit of sadness.”
“Silence covers hidden places.”
When you have mastered meter, you will be tempted to add rhyme. Do not do this.
Rhyme draws attention to your meter and makes it predictable. Need I remind you that predictability is the killer of surprise and delight?
Blank verse is the name for words written in meter that do not rhyme.
Blank verse creates magical music in the mind.
Do you want your words to be remembered?
Learn to write blank verse.
Roy H. Williams
PS – There are a multitude of meters. You do not need to know them all. But if you are curious to know a little more, visit Indy Beagle’s rabbit hole.
Your best ideas always come to you when you stop trying so hard to find them. Sara Connell has studied why moments of clarity often surface while walking, showering, or just letting the brain wander. Sara teaches her readers and clients how to generate breakthrough ideas intentionally.
Do you have more ideas than time to pursue them?
Sara can solve that for you, as well. Do you want to listen in as Sara Connell shares her methods with roving reporter Rotbart?
Do you want to learn how to:
1. slow the mental noise,
2. identify which ideas are worth exploring, and
3. turn flashes of inspiration into concrete next steps for business and life?
The place to go is MondayMorningRadio.com
