Avoid Cliches when Writing Online

You've chosen an interesting topic with a specific slant. You know what you want to say. You've given thoughtful attention to the title, especially with regard to good search engine optimization (SEO). It's time to begin the actual writing! After a while, in "two shakes of a lamb's tail," you complete your task, you proofread, and publish.

After Publishing

While you're "awaiting the results of your labor," you go back over the article. Something's bothering you, but you can't seem to "lay a finger on it." Let's see: the article was about the not so "good old days" when you were young. "For the life of me"-you think-something's just "not up to snuff" about this article. You re-read paragraph one to see if you can figure it out.

Paragraph One

"Finders keepers, losers weepers" was the attitude I had when I was "knee-high to a grasshopper." But my mother "took exception." Now I loved my mother, but to me, this was "do as I say, not as I do," so I eventually took the point of view "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Unfortunately, I "ran with the ball the whole nine yards" and didn't wait for things to get lost before I'd find them. The "long arm of the law" caught up with me, and I had to "do time in the slammer."

Reflection, Plus a Rewrite

Nothing wrong with that paragraph, you tell yourself, and so move on to the next. If one reads the above paragraph fairly quickly, he realizes he hasn't really learned much, as he already knows all of those phrases. How much more informative and succinct to say,

If I found things, I kept them. My mother found out, and made me return them. I noticed lots of adults did the same thing I did though, so when I got older I reverted. This put me in trouble with the police, and I went to jail.

Making Practical Application

If you think you don't use cliches, write several paragraphs, and then go over the material you wrote specifically with the goal in mind-not to prove there are no cliches-but to discover the ones you didn't think you used. You might be "caught off guard," at how many you overlooked.