This weekend, I ditched all the loads of work I had to do to attend a wedding in Virginia, which is approximately 3000 miles away from where I live. I spent a total of 36 hours away from my computer, 12 of which were on a plane and 12 of which were sleeping, and 4 driving to and from the location, so in total, only 8 hours that could have been used getting work done were partied away, so I don’t feel too bad.
It was a lovely spring weekend in Virginia – everything was green, the wedding was gorgeous, the couple young and happy. BUT – the awesomest thing about the wedding was that the best man actually FORGOT the rings.
I know! It’s so much a cliché that it doesn’t happen. Ever. Except this time, it did! Here’s a small dramatic reinterpretation:
Officiate: Do you have the rings?
(Groom turns to Best Man expectantly)
Best Man: Uhhh…
(looooong pause)
Groom: (to Best Man) Seriously? You have one job.
The bride and groom laughed it off, borrowed rings from the audience and continued, and when their true rings were found, they had their own private, ad-hoc ceremony. But this moment got me thinking about clichés. How often do clichés, those things that we think are just so banal and hackneyed, actually happen? How often does the one cave a stranded traveler take shelter in house a coterie of bats? Or how about the lead actress of a play breaking her ankle in the first act, to be replaced by her green understudy, who instantly becomes a star?
As a writer, I spend an awful lot of my time trying to avoid clichés – I want my characters to be well rounded, interesting individually as well as together, and as such I don’t want to write something that I feel is predictable or has been done before. But sometimes… sometimes a cliché is too good to not use. If you think I’m not writing missing rings at a wedding into a future work, well, then to paraphrase another cliché, you’re as deluded as the girl in the horror movie who runs up the stairs thinking to escape the crazy psycho.
Got any thoughts or opinions on clichés and their uses? (Or would you rather avoid the use of them altogether?)
That’s all for me this week — since I’m back from the wedding, I’m back at my desk, working hard…
Happy reading everyone!
Oh, the understudy taking over and becoming a star happened to Sutton Foster, Tony winner! She was the understudy for the lead role in Thoroughly Modern Millie, and after out of town previews, they cut the lead actress and she stepped up into the role and was a sensation. She won her first Tony for that and has been nominated three times since.