The Cliche Thread

[Polipuff]

Pokemon Cliches​

What is a Cliche?
Although dictionary.com describes cliches as a common trite, in the fanfiction world, we often describe cliches as overused ideas while being often poorly executed. If you know you're great at writing (and others think so too), by all means experiment with them. But if you’re a new writer, by all means avoid them like the plague.

Here We Go Again
I don’t think I know a single Pokemon fanfiction author who didn’t start out with one of these.

Alright, imagine a ten year old kid who wakes up late, gets a pokemon from a professor, beats all eight gyms while catching some Pokemon along the way, ending either being champion, or knocked out in the finals/semi-finals. We’ve all read that story. Your fic might be different, though. your OC may travel by themselves. Your OC may be in a new region. But, the truth is, all of these fics have almost the exact beginning and end. When those two are the same, no one cares about the middle anymore.

Here is the plot of basically almost all journey fics:

Ash’s journey is a straight line, while your journey fic is a squiggly line, every once in awhile connecting it.

The beginning and the end is always the same, and the eight connecting points between them are when gym badges are earned. It doesn’t matter how, or where, or why the gym badges are earned. When that gym badge is earned, everything you did to separate yourself from the other journey fics have now vanished. You want your fic to be a parallel line with Ash’s journey, but never touch.

This, however, shouldn’t drive you fully away from journey fics. A good writer can make a journey fic on par with other great fics as well, just proceed with caution.

Training/Catching = Slavery/Abuse
Often found in mature fics, this cliche gets old, fast. While the idea seems really cool, I just see it too often and executed poorly to still be engaged when it’s brought into the universe.

Am I Really the One?
Let’s take a random region to start. How about Hoenn? According to Bulbapedia, the population is 694 as of ORAS. Let’s multiply that by 10,000, an approximation by human density in the anime. That’s 6,940,000 people. If you multiply that number by 7 (The number of regions total), that equals to 48,580,000, or a 1 in 48,580,000 chance of your OC being the ‘chosen one’.

Making your OC the ‘chosen one’ in a story is neither creative, nor logical. Skip this mess and find an idea more sensible.

Goody Two-Shoes
Trainers are supposed to be the good guys, right? And your rival is supposed to be a brat, right?

Wrong.

Being good isn’t bad, but being too good is bad. Everyone has flaws; nobody is perfect, and make sure your OC has plenty. Don’t twist your OC’s flaws into advantages too much either. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we see that maybe ninety percent of the rivals in stories are either brats, or evil. Also, if your main character is evil, please still make them kind-of likable, to increase reader interest.

Instead of good vs. evil, how about:

Neutral vs. evil, but neutral doesn't want to fight evil, so good forces neutral to fight evil, which makes good questionably good, evil questionably evil, and neutral is confused.

Way better, right?

Magic! Pew Pew!
This includes aura powers, psychic abilities, being able to read a Pokemon’s speech/minds, and everything in between.

For your chances of having magical powers, see the chances of being the chosen one, and times that by maybe another thousand. In general, having magical powers for the sake of looking cool, without a great (and when I say great, I mean extraordinary) reason of it, everything just becomes silly.

Magic is okay, it’s just that it’s often executed poorly.

Some others:
Father? What Father? - When the main character’s father is missing/gone/killed.
My Little Legend - When the protagonist befriends/catches a rare or legendary Pokemon within the first few chapters.
Idiot Organizations - Multi-billion dollar evil organizations hire bumbling idiots to be defeated by a kid.

Any others you would like to share?

 

[Kutie Pie]

I'm not entirely sure what you're going for here. Are you trying to put together like a compilation of clichés used in Pokémon fics? Just want to make sure.

Training/Catching = Slavery/Abuse
Often found in mature fics, this cliche gets old, fast. While the idea seems really cool, I just see it too often and executed poorly to still be engaged when it’s brought into the universe.

I kinda want to blame Farla for this one since this cliché seems to be her shtick. Even if she wasn't the first to do this, I have a feeling she made this idea more widespread before Black and White touched upon this with Plasma.

As for my picks of other Pokémon clichés in fics, since I don't really read Pokémon fics much anymore, only one comes to mind for the moment:

Ever seen someone so
SHINY
Soak it in 'cause it's the last you'll ever see

Having Shiny Pokémon in fics isn't always a bad idea, it can make things interesting, but this is something beginners do fall back on quite a bit. This is also combined with quite a number of the above clichés, too, so it does depend on how it's being implemented. If there's a reason why a character's Pokémon (or if it's about a Pokémon, the main character) is Shiny, then by all means go ahead. It's when you just make them Shiny for the heck of it that it's boring and lazy.

 

[Polipuff]

I'm not entirely sure what you're going for here. Are you trying to put together like a compilation of clichés used in Pokémon fics? Just want to make sure.

Yep, that's what I'm going for, trying to build up a collection of them.

 

[Dragonfree]

I have to disagree with how you describe a couple of these:

Am I Really the One?
Let’s take a random region to start. How about Hoenn? According to Bulbapedia, the population is 694 as of ORAS. Let’s multiply that by 10,000, an approximation by human density in the anime. That’s 6,940,000 people. If you multiply that number by 7 (The number of regions total), that equals to 48,580,000, or a 1 in 48,580,000 chance of your OC being the ‘chosen one’.

Making your OC the ‘chosen one’ in a story is neither creative, nor logical. Skip this mess and find an idea more sensible.

There are certainly valid reasons to be wary of chosen ones (they often get things handed to them, are overpowered or just outright Mary-Sues, their success being fated can diminish tension and uncertainty in the story, the idea is extremely overused and tends to feel trite to modern audiences, etc.), but this is not one of them. If the main character of a fanfic were picked at random from all the people in the region, then sure, the chances you'd pick the chosen one (assuming there is a chosen one to begin with) are one in however many people there are. But if there is a chosen one, chances are you're going to write about that person, not one of the 6,939,999 other random people who won't participate in whatever epic events the chosen one is fated to be part of. You might as well say, "There are 300 million Americans and only one Superman, therefore there's only a one in 300,000,000 chance of the main character of the Superman comics being Superman." Of course the Superman comics are about Superman; the whole reason they made him up was so they could then choose to write stories about him and not somebody else. Likewise, of course The Epic Tale of When the Legendaries Picked a Chosen One to Fight the Great Evil is about the chosen one. Reasoning about the odds that you'd pick the chosen one out of a hat at random is completely backwards.

Maybe The Epic Tale of When the Legendaries Picked a Chosen One to Fight the Great Evil isn't a great story - it sounds exactly like thousands of other stories out there, and see the various common issues with chosen one plots I mentioned above. But it's not bad because the main character is unlikely to be the chosen one; main characters are not picked at random.

Magic! Pew Pew!
This includes aura powers, psychic abilities, being able to read a Pokemon’s speech/minds, and everything in between.

For your chances of having magical powers, see the chances of being the chosen one, and times that by maybe another thousand. In general, having magical powers for the sake of looking cool, without a great (and when I say great, I mean extraordinary) reason of it, everything just becomes silly.

The reasoning about odds still doesn't make sense here. Characters with aura powers and psychic abilities are canon to the Pokémon universe; why would you be forbidden to write about them? It's very true that giving your characters magic powers just for the sake of making them cooler is a terrible idea, but the issue is the "just for the sake of making them cooler" part, not the "having powers that are an established part of the universe" part.

I also don't think it really makes sense to call this a cliché. A cliché is an element of a story that's become predictable and has lost its impact through overuse; it's not necessarily bad or illogical in itself, it's just been used in so many stories that readers have come to know how it goes, which makes it often advisable for authors to either avoid it or try to put a twist on it or play with it somehow. Something like magic can't be a cliché; it's not somehow boring or predictable because you've seen stories with magic before, because "there's magic" doesn't in itself imply anything about how the actual story is going to go. That doesn't mean there can't be problems with the handling of magic powers, but they're not rooted in it being a cliché.

Alright, imagine a ten year old kid who wakes up late, gets a pokemon from a professor, beats all eight gyms while catching some Pokemon along the way, ending either being champion, or knocked out in the finals/semi-finals. We’ve all read that story. Your fic might be different, though. your OC may travel by themselves. Your OC may be in a new region. But, the truth is, all of these fics have almost the exact beginning and end. When those two are the same, no one cares about the middle anymore.

Here is the plot of basically almost all journey fics:

Ash’s journey is a straight line, while your journey fic is a squiggly line, every once in awhile connecting it.

The beginning and the end is always the same, and the eight connecting points between them are when gym badges are earned. It doesn’t matter how, or where, or why the gym badges are earned. When that gym badge is earned, everything you did to separate yourself from the other journey fics have now vanished. You want your fic to be a parallel line with Ash’s journey, but never touch.

I also don't think I understand what you're getting at here; it sounds like you're saying the moment a trainer earns a badge, the story becomes exactly like the anime and every other journey fic, regardless of what came before it, but I don't think that can be what you mean. Do you think you could explain your thoughts better?

 

[Polipuff]

There are certainly valid reasons to be wary of chosen ones (they often get things handed to them, are overpowered or just outright Mary-Sues, their success being fated can diminish tension and uncertainty in the story, the idea is extremely overused and tends to feel trite to modern audiences, etc.), but this is not one of them. If the main character of a fanfic were picked at random from all the people in the region, then sure, the chances you'd pick the chosen one (assuming there is a chosen one to begin with) are one in however many people there are. But if there is a chosen one, chances are you're going to write about that person, not one of the 6,939,999 other random people who won't participate in whatever epic events the chosen one is fated to be part of. You might as well say, "There are 300 million Americans and only one Superman, therefore there's only a one in 300,000,000 chance of the main character of the Superman comics being Superman." Of course the Superman comics are about Superman; the whole reason they made him up was so they could then choose to write stories about him and not somebody else. Likewise, of course The Epic Tale of When the Legendaries Picked a Chosen One to Fight the Great Evil is about the chosen one. Reasoning about the odds that you'd pick the chosen one out of a hat at random is completely backwards.

Maybe The Epic Tale of When the Legendaries Picked a Chosen One to Fight the Great Evil isn't a great story - it sounds exactly like thousands of other stories out there, and see the various common issues with chosen one plots I mentioned above. But it's not bad because the main character is unlikely to be the chosen one; main characters are not picked at random.

This is more of just my logical head aching when I read a 'chosen one' fic, though, but I totally agree with your points.

The reasoning about odds makes even less sense here. Characters with aura powers and psychic abilities are canon to the Pokémon universe; why on earth would you be forbidden to write about them? It's very true that giving your characters magic powers just for the sake of making them cooler is a terrible idea, but the issue is the "just for the sake of making them cooler" part, not the "having powers that are an established part of the universe" part.

I never said that you were forbidden to write about them; if you are a decent writer, then by all means go ahead. however, if you are newer to writing, I suggest you avoid this because of unoriginality. Sure, these magical powers are canon, but is it being canon an okay argument for a badly executed story about them?

This entry also seems a bit fuzzy on what a cliché is. A cliché is an element of a story that's become predictable and has lost its impact through overuse; it's not necessarily bad or illogical in itself, it's just been used in so many stories that readers have come to know how it goes, which makes it often advisable for authors to either avoid it or try to put a twist on it or play with it somehow. Something like magic can't be a cliché; it's not somehow boring or predictable because you've seen stories with magic before, because "there's magic" doesn't in itself imply anything about how the actual story is going to go. That doesn't mean there can't be problems with the handling of magic powers, but they're not rooted in it being a cliché.

I will admit I might have phrased that in a bad way. When I mean magic, I do mean the most popular types used in a Pokemon story (auras, being able to talk with Pokemon, etc.). If you have a very original form of expressing magic, then sure.

 

[Samayouru]

Hm... I've been pondering on what to say about this topic because I'm in two mindsets about what I think about it.

I suppose I'd better start by saying that yes, this topic is flawed, and Dragonfree's done a good job of pointing that out. So I'm not sure what else I could bring to the table in terms of improvements that could be made.

However the idea of a cliche compendium is not a bad idea at all - in fact I think it's a really good idea. If there's one thing we all have in common as writers - we've all poorly executed a trope in our fanfics at one point or another. It could be a TV Tropes-esque guide for people writing Pokemon fanfics, providing both good and bad examples of cliches so that people know what their stories need and how they can improve on what they've written already.

So yeah - this topic could use some work. But the concept itself has a lot of potential that could be fleshed out into something that could help a lot of writers both in the present and the future.

 

[Firebrand]

Maybe this thread ought to become a compendium of commonly used and abused cliches in this fandom, but also a helpful guide to help new writers avoid some of the more common pitfalls? Which I think is what you're getting at, Samayouru. I mean, in response to the first post, I don't think it's right or fair to disparage the entire badge quest journeyfic genre. Even if it's something we've all seen before, I think it's a great genre for novice writers to get started in because it gives them a very clear narrative framework to use and helps them to develop their craft without the added pressure of coming up with a plot whole-cloth. We as an audience might roll our eyes and take a pass on yet another journeyfic (although I'm not seeing as many of these as we had several years ago), writing a story should be first and foremost something the author does for themselves, and any audience they attract is just icing on the cake.

Like Dragonfree, I would also beg to differ on your point on magical powers. Now it well may be that I just don't really come across fics that deal with that kind of thing but I don't recall seeing too many fics where the characters had any kind of powers whatsoever. I think the canonical special powers are often forgotten or underutilized, and at least in the case of aura powers that probably has to do with the fact that the Gen IV games, which was the only time the main canons really dealt with that stuff, came out about a decade ago. I'm sure that around 2007 there were tons of fics about aura guardians, but I don't see that any longer. And as far as the generic psychic powers go, those are such a small part of the main canon that its easy to forget that they're there. I'd honestly love to see more fics dealing with psychic powers, because I think that would be a cool unexplored bit of the canon to pick apart.

Aaaaanyway. I think this thread could become a really good resource for people, if we as the fic community make it into one, showing how cliches and tropes can be used and also how they have been misused in the past, instead of just having this be a repository of narrative things we as a fandom are constantly getting sick of seeing.

 

[Crystal]

Journey fic is by all means structured to be the duplicate of the main series game structure: Trainer receive a pokemon, then go challenge gyms to earn 8 badges, may or may not have villains in between to be involved, and then go challenge the Pokemon League.
Firstly, the game itself had already duplicated this structure for 6 gens already. But, do we by all means saying GenVI is just the same as GenV and is just the same as GenIV and is just the same as...... for also GenIII, GenII and GenI?

Well structurally, they are indeed the same. But then I can also say the same to many other fiction genre. Harem romance are all the same where it is about a guy's daily life surrounded by a bunch of girls and at the story end he end up with only one of them. Shounen battle adventure are all about the protagonist working up to be the greatest of the kind of thing focused in the story where during the middle some Big Bad will appear for the protagonist to defeat and then everyone deemed him to be the strongest once the protagonist defeated it. Warfare mecha are all about the protagonist suddenly chosen to become the pilot of a giant humanoid robots fighting the opposing force where that may be military of another country or aliens from outer space. Sport anime are always about the protagonist entering the sport club in his high school and trying his hardest to work all the way to enter and win the highest and largest competition.

Just because the structure are the same, should we then say fictional work in the same genre all have the same beginning and same ending, therefore every single fictions are all predictable, thus we can just ignore reading them because everything in the middle doesn't matter anymore?

"Ash’s journey is a straight line, while your journey fic is a squiggly line, every once in awhile connecting it."
Yes, that is just the point! I don't want to read another straight line story. So when one able to make the plot drastically different from Ash's journey where that is no more just a parallel of the canon work, but something with originality that can be deemed as another class, despite there exists connection points here and there where they are structurally at the same position, I'll still be interested to take a read.

One thing specifically about Pokemon journey fic I noticed, is that very few writers will eager to put work and effort in the characterization, where that is the crucial part in the entire story that makes any fictional work stands out on their own. All the criticism focus goes to what the character do, not how the characters do.
It is OK to do the same thing as someone else. But it is not OK if one is trying to do the same thing in the exact same manner and attitude and mind-set and even in the small quirks as that someone else.