Cliche

She looked around the room, listening as the lecturer defined cliché’s. Almost ironically demanding an end to the kind of language that had been used before. Damming the plots that had been used before. The lady was crazy she decided; there was no way it was possible to keep cliché out of her work.

She would if she could, really she'd love too. To write a story that was completely original, with phrases that would be taken on and mimicked in other styles of writing. To write and have work that was worth reading because it was her original words, the words that came from her; words no-one else would have written in quite this way before.
She scoffed. It was impossible, there was no such thing as an original thought anymore. There were stories that were old, or even unpopular enough to be forgotten. Shakespeare had stolen Romeo straight from the Greek and roman myths, but he was thought of as the first and most amazing. She didn't deny it, but he wasn't the start, he was just the start of their memory. 

The room was fairly empty today. When the lectures had begun, there hadn't been a spare seat in the house, but it had petered down to the mere hundred or so that now littered the tiered seating. They others still came to the tutorials, but that was University, if you didn't have to go, most of them wouldn't bother. Still, with just the people in this room; one of many university classes on writing in one tiny city, there were enough people that at least a dozen cliché’s were played out before they even started writing. 

A dozen clichés before they started writing, and they were just a fraction of this year’s group. They didn't include the bestsellers, the amateur writers being published everyday. How long had people been writing, thousands of years, thousands of writers. Every story, every sentence, they all just expounded over the stories and sentences written before them. If there was no original thought there were no original stories, and an original thought was rare.

It had been a hard thought for her to process at first, that her thoughts weren’t original, but how could she deny it? Her thoughts, her stories, they were all based on her experiences. She was human, she may have different thoughts, but didn't she connect with what other people wrote? Didn't they connect with her stories? The details may have been altered, but every story was the same, just with the external changes slightly altered. Just like people she thought almost morbidly; weren’t they all the same bones, the same skin, the same molecules, with just the makeup changed? 

So the lecturer was crazy, that was the only option left to her, that or 'they'; the omnipresent horde of lecturers and tutors, thought that she could do better than her mediocre best. That she could pull the proverbial rabbit from her nonexistent hat. That she could, she thought with a dulled sense of humor; pull a 'miracle from thin air'. No. She could only write what she knew, and what did she know that no one else knew. What did she think that was no a cliché. When she was sad, rain matched her mood perfectly, almost giving empathy to her own rainfall. When it stormed her heart jumped, either racing her into a panic or bringing out the wild tribal feeling that she kept hedged most days. She was a cliché.

She winced as a chill ran down her spine. She couldn't get away from cliché’s when the followed her. She looked down to the blinking curser on her screen; apathetically waiting for the answer to the topic question. Everyone around her was still hurrying to write down a non cliché filled reply. She had none. Her fingers hovered, teasing the keys softly as reply after reply was rejected for its mediocrity. Finally her fingers connected, pounding the answer out quickly before the lecturer called them to a stop.

"I feel faded."

Author's Note

All and any comments would be really really appriciated!!!

Reviews

[r. f. jordan]

this is well told, and a good use of the third person omniscient. i appreciate the quoted ending, and the latent sentiment that all written language might as well be cliche' just for having been written. nice work, and delivery of tone.

[Taylor H.]

I saw a few grammatical errors but other than that, I really enjoyed this. I loved the ending. It was short but good :)

*Re-read this really slowly and youll catch the errors*

[MoriartyMesa]

First person view was not only well structured and thought out, but strikes the class room image for any reader, no matter how old, nice job.

[Monica-Antoinetta-Magda..]

ahahaha love this becaues I was in the same lecture and now I know what you were writing that day!! also love it because it's great, enyone who reads will know that (:

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

I find it a pressing piece that lends to the utter frustration in all of us, well done, good read.

[Craig2591]

Sigh... you young folks and your tiny fonts!

I enjoyed this. It's well told and and has good flow. I feel the character's frustration.