ARE YOU CLINGING TO CLICHÉS?

Clichés are overused phrases. They sound cool or funny the first fifty times they roll off the tongue, but eventually they lose their novelty and become as boring as the word the. 

Fight the urge to include them in your writings. A manuscript filled with clichés is a manuscript filled with unoriginality—the last thing a storyteller wants. 

Find the clichés below, then think of more original ways to convey the same thought.

1.  Kara looked so happy. I didn't have the nerve to tell her she needed that man like a hole in the head.

2.  They parked on a hill just as the sun was setting in the distance. Brad opened a bottle of wine and took out cheese and crackers from a basket in the back. "Just what the doctor ordered," she said. 

3.  "I will not!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. 

4.  "You didn't hear him?" Mabelle sucked on her cigarette. "He came in high as a kite, begging for scrambled eggs." 

5.  They talked all right. Problem was, they could talk till the cows came home and never ever reach an agreement.

6.  I was so mad I saw red.

7.  When the dust settled, Marv pulled off the gas mask, grinning. "Back to square one, I guess."

8.  Sheriff Lansbury heard the fence rattling, turned the corner and drew his gun. World's going to hell in a hand basket, he thought as he eyed the twelve-year-old criminal.

9.  Her pencil-thin eyebrows dropped. 

10.  Martha nudged her. "I bet you a dollar to doughnuts he never gets past the door."