Are Clichés Actually a Writer's Best Friend?

Featuring raucous email subject lines, a famous car advertisement, and one

And probably we should start here:

We live in a time when phrases go from novel to cliche faster than you can say “these ChatGPT templates are so good it should be illegal.”

The consequence of that is that lazy writing has never been easier.

That’s why there’s so much of it.

Here’s a little tip if you need to exercise that creative muscle, rather than just swipe hooks. It’s practically guaranteed to grab (and keep) attention. 

I call it “The Twisted Cliche.” 

The Twisted Cliche is a device that takes a well-known cliche and swaps out one word. This minor “twist” on a trite phrase can land an emotional punch far more effectively than the cliche itself.

Let’s start with a simple example: 

“What doesn’t kill you makes you money.” 

That’s my subject line from earlier this week. A reader sees that, starts to mentally autofill the sentence with “makes you stronger” then says: “Wait, what??” My inbox flooded with replies after that one.

Changing one word gave the sentence a completely different tone.

Kinda like this famous line:

“0 to 60… eventually.” 

It’s unclear who first penned this one. But it’s gotten so popular that at least 9 different Etsy shops sell stickers with the logo. 

Complete tone shift. Pride in a fast car turns to self-mockery of a slow one. 

Even if you’re not creating such a dramatic tone shift, you can still use the Twisted Cliche to glue phrases to the brain. 

Like this: 

“The best things in life are dairy-free.” 

That’s the label on the back of my Silk Milk coconut milk. And although these people have clearly never stress-eaten a whole container of queso on a sad day, at least the phrase is instantly catchy and memorable. 

So, your task is to go and practice that.

Literally, look up a list of cliches, and then start swapping words out.

And for the rare few who are curious about how or why this works, it’s something like this: 

As we are exposed to repeated patterns (language or otherwise), neurons in our brain essentially carve a “path” from one place to the other, and a tissue called “myelin” starts to trace the pathways so you can do them better. This is how habits are formed. It’s also how we pick up small talk.

There’s a tipping point where we recognize the new pattern as normal. Comfortable. Safe. 

A tangible example: if you make coffee in the same place every morning for 5 years, you can pretty much do it with your eyes closed. 

The problem occurs when someone moves the coffee pot. 

Your brain has a little fit and goes “wait, this is not normal. DANGER!” So you have to look for the coffee pot, which takes a little more time and a lot more attention. 

Same with cliches. 

Once you’ve started a reader down the “usual path,” you can pretty much guarantee their attention by changing that path. 

More: 

Neuroscience shows we don’t actually read individual words. We scan a sentence, looking for the meaning. Once we extract that meaning, we can discard the sentence and move on. 

Twisted cliches give you enough meaning to understand, but also create a burning need to figure out the rest. 

Ok that’s all today. 

Much love as always,

-Todd B from Tennessee