Clichés
Underlines stock phrases seen too often in print.
The problem with a cliché is not that it's wrong — it's that it's invisible. When you write the dust had settled or at the end of the day, the reader's eye skates over the phrase without processing it, the same way you stop hearing a clock that's been ticking in the room for an hour. The phrase costs you a slot in the reader's attention and delivers nothing back.
The fix is not always to hunt for a fancy replacement. Sometimes the move is to cut the phrase entirely and discover the sentence didn't need it. Sometimes the underlying observation was lazy, and the cliché was hiding that — which is when replacing it requires you to actually see what you were pointing at and say that instead.
Where this flag earns its keep: prose that has to earn attention — essays, reported pieces, narrative nonfiction, literary fiction. Where to set it aside: transcribed speech, dialogue written to sound like a real person talking, or voice-forward genres where a character's idioms are the whole point. A character who reaches for clichés is not failing; the writer who didn't notice is.
One honest limit: frequency alone doesn't condemn a phrase. The sun rose has appeared in print ten million times and is still the right choice when a sun rising is just the stage direction and you need to get on with the scene. Flag it, look at it, then decide.
In practice
Buried observation
After everything that happened, life goes on.
She was back at the register by Thursday, making change for strangers who didn't know her husband had died.
The cliché named a truth but showed nothing; the revision earns the same point by letting the reader see it.
Redundant weather
The storm raged outside, and tensions inside the room were running high.
The storm knocked out two windows on the east side, and nobody moved to tape them.
'Running high' told the reader what to feel; the physical detail lets them feel it without being told.
The unnecessary phrase
At the end of the day, the numbers just didn't add up.
The numbers didn't add up.
Removing the stock opener costs nothing and delivers the sentence faster.
Common questions
- How do I know if a phrase is a cliché or just a common expression?
- Ask whether the phrase makes the reader see something, or just fills a slot. If you can picture a specific image or action, it may still be working; if your mind supplies nothing, the phrase has worn smooth. A useful test: Google the phrase in quotes — if it returns thousands of identical uses, it's likely on autopilot.
- Is it ever okay to use a cliché on purpose?
- Yes — when the cliché is the point. A character who speaks in stock phrases, a narrator deliberately undercutting sentiment with a worn phrase, or a moment where the familiar words are exactly what a real person would reach for. The difference is intention: you chose it knowing what it costs, and the cost serves something.
- What's the best way to replace a cliché?
- Don't start by looking for a fresher image — start by asking what you actually meant. Clichés often mark places where the thinking stopped early. Write out what you're trying to say in plain, literal terms, then decide whether that plain version is enough or whether a concrete detail would show it better.
- Why do clichés keep appearing in my drafts even when I know to avoid them?
- Because they arrive fastest when you're moving quickly through a first draft — they're the brain's shortcut when it's working on something else. That's normal and not a failure; the draft is supposed to catch them. Reading your work aloud slows the eye enough that stock phrases become audible in a way silent reading misses.
Inside Verbaria
Verbaria's editor flags phrases it recognizes as high-frequency stock expressions and pauses on them — not to force a replacement, but to give you the moment of choice the first draft skipped.
Try it on your own writing
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Where this shows up in the writing
Where it comes from: Orwell's first rule (1946): never use a figure of speech you're used to seeing in print.
This is one of the tools inside Verbaria — the writing room that names the craft while you work. Read the writing.