Does a cliche ever start out as anything but a perfect expression?

[AG31]

Here's an excerpt from @onehitwanda's excellent essay, Painting with Soft Brush.

"Consider the familiar sentence below:

It was a dark and stormy night.

This old chestnut frequently comes up as an example of what not to do - for good reason. It's a cliché, and while clichés have their places, this one almost never does."

And here's my comment: "One little quibble. "It was a dark and stormy night" wasn't a cliche the first time it was used. It was so perfect that it became a cliche."

Does a cliche ever start out as anything but a perfect expression?

 

[alohadave]

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

Most cliches start out normal and with much use and abuse become the cliches they are.

 

[StillStunned]

I remember once hearing someone mention the cliché of a poem by (I think) Emily Dickinson that uses facing backwards in a train to represent looking back on life. Sure it's a cliché now, but back in the mid-19th century it was probably new and fresh.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think there's a kernel of truth to this idea but I'm not sure "It's a dark and stormy night" captures it just right.

Here's the full original first sentence of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's novel:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind that swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

This is a great example of purple prose. It was purple then, and it's even more purple now, when we don't put up with purple quite as well as we did in the 19th Century.

Bulwer-Lytton, who became the namesake of an absolutely fantastic bad writing contest, which unfortunately has been discontinued by its originator, did come up with the great saying "the pen is mightier than the sword," which is an excellent example of an insightful, clever phrase that WOULD be a cliche if it were used now.

 

[AG31]

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

Most cliches start out normal and with much use and abuse become the cliches they are.

Thanks for the article.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Does a cliche ever start out as anything but a perfect expression?

Cliches can often be cliches because they're sometimes home truths. Although I'm not sure the example fits that definition, as it's merely a description of a dark and stormy night.

This is a great example of purple prose. It was purple then, and it's even more purple now, when we don't put up with purple quite as well as we did in the 19th Century.

Is it though? Reads pretty similar to any other nineteenth century novel, including some openings from Dickens (although I don't have a collected works by my side to give an example). Or this:

It was the last day of July. The long hot summer was drawing to a close; and we, the weary pilgrims of the London pavement, were beginning to think of cloud-shadows on the corn-fields, and the autumn breezes on the sea-shore.

Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White.

 

[AG31]

It would be interesting to know who first quoted "It was a dark and stormy night," and why.

 

[TheLobster]

I remember once hearing someone mention the cliché of a poem by (I think) Emily Dickinson that uses facing backwards in a train to represent looking back on life. Sure it's a cliché now, but back in the mid-19th century it was probably new and fresh.

I’m guessing it might’ve had something to do with the fact that in mid-19th century, trains were new and fresh.

 

[SimonDoom]

Cliches can often be cliches because they're sometimes home truths. Although I'm not sure the example fits that definition, as it's merely a description of a dark and stormy night.

Is it though? Reads pretty similar to any other nineteenth century novel, including some openings from Dickens (although I don't have a collected works by my side to give an example). Or this:
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White.

I think writing has evolved. I don't mean necessarily progressed, because that's not what evolved, understood properly, means. In general authors don't write this way anymore.

I think there's a difference between the Collins passage you quoted, and the Bulwer-Lytton passage I quoted, but I agree it's a bit subtle.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Some things become clichés because they're a perfect way to express something. Other things become clichés because they're a low-effort way to do something.

For instance, "and then he woke up and realised it had all been a dream" is popular because it presents a Get Out Of Jail Free for almost any kind of plotting problems. But it's often more frustrating for readers than enjoyable.

 

[Nynah]

It would be interesting to know who first quoted "It was a dark and stormy night," and why.

Perhaps it was Dumas in The Three Musketeers:

Chapter LXV
It was a stormy and dark night; vast clouds covered the heavens, concealing the stars; the moon would not rise till midnight.

Wikipedia points out that the phrase was used well before Bulwer-Lytton did, citing a passage described by a sailor in 1757 about a shipwreck (the magazine this is cited in was published in 1927; the phrase itself is a few sentences down from the top in the right column).

 

[Britva415]

Perhaps it was Dumas in The Three Musketeers:

This came later: 1844 vs 1830

Wikipedia points out that the phrase was used well before Bulwer-Lytton did, citing a passage described by a sailor in 1757 about a shipwreck (the magazine this is cited in was published in 1927; the phrase itself is a few sentences down from the top in the right column).

And Washington Irving used it in 1809.

I think it goes to show that being a perfect phrase doesn't make something a cliché. Bulwer-Lytton made it one. Or, maybe more to the point, his critics did.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I think writing has evolved. I don't mean necessarily progressed, because that's not what evolved, understood properly, means. In general authors don't write this way anymore.

That's true, it's overwritten when measured by 21st century standards, but in terms of the nineteenth century, Bulwer-Lytton isn't all that unusual.

I think there's a difference between the Collins passage you quoted, and the Bulwer-Lytton passage I quoted, but I agree it's a bit subtle.

Collins is more lyrical, less laboured, but it's no less a complex sentence. And where, for example, does, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," fit? That's a tad over the top, nowadays.

 

[SimonDoom]

And where, for example, does, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," fit? That's a tad over the top, nowadays.

I agree. Modern fiction has been influenced by journalism and its techniques, and other modern attitudes, and it's hard to imagine something like that working today.

I was involved a bit in journalism in high school, and I remember attending a conference where an experienced editor gave an example of a young student journalist beginning a news story with a paragraph that was something like, "God watched over the little town of Greenville as its buildings burned through the night." And the editor's reaction was "Screw the fire. Interview God!"

I've always thought about that ever since and it's kept me mindful of focusing on the single thing that matters most in whatever I am writing.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Almost everything you write today could possibly be a cliche, because as hard as you try to be original. The chances of it having been used before grow larger every day. There are so many stories produced these days...
So my question would be. "What makes something a cliché?"
Is it that it has been used many times over by different authors?
Is it that it's a cheap throw away line?
Who gets to decide it's a cliché? Is it after it's used, 30, 100, or a 1,000 times?
If it is indeed a "Dark and stormy night." Why not just say it?

Tropes and cliches are in my mind, just everyday occurrences... Things that happen daily.

Merely my thoughts.

Cagivagurl

 

[PapaRomantic]

My initial knowledge of this cliche came from a little word repetition game involving a campfire and some Native Americans.

 

[StillStunned]

I’m guessing it might’ve had something to do with the fact that in mid-19th century, trains were new and fresh.

That was precisely my point.

On the difference between Bulwer-Lytton's and Collins's opening lines: to me, the second succeeds where the first fails.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind that swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

The bolded section is where the problem is. Why mention the rain, only to immediately contradict the single clause devoted to it? Deleting that bit immediately makes for a better opening:

It was a dark and stormy night; violent gusts of wind swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Do we miss the mention of torrential rainfall? Not really. A stormy night might be assumed to be rainy too, and we've lost the awkwardness of rainfall-but-not-as-important-as-the-wind.

The Collins fragment doesn't contain any such contradiction:

It was the last day of July. The long hot summer was drawing to a close; and we, the weary pilgrims of the London pavement, were beginning to think of cloud-shadows on the corn-fields, and the autumn breezes on the sea-shore.

Each piece of information builds on the previous piece: July, end of summer, the heat of London's streets and dreaming of a cool autumn in the countryside or on the coast. "The weary pilgrims of the London pavement" is brilliant writing: in only seven words it conjures up an image of the city in the summer, the endless heat beating off the walls and streets, the grime, the stuffiness, the stifling flatness. Masterful.

 

[TheLobster]

The bolded section is where the problem is. Why mention the rain, only to immediately contradict the single clause devoted to it?

The other thing is that “occasional intervals” is one of the most unliterary expressions I’ve ever seen in a work of fiction. The only works where it wouldn’t be completely out of place are hard sci-fi novels and passages in Tom Clancy’s thrillers where he goes full Tom Clancy about technicalities of armaments.

But in this kind of scene-setting? It’s awful, it’s out of place, and you’re right to delete this entire terrible clause.

 

[StillStunned]

The other thing is that “occasional intervals” is one of the most unliterary expressions I’ve ever seen in a work of fiction. The only works where it wouldn’t be completely out of place are hard sci-fi novels and passages in Tom Clancy’s thrillers where he goes full Tom Clancy about technicalities of armaments.

Given that the sentence was written in or before 1830, I don't think it's too bad if "occasional" is supposed to mean "irregular" and/or "infrequent". But if the rain is torrential, and the wind only irregular, it's odd to then shift the entire focus to the wind.

ETA: