WIM+AI – WIM Module 6 -Lesson 3: Cliché Busting

[Michael Collado]

Mike is Cliché Busting!

My Vision is to write an original screenplay, make a couple of calls to pitch it, to start a bidding war.

What I have learned from this lesson is to watch out for scenes similar to those of other movies I liked.

I keep a log of sayings I like, and for one, I found in the script that I have been racking my brain to change but not lose the essence of the saying.
And I think I found it; the saying is” You screwed the pooch on that one.” And I replaced it with, “That wasn’t too stinking bright”
I have been waiting to use a saying from the East Wing for like ever: “You don’t just fight the fights you can win—you fight the fight that needs to be fought”! I replaced it with “you don’t just coach the kids that you can win with—you coach the kids that need coaching”! I am not sure if this is the right thing to do. What say you?

So, after the Zoom meeting last night, I went backward through the scenes in the second draft looking for cliches so I would not look forward to the next scene. I did the search backward. I did find one that is a scene from Jurassic Park, but I thought I changed it enough to leave it be. Hopefully, during the second draft swap, those giving feedback will pick up on some more cliches for me.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Michael Collado.
• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Michael Collado.
• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Michael Collado.
• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Michael Collado.

[Lee Tidball]

CLICHE-BUSTING

Lee’s Cliche-Busting

My Vision: I am a writer who is excellent, recognized as such by people in the industry, and has several projects sold for WGA-type fees and some of those produced and successful in the theater and/or on a major streamer.

What I learned while doing this lesson is that I do have cliches in the script, and that I could find ways to make them unique, or just eliminate them and write something new. In genre films, there’s always various genre conditions and tropes that fans will be expecting to see. However, what’s fun is to vary some of those just enough so they become a unique expression of say, “the car chase” or “the fight with the dumbass law enforcement where they’re all gunned down by the bad guys” or “the final battle” in a way that’s unique and exciting to my show. That’s my job here. That said, I think I also did a good job of setting up a unique action story from the start that made unique a lot of the parts of an action film that are easy to slip into cliches back in the outline stage.

CLICHE SCENES, CHARACTERS, ETC.—and how I fixed them.

Page 25 – Troy is cliche—the typical over-confident police guy who gets his men killed by underestimating the bad guys. I’ll rewrite this whole scene to make it unique yet still fulfill the genre requirement that there be a big, no-holds-barred battle between law enforcement and the bad guys, one that law enforcement ultimately loses, leaving only the protagonist to somehow save the day.

The Climax – This wasn’t so much cliche as it was just too easy for the protagonist. I’ve rewritten it to make it more difficult, and may change the ending as well.

The opening – This could have been much more cliche than it is. I worked hard to make it different by introducing the bad guy first, making him almost look sympathetic, and the protagonist to look almost anonymous and almost bad. This is something that really caught my feedback reader’s attention—favorable attention, that is.

The character of Mara Jenson – I’ve not completely fleshed this character out yet, but she’s now a much more sympathetic “boss” figure for the protagonist Kellen than the cliche of a boss who’s so stuck on herself that she can’t see the wisdom in what the protagonist is doing. Yet she is strong and advocates forcefully for her own plan.

The Protagonist – While the fact that she used to be a Green Beret in the army which accounts for her special abilities to be the hero of this story may seem cliche, it’s more of a trope of the action film, even a requirement. She must have special skills that make her the one hero that can save the day in this story, and she has to have gotten them somewhere.

All in all, I didn’t find too many cliches in this as when I did the original outline, I worked hard to make the story unique, with a unique setting, unique main character, unique plot, etc.

• This reply was modified 9 months, 1 week ago by  Lee Tidball.

[Monica Arisman]

Subject: Monica is Cliché Busting!

VISION: I am a very successful screenwriter who has had multiple movies made.

What I learned from doing this assignment is you have to be always vigilant in writing. I’m always cognizant of clichés but sometimes they sneak in.

For the first time since I started screenwriting, I can say that I have not written any cliché scenes! However, I am beginning to wonder about a couple of scenes I have in another script I’ve been trying to market.

• This reply was modified 9 months ago by  Monica Arisman.

[Margaret]

Margaret is Cliche Busting

My Vision: To write profound faith-based screenplays that are produced.

What I learned: Reminded once again of the importance of fresh scenes, without Cliches.

My script is based on a true story. The events were dictated by actual events which made it easy for me to steer clear of cliches in this script. I did go through the script, however, to identify any cliches that may have crept in. I didn’t identify any.

[Pat Fitzgerald]

Pat is Cliche Busting

My vision is to have fun completing this class with a contest-winning script that will establish me as a courageous and original writer.

What I learned is akin to something I once heard legendary Country musician Jim Lauterdale say about the first songs that he brought to Nashville. Music producer after producer told him that his songs were good but none of them were hits. That's how I came to look at cliche-filled scenes. They might be good, but they aren't going to make for a script that will be optioned, let alone made into a film. And there is always a way to brainstorm a cliche into something orignial.

My scirpt changes were so numerous that I decided to not waste my time trying to keep track of them. Off the top of my head, these are a few of the changes, keeping in mind that I'm writing a diabolical dark comedy.

Cliche: The protag kills her husband by pushing him off a ladder.
Change: The hubbie trips on a rug and sends a metal straw up his eye and into his brain.

Cliche: One woman's home has a putrid smell because she is a horder.
Change: The home smells putrid because the woman experiments making dog food with raw meat and saves all her experiments, which are littered all over her house.

Cliche: A disoriented man dies by being pushed down basement stairs. (My so-called protagonist is a serial killer, btw.)
Change: Before the protag can do the deed, the disoriented man slips in the bathtub and the fall kills him, causing frustration to the serial killer who wanted to do the job herself.

Cliche: A farmer's market like we see everywhere in summer. I mean vegetable, eggs, etc. being sold.
Change: A farmer's market selling not only veggies, but canning jars filled with weed brownies and various types of "happy" pills.

I had so much fun cliche busting!

• This reply was modified 9 months ago by  Pat Fitzgerald.

[Edward Lusk]

You scare me Pat! 😀

[James Hernandez]

James is Cliché Busting!

My Vision: I am a great writer who is recognized by the industry as an exceptional collaborator able to elevate any project into production and have maximum success.

What I learned from doing this assignment is…that selecting a new version for a cliché may require a more expensive shoot. The purpose might be the same, but a non-cliché scene could require more financing. Then the film’s overall budget comes into focus as select creativity would allow for the solution to do away with the cliché.

Cliché: Ethan and Joey on a park bench feeding pigeons in a bonding moment.
New Version: Ethan and Joey bond sharing an ice cream pop at the top of the Empire State Building.

Cliché: Ethan and Joey have lunch on a park bench feeding pigeons furthering their relationship.
New Version: Ethan and Joey further their relationship at a spy museum in NYC.

Cliché: Ethan and Lily have a romantic moment in her apartment.
New Version: Ethan and Lily find romance in a bookstore. This could still be cliché unless a twist of some sort serving the story is created.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 4 weeks ago by  James Hernandez.

[Sunil Pappu]

Sunil Pappu is Cliché Busting!

My Vision: I’m a successful produced writer who specializes in female-led thrillers.

“What I learned from doing this assignment is… looked for cliches but most of the scenes are quite unique and never seen before. I did however find a few cliché scenes in the climax and resolution that I fixed by asking the question what is the purpose of this scene.

Cliches busted:
Cliché: Marines storm the ship and kill the crew with stealth
New Version: Crew fight the marines in the ballast hold
Cliché: resolution scene where the PM thanks her for her service
New Version: They talk about women and how they are underestimated by men

• This reply was modified 8 months, 4 weeks ago by  Sunil Pappu.

[Kristin Donnan]

Kristin is Cliché Busting! (And will continue to!)

VISION: “I envision writing so well and consistently that I’m in demand, cherry-picking projects, selling beyond my wildest dreams, collaborating with people I admire and truly care about, and speaking my soul—on a big scale—so that I enjoy professional freedom, financial freedom, and joy.”

WHAT I LEARNED FROM DOING THIS ASSIGNMENT:
Mostly, by the time I got to DOING this assignment, we had already had the live class session about it and I had this in my mind. I wasn’t finished with the first draft yet, and so I usually caught clichés as I first thought of them. (For example, the story starts at a cemetery / burial, and my instant thought was to have the “bad brother” arrive late and in a hopped-up car. I realized even before I wrote the scene that it came from This is Where I Leave You, where Adam Driver’s character screams up in a Porsche.)

Beyond those experiences, I have identified some scenes that have “familiar action,” but I don’t think they’re necessarily clichés. (I also asked Hal this in our call: if there’s a mystery and some of the clues have to be found…does that mean it’s a cliché to find clues? The answer is “of course not,” but we do want to be as original as possible.)

Here are a couple of examples of “familiar action” scenes that I don’t think are clichés:

• Protagonist searching an abandoned house on his family’s ranch—carrying a gun and a spotlight.
• Spying on his brother (antagonist) through the window of a bar.

I will keep coming back to this topic!!

• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by  Kristin Donnan.

[Edward Lusk]

Ed is cliché-busting.

MY VISION is to be a bankable, reputable, and industry go-to writer who’s demonstrated how to entertain and hold an audience’s attention through unforgettable characters and stories that are as enjoyable to write as they are to watch.

What I learned from this assignment and still am learning is how to distinguish between genre conventions and clichés. My story is Christmas Rom-Com so there are expectations to honor the genre, however, not with cliché.

Cliché – traditional family and warm and cozy Christmas traditions
Busting – non-traditional family and oddball traditions

Cliché – love triangle
Busting – the love triangle with a big twist concerning one of the suitors.

Cliché – lovely home and setting.
Busting – it's still a lovely home/setting with a revealed magical quality.

Cliché – the stakes of a broken heart or finding true love
Busting – the stakes of a broken heart, or finding true love, and adding the risk of ruining Christmas, a dilemma.

I keep looking for more as drafts continue or at least stop and question if I'm in a cliché scene/character or not and work on a solution. Not easy but fun to imagine the alternatives.

[Kathryn Gould]

Kathryn is Cliché Busting! – sort of

I honestly found this incredibly difficult. In fact, debilitating. I found plenty of stuff that felt familiar, kind of tropy, and so I fixed what I could of that. I ran one scene through AI to ask what it thought was cliche, and it said pretty much everything – the cold, aloof scientist is a cliche, the main character being warned about something but doing it anyway is a cliche, I just didn't know what to do with that. I couldn't identify any scenes that were directly from other movies. I mean, there are plenty of movies where people have to get past tight security, but… what do you do about that? The characters have to get past tight security, it's essential to the plot. I tried to make it as unique as I could. I had them climbing through air ducts, but I did recognize that one as a bit Die Hard-y, so I made up a whole system of robots that do maintenance in the building and a series of tubes they get around in that my characters use to infiltrate the building instead.

After I guess a month or so of being stalled on this one assignment, I have made the decision to take back control of my creative process and just move on.