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All genres of fiction have their stereotypes, whether it's the hard-boiled detective, a roguish/whorish character with a heart of gold, or the orphan with the royal blood/special power/great singing voice. TG Fiction easily has as many, if not more, cliches as any other genre, and while there's nothing wrong with happily dwelling in them, challenging the cliches or using them in subtle and different ways can be a lot of fun as well.
It can be dangerous to play with cliches in a serious story though, since the writer's always one easy mistep away from slipping into the stereotypes he or she is trying to avoid. But coming that close to the edge and then stepping away, playing with the readers' assumptions, especially if done in a way that doesn't run contrary to character or force a plot hole--that's great storytelling.
To that end, what are the common stereotypes and cliches of TG fiction? I'm sure this kind of thing has been done before, but I'm curious what readers expect from their stories. From evil-stepmothers to weak-willed self-made businessmen... what's common to the genre?
-F.
PS. I'm not saying I'm a great storyteller! But I do like to play with the cliches, though admitedly with mixed results. I figure this kind of thing can only generate some extra ideas to toy with.
Cliches? Where do I start....
TG fiction has several menus of cliches, consisting of stock characters, situations and settings. Breaking it down to those categories, you find you can assemble quite a number of combinations which has fueled about 90% of the fiction written and posted since we all found the internet as our personal publishing house.
Characters:
-Young lad, usually around puberty, almost always suburban and white middle class who is 'frequently mistaken for a girl' (my personal favorite to detest)
-Abusive father who threatens son with various forms of masculine experiences, like football, fishing or wearing pants
-Mother who just can't wait to have her son wear dresses, and quite often psychotic about it
-Sister who has nothing better to do than waste incredible amounts of time helping her younger brother look good and borrow her clothes
-Girlfriends who make bets with their boyfriends to 'teach them a lesson'
-the "bullies" who torture and taunt the frail boy mentioned above
- and of course the whole fem-dom fetish crowd
-the wife who suspects her husband of cheating, or just being a man somehow
-many more to add, so little space
Situations-
- the "Bet" where normal guy must pass as a girl, usually involving some event at high school
-the blackmail- humiliation gambit where the guy continues to dress to avoid the consequences of being found out, often to the point of death, rape or loss of assets. Usually a variation of the "Badger Game con"
-the basement scientist with some nano-retro-virus-DNA-Wayback machine built with parts from radio shack and a 1957 Buick Roadmaster plus an obscure alien green goo often similar to oatmeal on St Patricks day (See "Back to the Future" for further explanation)
-and so on...
Settings
-High School seems to be the hands down winner, especially suburban, white upper middle class
-the Mall
-the Salon
-the eccentric Aunt's remote farm/island/boarding school
-and so on....
These lists are not trademarked, copyrighted or limited in use by national and international law. Using them creates crappy TG fiction 90% of the time. Side effects are eye glaze, headache, lack of fulfillment and excessive use of one hand.
Authors: Treat cliches with care. If you find a cliche and are tempted to use it, assuming you can avoid the pitfalls associated with it, take a deep breath, count to ten and dial 1-900-JUSTSAYNO.
If the cliche is laying on the ground and follows you home, do not feed it.....
Ah, yes. Good list. Although
Ah, yes. Good list. Although a few of them are not so much clichés as almost unavoidable depending on the characters you started with... for instance, if you are writing about suburban middle-class teens, school IS a big part of their life, so it will end up appearing sometime (unless you place the entire story during summer vacation...)
One of them, though... I would agree that it's a big cliché, and until last week would swear that it was an *absurd* cliché -- the kind you never see in Real Life. And... it's the very first one in your list!
A client of mine has two teenage kids. The older one, a girl, is about average -- not particularly pretty or anything, just a normal teen. The younger one, though...
I met the kid, by chance, while waiting for the parents -- we weren't formally introduced, and I didn't get the kid's name. I look at the kid. Quite a bit shorter than me, about shoulder-height; very thin and slight. Delicate features, thick lips. Small, oval, thin-rimmed glasses. Shoulder-lenght, straight dark hair. What I see is a twelve-year-old girl. I find it a bit funny that she mentions liking shoot-them-up games, such as Doom 3 -- a bit out of character for a teenage girl, but I keep it to myself. I rather like her -- smart kid, not intimidated by adults without being rude, reminds me of my goddaughter when she was a teen.
Then the father arrives, and call the kid by name. A *male* name. I realize I lucked out by not saying anything that would make it TOO obvious I mistook the guy's son for a girl. Well, I cover my surprise quite well -- no exclaiming "you are a boy?" or anything like that, which would be humiliating for all involved, including me. I glance at the kid again and think, well, young kids ARE kinda androgynous, so for a twelve-year-old, the main thing that pushed my perception into "female" was the long hair.
We keep on dealing with the job at hand while the kid hovers around. Sometime later the kid's age is mentioned by some reason... turns out he's FIFTEEN, not twelve as I guessed. THAT I can't keep in; I blurt out something like "You are a bit short for your age, aren't you?" and he nonchalantly says "Yeah, I'm short, I have long hair, I know..." implying that people are surprised by his appearance frequently.
Then, I mention this at work... and turns out that my boss DID make the big faux pas of calling the client's son a "girl". Apparently it happens all the time. Why the boy puts up with it is a mystery to me... when I was his age I would do anything to look more manly. I suppose he's secure enough about his own identity that he laughs it off. But he IS living TG fiction cliché, only he probably never heard about it.
Sir Lee
Yes, but...
The fact that so many stories do feature suburban middle class high schoolers is a sad commentary on the sum total life experience of TG authors...
How about some urban teens, or rural ones? and maybe ....gasp...some adults?
It seems to me that it is not inevitable that so many stories have such similar settings unless that is the only setting a great majority of the authors are familiar with...
Hmmmm, maybe TG authors are the cliche....
Writing Guidelines
Two things I was told some years ago: write what you know and write to your market. So if most TG writers are suburban middle class, and most readers of TG stories are suburban middle class, what do you expect?
I can't write from the POV of an innercity black youth, I've never had the experiences he or she has had. And frankly, if I could, I doubt there'd be much of a demand for a story about a poor black boy who sells crack to finance his crossdressing.
As everybody seems to want to drag poor William S. into this discussion, I will too: "Much Ado About Nothing"
Karen S.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
wow
excellent use of a cliche... the very thought of an urban setting means a crack deal...no stereotyping there...
now, that would mean a story about a suburban kid who sold crack to finance crossdressing would not be real?
I think the 'market taste' is the creation of unimaginative writers. By limiting what is written , we constrain what is demanded...
Necessary conflict
One of my editors insists that conflict of a sort is necessary to keep the reader's interest. What could be a stronger conflict than the poor urban black boy to be doing something illegal to finance his inner desires.
As for your last statement, I believe it was a character of Robert Heinlein's who in the story was a writer himself, that commented something to the effect that people say they want something new but they continue to buy the same as before. If people really wanted something new and diferent for entertainment, why did they still play baseball? All the various possibilities in baseball had surely alreday happened, yet people still pay money to watch baseball games.
Besides, I've seen some of your stories, and you seem to make unapologetic use of some of the same cliches you bash here.
Yawn!
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
'Wounds my heart with monotonous langour..."
I am certainly glad you have 'seen' my work. It does come without apology.
Since I have been accused of writing against stereotype quite often, sometimes with rather personal invective, I find your comment refreshing. Usually the email is complaining about how I 'violated the reader's trust' by throwing a curve into the expected scenario.
Forums are places where we disclose our opinions. You have yours, I have mine. I will refrain from discussing your work in this context, since that would seem better left to specific story comment sections.
Sounds like a great story to me
Writing what you know is very limiting--after all, we know so little. That's the joy of research. I've read of many authors who've justified extensive reading sprees--or expensive trips--as a prelude to their writing. And in terms of character: do we really know anything outside of ourselves? Unless we accept that all characters are simply a projection of some aspect of our own personality, we have to accept we're going to write outside of what we know. I'm neither a transvestite nor badass womanizer, but I'm writing one (though it's not for me to judge whether successfully or not.)
As for the market? Who can guess the market? Far healthier to write what you want to write, I'd think--and accept the limitations of that. Write TG fiction if you like, but accept it's not going to get published professionaly. Audience can't be dismissed outright, but shouldn't define what you write.
Uhh, but that's not what I meant to say. Your idea? About the black kid who sells drugs to finance his femininity? Sounds like a great idea to me. Built in tension, easy sources of conflict--so many ways it could go. Wouldn't be an easy story to write well... but it's got loads of potential, and people who certainly read it.
As for the big S: there are worse people to look to for ideas. Yeah, the guy used loads of stock characters to fill out the ranks--common enough for the time--but his main characters? Complete cliche-busting, fully-rounded people, the lot of them. From Juliet through to Lady M, Henry to Hamlet; they're awesome.
Cliches
That first one on your list, Ty--I was that teen-age boy who was sometimes mistaken for a girl. And the bullies were very real--I have the scars--so those elements in my stories (and I suspect, Ellen's) are not cliches but are based on real life experiences.
When I decided in my early thirties to finally do what I'd been wanting to do since I could talk, I parted my long hair in the middle and dressed in old jeans and pastel sweatshirts and people were calling me ma'am immediately.
I've always had a feminine face but I haven't been THIN since I was nine. :) One odd thing, at five-foot-seven-and-a-half, I went from being short to being tall. :)
The use of such a character or situation may be cliched but the character or situation doesn't have to be a cliche. In my experience, cliches are frequently those common elements of genre writing that one dislikes, whether it is the tall quiet sheriff in a western, or the short effeminate boy in a TG novel.
In Kelly Girl, I tried to play with several cliches. Kelly is a suburban kid, yes, but he's poor. He's passive and effeminate but resentful of having this pointed out or exploited. His mom is supportive but noncommittal. His bete noir is an older successful TS who just can't stand to see Kelly's potential wasted. Kelly's father is another slight, slim, effeminate male with a talent for appearing female--and a very rough explanation of how he acquired such skills.
In The Fairy King, explanations are offered for the 'cliche' of the boy-who-looks-like-a-girl. I play with the ambiguities of Ethan's developing situation as long as possible to avoid the appearance of cliche.
But why is the effeminate boy such a cliche in TG fiction? Because it is a common fantasy, perhaps? Like high heels and shopping malls, hair salons and sister's closets, these elements exist in TG fiction partly because people fantasize about them. They aren't cliches, they are common elements whose use may be cliched.
Personally, stories where a mother, wife or sister feminize a boy or man against their will do not appeal to me very much. Are they cliches? Some of them, perhaps most of them.
In Kelly Girl, I felt I had to walk a fine line between Kelly's passive resistance and Andie's aggressive manipulation. Some people read their interaction in terms of the familiar feminization story, which is designed to diffuse and displace the guilt one feels for crossdressing or being excited by crossdressing. Writing Andie with real human motivations rather than the motivations of a stock character was difficul--and still, some readers saw more of the stock cliche because that's what they expected, perhaps even wanted, to fulfill their fantasy of living Kelly's life.
For some TG readers, crossdressing is a fetish--for others it is just a pastime and for still others, it is a lifestyle. For still other readers, crossdressing is something we used to do before we became who we always were. For each of these four groups, crossdresssing in a story is an element that can become cliched but is not in itself a cliche.
But a challenge would be to write a TG story without any crossdressing. I've done several, some more successful than others. ;>
This is the task of the author; to be original while communicating using recognized common images. Cliches, stereotypes and archetypes are tools one can use or misuse. A cliche is simply a common symbol that has become tired from overuse and misuse. A fresh approach, a genuine new view of a cliche turns it back into a useful element of the story.
Gotta fix breakfast. ;>
bye
Wanda
hi Wanda
Since you were that person, it clearly shines through in the story as a well drawn character, a nice mix of reality and just enough fictional idealism without going over the top.
That however does not mean that every story using the convention does it well, in fact this area is the one where many authors create the least believable characters a great preponderance of the time.
The bullies as stock characters are quite often poorly drawn cardboard cutouts, they can be done better in many stories. Why do they torment the victim and others do not? Inquiring minds want to know.....
Lets just say I see a lot of re-writing instead of re-working of stock characters and situations. Yes, these stock characters and situations CAN be made into a good compelling yarn. When it happens, rejoice. The exceptional story does not prove the rule when it comes to TG fiction cliches, it merely makes them worse in comparison.
Cliches become cliches
for a reason.
Using an archtypical character is accepted and good practice in most cases. Even these stereotypes can become complex.
A "good" character is one who can create conflict with others in plausible situations.
There is nothing wrong with taking typical storylines and bending them so that they are interesting.
If we had to have completely new characters and distinct plots, writers would have quit centuries ago.
Most readers who come to this site want to see their fantasies explored. They judge the story mainly on how closely the writer adheres to their desires. They decide what they want to read based on the preset descriptors Erin has provided.
I've not done a formal study, but would safely assume that the more descriptors you can work in, the more hits you will receive. Some of my best stories have had very few reads because they don't fit many descriptors.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Nothing new
After Freud and Joseph Campbell it became clear (to me at least) that the human condition was one cliche after another counting on some theological fantasy to make us "unique". Shakespeare is the greatest packager of cliche's of course. His works are artfully written strings of cliche's with great charachters of good,evil,comedy,and every condition in between. No writer can escape the cliche, but God if I could just do one like shakespeare! Well, I might stop wearing dresses, nah, I was born to swish.
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
hmmm
true, very true, Gwennie. But Bill didn't write Twelfth Night of King Lear over and over. There is not a real fine line between archtypes and cliches.
Although he did have a few stock characters, Falstaff and his variants and so forth.
Still, he was a far cry from Having Hamlet dealing with bitchy cheerleaders and going to the prom in Ophelia's gown...over and over....
Defending stereotypes
Since I am patently guilty of using the most egregious of stereotypes, according to Ty, I'm going to say something in their defense.
I don't think that the boy who is mistaken for a girl is unheard of. From my experience (I was once a child and have know some since then.), I think that there may be more who are mistaken for girls than there are that want to be girls; unfortunately, not all the later group belong to the former (and it is those that don't that are underrepresented in these stories). I would think that the boy with soft features who insist on keeping his hair long is showing some sort of desire too. Of course, I'm talking of younger children; by sixteen it is probably rare without great effort.
I, also, think that we take a lot of our cues about gender from behavior, posture and presentation, and that works in the favor of some in the second group. The other day I saw a kid in the store that might have been a boy in a dress; but, since I don't live in a TG story, I'm sure it was a girl with a strong jaw, straight brow line and short haircut. What would it take before anyone in this universe would challenge her and her mother?
Anyway, calling the effeminate child a stereotype is like calling the transsexual a stereotype, it seems to me. If we are going to write discovery and apprenticeship tales, then we have to write about the ages at which these discoveries are made and apprenticeships occur. And a lot about this kind of story and life must fall into those categories. Not everything featuring a character under eighteen is written for the one-handed. It surely is much less than the story of the 'adult' locked in the basement, on a desert island, etc.
And I imagine that we will be stuck in the suburbs until more full time writers take the time to do the research necessary for stories in more exotic locals; or more intercity transsexuals grow up, are successful enough to get computers, and decide to write for us.
However, that isn't what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to defend stereotypes in general. In life people use stereotypes to avoid thinking. In stories the writer uses stereotypes as a short cut to commutation. They were used by Joyce and Beckett and Woolf, and dates back to the Greeks and the morality plays of the middle ages when each role had a special costume. Used with minor character it is fine and necessary. We can't explore the motives of everyone that walks onto our stage.
It is unfortunate, when these stereotypes are used throughout and are unexplored. I think stereotypes can be used to build main characters but should not stop there. Telling stories is easy, creating people is hard. So (we get to a response to your question) of course, play with the stereotypes and the clichés and the Jungian archetypes even. That is what it is all about. And if you fall off into the abyss, enjoy the ride. I think a story told from the point of view of the malicious father would be great, but I'm not sure how many readers it would get. The manipulative mother's view has been done a little more but could be done better.
Two of the clichés we have are the Cult of the Feminine and the vile, manipulative mother (or aunt or whatever). And it is when there is a plethora of the later combined with the view point of the former that I get disturbed and worry about the writer.
Thanks for the question, Fake, and congratulations; you not only got me to think, this is at least the third comment longer than your original post.
Thank you to everyone who managed to read this far. Gaa, this got long.
Jan
Liberty is more than the freedom to be just like you.
just to clarify
Fiction cannot exist without stereotypes, just like people cannot function with 'putting people into boxes'.
However, let me say this one last time....stereotypes (or stock characters) are not cliches unless they are wildly overused and DO NOT REFLECT MOST READERS REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE.
Stereotypes are not cliches on their own. That requires the repeated abuse of them by authors.
An effeminate child who crossdresses with a certain degree of angst is a real character the first thousand times....after that, it's a cliche merely by overuse of the same plots, the same angst, the same stock characters...in other words, authors not adding to the stereotype, but merely rewriting it.
Let me get this straight, Ty,
So let me get this straight. A story exploring childhood or adolescent angst is, per se, a cliché. Most of Dickens, almost all of Salenger, much of Capote and parts of other things that I thought were great books can be forgotten, because we have all read stories about that stuff before. On the other hand, a story that uses a vile of anthrax instead of a bomb, a former SEAL instead of a Green Beret, is set in Machu Picchu instead of the pyramids, (and uses a ring instead of a medallion for the instantly accepted body change) is inventive. I don't think so, sorry.
Some very thoughtful, and well read people, think there are only seven plots (along with combinations): facing the monster, tragedy and grief, rebirth, comedy, voyage and return, quest, and rags to riches. These are major Jungian archetypes. The coming of age tale and the adventure story are good packages for them. So you will be continue to be confronted by the first, and I will be face with the second, over and over again. I will continue to read many adventure stories, however, just to see if it is well done (not necessarily better or differently) done. And would hope you would do the same with discovery tales.
Why do we bother to write at all? There are enough great books in the word to keep the fastest reader busy for life. Well, for me it is because the mountain is still there, and I might stumble on a under used path through the foot hills; I don't expect to get any higher. (Oops, I used a metaphor. That's been done at least a thousand times before. How gauche.)
As to your first sentence, I do function with out putting people into boxes (or at least while trying hard not to), but perhaps I simply don't know enough people, so I won't argue the point.
Please, Ty, be assured this is not meant personally. I am familiar enough with your stories to know that you do challenge the clichés of plot and character and enjoy them because of that. It is only your dismissal of an entire class of story with which I take umbrage. Plow through the 'cliché' a few times, and explore some people's hearts; they have invited you in. But in the end we all must work our way through what we must work our way through in our own way.
With respect,
Jan
Liberty is more than the freedom to be just like you.
Genre vs cliche
I can't speak for Slothrop, but I think the idea is that coming-of-age / Bildungsroman type stuff is a genre, whereas the way it's often done--say the "young Canadian woman coming to age by losing her virginity in a wheat field"--can be cliche. I'm not big on archetypes (and especially archtypal characters) because they're ultimately far too reductionist, but some stories are classic simply because they're true to the human condition. Everyone (other than Peter Pan, and even he's not spared these days) grows up, so that story's going to be told again and again. But if the story keeps getting told the same way, then it seems to me that's when it becomes a cliche. And since apparently the only thing we all do more than grow up or die is fall in love--we'll be hit by that even more.
And let's face it: that's where the cliches really dwell. How many teenage romcom movies recycle the exact same characters and stories? The teenage prom? The jocks, the cheerleaders, the geeks? Those cliches aren't doing anyone any good....
And, to bring it back to the original point (I think), the similar cliches that plague TG fiction aren't doing much good either. Do we need more evil vindictive wives? Manipulative step-mothers? Vile high school jocks and cheerleaders?
One more time
Either one of us can use debating games to take the other's point to extreme.Let's not do that for the sake of communication.
There is a difference between saying "There are many stories which are basically rewritings and not reworkings of similar themes" and "All stories ever written or to be written using those elements are unnecessary".
There is a difference between saying "Can we do better to find fresh material" and "All material not totally new is useless".
I do enjoy tales of discovery, when they ring true to what I have experienced, with characters I can feel are drawn realistically. There are many fine ones on this site. However, Sturgeon's Law does apply, and there are so many more that could have been better if they had tried just a little harder not to use some of the stock crutches that I feel hobble so many authors. Does saying that dismiss all tales of "discovery'? No, it says there are well written ones and less than well written ones. To say otherwise makes TG fiction the writing equivalent of Lake Wobegone, where "all authors are above average."
Writing TG fiction does not remove the need to make believable characters, decent plots, character arcs, actual endings, conflict and resolution and all the other stuff you mention in the 'seven story types'. The fact that these archtypes exist hardly means they are written out. To define 'different' as 'not cliche' is cheating to try and make a point. Capote was not Dickens, but Dickens in "Great Expectations" was hardly repeating himself in "Tale of Two Cities".
I am sorrowed that you feel I dismissed a whole genre, that was not my intent. There are two kinds of TG stories, those about TG and those with TG elements. I enjoy both. It is not surprising that the former outweighs the latter in representation on many sites, since many writers, including myself have used the medium to work out our own issues with who we are. I respect that element of what people are trying to achieve.
My stating that I wish there were other settings used than high school is merely a personal desire, that the psychotic feminizing mother be replaced by something more recognizably human, just a wish, that the cardboard or non existent father be written with some humanity, an impossible dream. Take that as a statement of personal taste. You may enjoy these things, I have no problem with that.
As to 'putting people in boxes' , humans do that on an instinctual level, putting everyone you see on the street first into 'threat' or "not threat' and then a whole series of filters before it even gets to your higher brain functions. Hard to avoid those lower level functions...
to Ty and Fake:
I seemed to me that you were speaking in generalities, Ty, so I responded to a general condemnation. (There was something about the first thousand times and everything after that.) I guess it was only me using rhetorical devices, however. I am glad I over reacted - I mean to find that I over reacted, and you did not mean that every child story was to be rejected.
My story means a lot to me an many levels, and I work very hard to avoid or address many of the cliches of character, plot and style, or to use them only to a purpose. I am sure that I lose many readers because of those attempts, and don't want to lose more due to an out of hand condemnation before it is even tasted. Putting things in boxes to quickly can cause unknown loses. Without exploring the stories, you can't know if your wishes have been granted, or even if someone has tried to grant them (even if poorly, or incompletely).
Thanks, Fake, for starting this thread.It was enjoyable and informative (and I'm not just speaking of this little backwater of it.). Start another soon, perhaps on the linear plot-driven story, or the use of symbolism. It is because you ask these questions that you are one of the best writers around and are bound to get better. (Plus you know what bildungsroman means.) But don't do it too soon; I want to do some real writing for a while (at least what I call that), and I have used up a weeks allotment of parenthesis on this thread already.
Walk in beauty,
Jan
Liberty is more than the freedom to be just like you.
The use of Cliche?
Ty Darling,
"Willie" stole and made use of everything that came before him. Ok, Falstaff may be his greatest reused character, eventually a "cliche" for what? Maybe for "Willie" himself? I take your point. I am setting about to write a cliche ridden story that except for the necessary dark side even Walt Disney would love!
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
I'm really surprised that no
I'm really surprised that no one has mentioned "Princess Pervette's Rules For TG Fiction". Has Tom been gone so long?
To: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:57:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Tom Parsons
Subject: [TG_Fiction] Pervy's Rules for Transgendered Fiction
Pervy's Rules for Transgendered Fiction
by Princess Pervette
(I've been guilty of a few of these myself....)
1. Everybody "passes." Always. If a boy is taken out crossdressed,
even his own school chums don't recognize him.
2. Everyone looks good in the mirror when dressed, even if it's the
very first time. If it's a boy, he sees a pretty young girl. If it's
a man, he sees either a gorgeous lady or a slutty sex pot.
3. In fact, no-one *ever* looks ridiculous crossdressed.
4. If a male of any age tries on some girl's or woman's clothes, they
always fit him perfectly.
5. Men who crossdress always have ideal bodies for doing so--short,
slim, and generally feminine in appearance.
6. Any magical or numinous object always causes either a sex change
or a body swap, either directly or as an unavoidable (and unexpected)
side effect.
7. Sex changes caused by biological agents take effect within minutes
of the time the agents are introduced. Bodies so treated likewise
change shape completely within minutes.
8. Ears, newly pierced, are ready for earrings immediately. No
temporary studs, no disinfectant, no waiting for the wounds to heal.
Just pop in the earrings and you're ready to go.
9. If a man has to borrow his girlfriend's clothes in an emergency,
she always *just happens* to have a pair of breast forms lying about.
10. Any man who goes to a girlie show or a brothel will end up as one
of the employees.
11. The more chauvinistic a man is, the more likely he is to be
forcibly feminized.
12. Makeovers of crossdressed males are invariably successful beyond
anybody's dreams.
13. If a wife catches her husband dressed, the outcome is never
divorce. Instead, she feminizes him, either lovingly or as a
punishment.
14. [Fido's "woof! woof!" rule.] If a feminizing woman is a
dominatrix, she must *bark* at least once in the story. (E.g.,
"`Put on that bra! NOW!' she barked.")
15. If a parent discovers that a son loves to dress like a girl,
(s)he punishes him by...making him dress like a girl.
16. Fathers of transgendered boys are either (a) dead or (b) divorced
or (c) themselves transgendered.
17. Any boy who plays with girls for any length of time will
eventually be made to wear their clothes.
18. No matter how bitterly a boy hates being feminized at first, he
will unfailingly end up loving it. All that stuff you read about
Bruce/Brenda was a fiction.
19. Any boy who is attracted to girls' clothes is a wimp and a sissy,
never a jock. There is never any difference between private and
public behavior, either by nature or by design.
20. Feminized boys can easily win beauty contests or get jobs as
models.
Princess Pervette
March, 2000
Community email addresses:
Post message: [email protected]
A cliché is ...
... only a cliché if it becomes predictable, timeworn, and woefully uninteresting. But whether a story that starts with a "stock character" or "well-used situation" remains a cliché depends upon the author's ability to make her characters and their struggles unique and compelling.
A story about a hard-boiled private detective could be viewed as a cliché. But why that detective is the way he is, and how events either force him to remain that way or change how he views himself or others could be an interesting story. What if he's actually TG, pushed into being a tough guy by the world around him with no other outlet for his disappointment but a cold rage, focused on suitable targets? How could he change if he stumbled over the chance to finally be a her in the middle of a case? Would he change if it meant giving up his client? The cliché formed a solid starting point -- where the author takes it is her choice, but wherever it may wander from here, it won't be a cliché. (In fact, I may write this one. *grins* Shame to waste a plot).
Sure a lot of TG stories take place in high schools, but look at the Whateley stories for an unusual take on ground too often covered, or Ellen's Tuck saga to see the high school setting as the twisted stage it truly is for so many. Her characters are real and always true to themselves. Even the "evil" ones are fully realized, with agendas and lives of their own. Just being set in a high school doesn't make Tuck's story a cliché. What she does with the setting and her characters makes Tuck's world interesting, engaging, entertaining, and sometimes disturbing.
As a writer, I've always believed that "the journey is the reward." Maybe the trip from cliché to compelling begins with a single step -- in an unfamiliar direction. *smile*
Randalynn
A rose is a rose is a rose...
I sort of agree with slothrop, but I sort of disagree. True, there are certain authors who write the same story over and over and over again. (As we say in the computer science biz, "some people have 10 years of experience; some have 1 year of experience, repeated 10 times".) And there are certain classic motifs in the very nature of TG fiction.
But that does not make those motifs unusable. In some cases, I think it makes them workable. As an example, consider the hard-boiled detective who becomes a TG character in the midst of his/her investigation. I have been toying with a pastiche of "The Maltese Falcon" for several years, and it is still far from finished. But think about the Bogart movie version. Didn't it ever strike you that the Fat Man's associates were rather.. unmanly? From Peter Lorre's very effete Joel Cairo to Elisha Cook Jr.'s almost 'pretty' Wilmer, these are not the tough guys that Sam Spade ought to be up against. Similarly, Brigid O'Shaughnessy (or whatever her real name is - we never know) is almost mannish. So.. what if the falcon is real, and is a cursed object, and all three of them used to be members of the opposite sex before their contact with the statue? And, of course, in the book Sam Spade is a blonde. Apply our cliches, and you can see where this leads. :-)
I don't see some of these cliches as impossible, either. I referee AYSO soccer. I see lots of kids during the soccer seasons, and some small proportion of the boys *look* like girls. Some look like girls who are butched up with crewcuts, but every year there are a couple boys who look more like girls than some of the girls on the girls' teams. It happens. With male and female characteristics distributed in a roughly bell-curved distribution, you get lots of overlap of distributions.
Of course, many of the cliches are necessary for fantasy fiction. No TG wants to fantasize that - upon putting on his wife's clothing - he looks like a freak and he splits his wife's dress at the seams and it's a complete disaster. Few TGs want to imagine waiting until they're using a walker before they get to dress, when they might imagine becoming a girl in their teens and living a happy life as a beautiful girl. And I don't want to delve into the deeply Freudian issues of being 'forced' into dresses or having to be humiliated as part of the transformation, but these are so embedded in the collective TG psyche that they are nearly omnipresent. (The things I wrote for myself back in the 80's and early 90's were dominated by these themes, if you will excuse the pun.)
Diane
Love,
Diane
Lets Settledown
I suspect cliche' is in the eye-of-the beholder.
Given the vast amount of print, film, and digital fiction out there, I doubt if anything completely "new" is out there.
How does the old gag go, something about there only ever being four plots on all of television? Or that My Fair Lady and Frankenstein are the same story, simply one has a happy ending.
Cliche' can be fun if tweaked sucessfully. The stock character who, despite hints that he/she is otherwise, is exactly as expected or the cliche' turned on it's head can both work. It's the skill of the author that makes it so.
Thanks for the reference to "The Longest Day", Slothrup. Thanks to dear Karen, Sir Lee, Randalynn and everyone else for your contributions.This has been interesting.
Best wishes to all of you from a guy who lives for coincidence and cliche', look at my silly non-sense for proof.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
the line was Verlaine
Well, John, although the line was used in "The Longest Day" it predated that and the author Verlaine should be recognized not the work that used it.
And that's Slothrop, two 'o's.....
Personally, I found the discussion lively and fun...
Maybe the discussion indicates we tend to settle down a bit too much into comfortable settings as TG authors?
I found Fakeminsk's additional note spot on, when it did suggest TG writers use research to widen the horizons of the genre.
If we only write 'what we know' that invalidates Science Fiction, Fantasy and several other genres....
I also notice when a discussion on 'cliche' pops up, the definition gets broadened to such extremes that using humans in stories suddenly falls under the definition of 'cliche'. As a result, then all stories are cliches, except we know they are not.....
Thank you John, and I won't even try to spell "Wauwatosa"
Sorry about the Misspelling
Slothrop,
Wauwatosa is correct, as correct as the French corruptions of native peoples names for things are after being convered to English and then re-spelled by us Americans in the early 1800 -- see Mr. Webster and his Americanization of English.
Of course the French had asked tribe A who tribe B across the lake was, and if the tribes were on bad terms they would tell the French, oh, those are the Never Take A Bath tribe or some such insult. look at the differing definitions for Chicago as an example.
Wauwatosa was either a respected chief, possibly of the peoples later refered to as the Menomonee, though that tribal name may have changed now, I was in school so long ago. Or it means 'valley of the firefly.'
Thanks Fakeminsk for an interesting subject. I read your first draft of the begining of Season 2, damn, I had to print out the final version of the first season to figure it all out. Curses, I skimmed part of it the first time. "K" is still an enigma, good, bad, neither, both,never the same person twice? Aaarrrg! Great job!
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. What does Moderate Comments mean?
John in Wauwatosa
A final comment?
I'm not sure why I started the topic, other than I was taking a break from other stuff I should've been doing, and because it brings together disparate threads of various things I'm reading at the moment.
As some people have said: there's nothing wrong with cliches. Not even with stereotypes, though they can be dicey ground. It's been mentioned that stereotypes often find their routes in reality: either in general statistics applied to large groups, or through simple (though occasionally misunderstood) observation. In fact, it's nonsensical to simply dismiss stereotypes because they can feel un-PC.
Stereotypes are about groups, no? If you were to pull up stereotypes about, say, 'computer engineers', you might thing: male, asian, socially awkward... dunno. No offense meant, but I remember the shock I felt walking into my first Engineering class. First time in my life I'd felt a minority; cool experience, actually.
But does this mean that any given engineer you walk up to is going to be Asian, or male, or socially awkward? Of course not. Nor does it mean that any given male, or Asian, or social awkward individual will be an engineer. Sterotypes are about assumptions about groups.
Fiction is about individuals. Individuals are complex, go against form, challenge stereotypes and are ultimately unique--especially in the hands of a good writer. Populating the background with stock characters is fine and all--but to reach beyond the limitations of genre, I think you need to, if not abandon, then at least challenge the stereotypes and cliches. In TG Fiction I'm not sure what that would be--after all, is there such thing as a stereotypical cross-dresser or transexual in real life? The very desire is subversive in nature enough to defy stereotypes, I'd think.
What the hell am I writing about? I'll stop now. Seems like there's some interesting ideas being generated, though--I'll have to steal some cliches to work with. As for me, no more posting after pints, I think....
Keeping the kettle boiling and stirring the pot
Fakeminsk, you started a good debate here, so if posting after a pint or two is what it takes, go ahead and have a brew on me!
Slothrop (I hope I got that right), I confess to adding a pinch or two to the fire as a deliberate act, just to keep the fermentation working. I hope no offense was taken, you seemed to have the best arguments so I used you as my "reactive agent". (And I apologize for the mixed metaphors here!)
I do admit to using much from my background in my stories, but it's been a varied background, so I guess my life up unil now could qualify as research of a sorts. Perhaps when that has been mined for all it's worth, I'll move on to other topics, but I've still got lots I haven't used.
Oh, and if anybody wants to use the getto kid idea, feel free! Just give a tip of the hat when it's published.
A fun topic for the weekend, I hope everybody enjoyed it as much as I did!
Love to all!
Karen J.
>^..^<
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Sir Lee Revisted
I know that I am hijacking this thread a bit; OK a lot, but I just wanted to revisit Sir Lee's comment; specifically the part about the boy that was mistaken for a girl. Sir Lee wondered why the boy was so nonchalant about being mistaken for a girl. It is quite possible the boy is a MtF transsexual. It is also very possible the boy is on testosterone suppressors to prevent puberty. The boy is fifteen so at this stage they may have decided it was better to just wait until he/she became of legal age. The above is not uncommon in teenage transsexuals and is often used to prevent puberty and therefore prevent all the bad side effects that MtF transsexuals face if they transition later in life, i.e.: deep voice, facial hair, larger bones, etc. If a young MtF starts earlier in life, say at five or six, then it is possible, with understanding parents and a supported school system, for the young MtF to just live as a girl from the beginning. I personally know of such a child and it makes all the difference in the world.
I offer my apologies for hijacking this thread. I now return you to your regular scheduled programming.
I'm confused
Three of my stories were posted here and each one of them got its share of mixed comments. By design I set out to write the non conventional TG story. What confuses the hell out of me is the want for stories that are deviod of cliches, stock and steriotype characters and then when one gets posted it's panned. To quite Leutenant Columbo "Do you see my confusion?"
When "Cycles" was in draft form and believe me it was rough enough to remove paint from a door in one pass, I was flat out told that the story would not be well received because it was different and not main stream. My comment was "so what."
I'll go as far as saying that there are segments in the three stories where I go out of my way to take a poke at convention. Perhaps that's why they aren't as well received as others. There is the distinct possibility that other writers are more skilled than I.
A point taken from the motorcycle world. Ducati re-designed their flagship sport bike and the roof fell in. It was panned and dissed in magazines and on the internet. Same too for Harley-Davidson. Everytime they hang the tag line "Sport" on something, it gets panned by the faithful. The HD V-Rod which came out in '02 is not a very popular bike because it is not in the faithful's eyes traditional.
In Zen speak, writing TG fiction is a "double bind" Stray off the reservation and get whacked, stay on the reservation and get whacked.
Do you see my confusion?
Dimelza
People don't want to want.... (on the thread that wouldn't die)
Dimelza,
The first problem is that people don't want to want what they want. We talk against the tried and true, but always return to it. Just look at the best seller shelves in the book store.
The second problem, I think we face, is the different motivations of writers and readers on these sites. Many are working through personal issues through their prose, for a lot of the writers that means that our research must be done on the back porch (because we are all suburbanites, obviously) and looking inside our selves, but it is also true for the writers who write the outward-looking tales. The readers (many at least) are coming for a few minutes of escape (but that too is often a way to deal with the personal.). Dostoevsky is not permitted beach reading. (I never pass up the chance to steal from a T-shirt.) But we don't get paid by the hit, so what the heck, go for it.
On the other hand, much (even most) of the negative comments are often made by people who simply seem to miss the point (that was true with your stories, and with Darla's and Heather's; as recent examples). In away that hurts even more, but I think think it is not really so bad. Your got the readers to care enough to care and to type, maybe they just had to look very hard for something they felt safe talking about, or something. Anyway they did read!
To quote the great bard, Ricky Nelson, again (I used this in a story recently, and it's not that good a line, but it rings true for me) "I've learned my lesson well...you can't please everybody so ya got to please your self" That's even more important in our writing: so damn the cliches and negative reactions when you offend them, and full speed ahead.
Onward through the impenetrable fog:
Jan
My family values love, tolerance and compassion.
We only hurt ...
the ones we love.
A cliche that speaks to Dimelza's confusion.
I'll step back to the baseball allusion. Why do people still watch the 'same' game after all these years? Because they connect with it and each other through it. You've all heard fans argue with each other over who is better, how a pitcher should have pitched to the batter that just hit a homerun, how they would have managed the game. Why do you think millions play fantasy games?
It's about choices. Life is a neverending series of them and we apply the same behavior to our reading of TG fiction. We like to argue (often incessantly and vehemently)over how someone could use the standard plot device better or differently. We often appreciate when we are surprised by a plot twist or character bent we didn't expect but at the same time many of us hate surprises, dislike writing that challenges or warps our paradigm. Some of the most powerful writing here is discomforting because it generates it's power from that very discomfort. Other writing is just as powerful because it resonates, it reinforces our view of the paradigm.
Life is a like a tree, the one great plot that branches off in myriad directions and we are the leaves on that tree. Everyone of us is unique yet bound to the tree by chemistry, though each has taken a different branch to arrive at this point. Cut us off from the tree and we wither and die. Some of us would like to prune the tree and I dare say a few would even like to cut it down at times but that it nourishes us and sustains us. And that is what the writing here does too.
"It only hurts when I smile/laugh" and this discussion has certainly made me do that.
Commentator
Commentator
Visit my Caption Blog: Dawn's Girly Site
Visit my Amazon Page: D R Jehs
Cliche: Newbie Comment
This is my first post ever here and I hope I don't seem intrusive.
Before I go on, let me tip my hat to the writers. Like Joni Mitchell
said, "you play real good for free" . . .
FM's question about cliches is a good one because it speaks to what makes good TG fiction. For me, the best stories are those that combine social/cultural motifs which symbolize what it's like to be transgendered. (Others have described what those are and so I won't enumerate them again here.) Again, IMHO, the best chracters are those that reflect our fantasy life which, in turn, is a reflection of what it's like to be TG in a society that expects either/or but not "us". We're anomalies. When we lapse into *that* fantasy when we see an attractive woman that is definitely not what most other people male or female think. It's a pretty unique experience. But it's unique because we're transgendered. The best stories take that experience, incorporate into it other elements of transgendered life (fear, danger, guilt, eroticism, pleasure, longing, fascination, frustration, etc.) and spin it all into a cracking good story---for us and not really for anyone else.
The key to doing that involves drawing on the motifs that define our lives. So, where are the cliches? A cliche is simply a badly rendered motif. For example. I've noticed that some writers have tired of describing their characters wearing "4 inch heels". Instead, they describe them wearing "2 inch heels". My take on this is that there has apparently been a collective decision that "4 inch heels" is now a cliche while "2 inch heels" isn't. (Really? :-) But take it from an avid reader, "4 inch heels" may sound overused and, therefore, a cliche, but "4 inch patent leather Stewart Weitzman's" is definitely *not* a cliche---provided, of course, you know what they are. (GRIN)
To say it again, I don't think the motifs used to describe the TG experience are cliches. At least I can't think of any. On the other hand listening to someone saw their way through J. S. Bach, getting lost in the counterpoint, means they've just taken a beautiful motif and run it over a cliff. We'll forgive the momentary damage. Practice makes perfect.
Kate_Blanik
Note to Dimelza. . .
Ducatis rule! 350 Desmo: 260 lbs, Vegilia mechanical tach, infinite rpms: blew Norton's into the weeds!
Kate_Blanik
Great comments
Just like those readers who enjoy formulaic romance novels, readers of TG fiction are pleased to return to a certain "core" plot if it's well written.
Readers will accept oft-written sub-plots and cliched (many times seen) situations if it is a natural, believable part of the story, but it is a higher barrier to overcome for the reader who has seen the same essential thing, in its varied incarnations, a hundred times before.
It's not so much a situation where an author has a list of plots and characterizations they must avoid, as it is the author's awareness of their audiences' expectations and prejudices (against cliches), and making sure that if he or she must use one or more of those eye-rolling devices, that it is a natural fit.
Another way of putting it: Add the danger of cliches to your list of writing rules and, like any writing rule, abandon it only with thoughtful discretion and at your own peril.
To further complicate matters:
Besides the usual story categories of CD, forced femme, and transformations, as well as the usual real life, historical, sci-fi, and magic sub-categories, is the personal fantasy, which often abandons the classic rules of plot, tension, theme, etc., to create a vision of what the author would like to happen to them.
And if that fantasy happens to highlight a gaggle of gushing girls taking a barely protesting main character, who, by blind fate, is rather small, slight, with long hair, and sometimes taken for a girl, to the mall to be initiated into girlhood? Well, to the reader whose fantasy matches the author's, "Cliches? *pant* What cliches?" :-O
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
A cliche...
...is someone else's unoriginal thought. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Unoriginal
You mean, I'm a product of a ... *gasp* cliche? :)
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Another viewpoint on cliches
Cliches are only cliches to someone who has already seen the same plot over and over again.
There are many who are still just finding sites like this. To them, every story, every plot is new ( the first dozen or ten times, at least ).
If all the stories attempted to avoid stereotypes, they might not find enough to keep them interested enough to start to recognize the cliches.
And, speaking from personal experience. I was there not that many years ago, and it began to teach me things about myself that I’d been hiding from for almost 50 years. When I was that kid, and I was 6ft, way too thin to even be considered effeinate, ( 135 pounds ), and never looked very effeminate.
There was almost nothing available, make that, nothing for the general public. When my folks tried to find out, I was mis-diagnosed by the pshrinks, and we could not find anything in the libraries. That was on the ‘reserved’ shelves, only available if you had a law or medical degree.
I was able to sort the bad stories from the good, and began to learn from TG fiction, even before I suddenly realized that the internet I’d been using to make a living for several years, HAD a lot of the information I’d been looking for.
After a while, I strayed away from some of the authors I’d enjoyed at first, because I realized they were writing the same story many times. Individually, they were good stories, but together, they were the same cliche over and over and ... .
One author even used the same name for main characters oner and over. I doubt there are that many people by that name in the US who are TG, leave alone go all the way to SRS and live happily ever after in the last 3 paragraphs.
Slothrop was one of the people who helped me learn more about myself not only in stories, but through personal, though on-line contact. So have many other authors, through personal contact of one sort or another, or just through their stories.
Mention was made of stories not getting many hits if they did not touch enough categories, keywords, stereotypes, etc. That may be true.
One thing I hope everyone keeps in mind. A well written story with some meat in it may just be what a few individuals are looking for. You may be doing more good with your unusual stories that don’t get many hits, than with the ones that have lots of hits, touch many categories, but don’t help anyone.
I guess what I am trying to say echoes a lot of what was said earlier. Cliches have their place, as long as they do not become crutches.
To a point, though, they help the reader familiar with them to get into your story without everything needing to be spelled out. I see the cliches Slothrop was railing against, as the ones that are either way overused, or just a bit unbelievable.
I guess I’m through rambling, except I want to thank all of the authors as a group for writing so many stories that anyone interested in the TG genre can find things to their taste, cliched, or not. I know that being introduced to the genre helped me find out that I was not alone, not as unusual as I'd thought for half a century.
Holly Logan
One of the most difficult things to give away is kindness.
It usually comes back to you.
Holly
Cliche all over again
Life is full of cliches.
The ones I hate are where the boys and men who are feminized, take it like a girl. Strong personalities let themselves be doiminated to the point that they can't do for themselves. If the man was a strongh business type person, he may find it harder to be sucessful, but not impossible.
The wife who feminizes her husband that she has loved before can't wait to get a real man. Many women might find that the intimacy in a relationship is higher because their husbands now understand better their lives. Afterall from what I hear intimacy is more important to women than raw sex.
It is hard to be truly creative. One would have to look far to find a unique situation or circumstance that hasn't already been explored.
A writer should be able to express him or herself here without being trashed. It is a free site after all. Sure we see some works that are hard to read and understand. I have a hard time reading Tuck. It jumps around too much but I think the plot line and the characters are great.
The plots of some stories here may be weak and the grammar atrocious at times. But this site is free. Authors aren't asking you to spend your hard earned cash to pay for their creative efforts. Comments should be helpful.
If you throw out all the stories the second you see a cliche, an obvious plot device, or what ever else, you may miss a gem. Amongst all the gravel you may sift between your fingers, you may find a diamond. For a diamond in the ruff looks like a rock till you cut and polish it. (sorry for that cliche I just had to do it.)
Love,
Paula
When the lines between reality and fantasy blur, true magic can begin.
Paula
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
The Coda
Chapterhouse: Dune
Interesting reaction
"A writer should be able to express him or herself here without being trashed. It is a free site after all. " A touch of irony in that one.
The most precious commodity we have, an irreplaceable one, is time. Authors spend it, readers spend it. Nothing is free. I do not devalue the efforts that appear on these pages, or dismiss them as 'it's free, therefore who cares?". An author puts a piece of their life into a story, what's that worth?
I agree Paula, 'trashing' in STORY comments is not productive, especially with the seemingly thin skins that TG authors wear. (Mine gets really thin when a story is first posted, often requiring sedation). However, I can say some of the 'trashings' I got did make me work harder and try to improve. (My particular favorite was the person who asked if English was my second language....)
If you love re-reading the same near exact storyline over and over, have fun! Enjoy! However, I do not see any harm in a thread or discussion which a new author might read and use it to break out of a set of habits that are holding their creativity back, trying to please 'conventional readers'.
No one should be discouraged from writing, yet I also believe no writer should be lulled into a rut by well meaning readers.
Interesting revisited
I am sorry, I wasn't trying to trivialize the efforts of the authors or the tastes of the readers. I have paid $29.95 for a book and not liked it . I had a reason to be upset. I loved writring that is why I posted and will post again.
By your logic Tyrone a lot of murder mysteries are cliche because they had been done, or that the Sword of Shinnara is cliche because of The Lord of the Rings.
Love,
Paula
When the lines between reality and fantasy blur, true magic can begin.
Paula
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
The Coda
Chapterhouse: Dune
Paula, Paula, Paula...
If you look closely, you would find that murder mysteries are a genre, not a cliche, lets not confuse the terms. However, if someone wrote "Murder on the Orient Local", followed by "Murder on the Orient Semi-Express" , I think Agatha Christie would be justified in having their characters hack the author to bits....
One More Point...
...at least obliquely touching on one of Paula's comments:
Paula mentioned the successful, assertive male who, when feminized, becomes passive for the rest of the story. Whatever one thinks of that scenario, I find it especially frustrating when it occurs as part of a coming-of-age tale.
Stories of that type can usually be reduced to: "A youth has a choice or decision to make. A correct decision will make that youth successful in life by the standards (s)he believes in. A wrong choice will lead to a misfit and eventual failure."
IMO, that story just can't work with a character who has become passive and insists on having the decision made for him/her. Yet I've seen many TG stories founder on this point.
Eric
Side Comment
There was a reference above to the effect that a solid majority of the authors under discussion obviously went to suburban American high schools, and write their stories about what they know.
A related point relating to Ty's first cliche, the boy who gets mistaken for a girl:
I'm pretty sure that most of us here were in school at some level during the period during the 1960s where long hair started to become popular among males. I'd almost be willing to bet that every one of those long-haired preteens and teens, even the ones with mustaches and/or beards, were told by some disapproving adult that they looked like a girl.
With people hearing the comment so often whether it was justified or not, it's hardly surprising that it'd become a staple (with the character idealized) in stories written by some of those people years later.
(FWIW, I didn't have long hair then; I think by the time I did, after college, I'd started losing it. But my kid brother did when he was in high school, and I know he heard about it.)
Eric
Back to the original thread
Fakeminsk, on FM, The Anonymous Bastard wrote three short (one very short!) stories making fun of cliches, going right to the edge and stepping sideways. They're hilarious.
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Happiness...
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
That's why psychopathic killers are such jolly sorts. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Psychopath?
Hah! I'm trying to picture Charles Manson, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein as jovial, serene fellows, but I'm havin' a slight problem here. :)
I never bothered to look up the quote until just now. It's from Mahatma Gandhi.
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
New Type Needed
Well, it appears that Erin needs to add another type to the story categories - Clichés. Not sure if it would go in the Genre, TG Elements or TG Theme category, however.
Then those with more descerning tastes would be able to avoid having to read the less inspired pieces of fiction.
You know, I wonder what it would have been like if Phillip K. Dick had written TG fiction, his Sci-Fi was certainly unusual enough.
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin