Thread:Urkelbot666/@comment-26268104-20150717203610/@comment-4332975-20150718053053

Urkelbot666 wrote: I personally feel that most clichés can be pulled off if they are given a fair amount of effort and care. Some readers probably don't share my view on this and discount anything they see as a cliché or overused element, but that's my take on it.

The "Abusive Parent" is something that gets used a lot in many different types of stories, but again, it can be pulled off if it is done in a way that makes sense, or that people can relate to. My main issue with the abusive parent trope is that usually it is just used as a lazy backstory to explain someone being psychotic. Like, some kid can snap and go on a killing spree... Why? Well, because he had bad parents of course! Case closed! Abusive parents are real and are something that cacn be explored to good effect. This. Just this right here. A lot of people don't know this, but "My First Pikachu", a story of mine that has been widely praised for its lack of clichés, was actually written with the Creepypasta Wiki's big list of Pokémon story clichés open in another tab...not to avoid them, but to use as a checklist. I tried to include as many as possible, putting my own twist on them. All to illustrate the above point. It's not in how many clichés you have, its in how well you execute them...and that's why when I criticise a page for clichés, I specify "used badly". More often than not, the problem isn't the cliché itself, but the context. Some people sprinkle them in like "Uncle Creepy's Just-Add Horror" without making them fit logically into the rest of the story. That's when it starts being a problem.