Clichés in Query Letters and Stories

Magazine submission pages and agent blogs often mention certain things they see so often in submissions that they highly recommend writers to avoid using them. Here are a few lists.

Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants talks about fantasy clichés to avoid in your story in A Walk in the Woods and Top 10 Things I’d Rather Not See in Opening Chapters, phrases to avoid in query letters in Kristin’s Top 10 List and Clichés Unleashed, clichés in stories of various genre in Glitch! Take Two and in young adult books in YA Top 25.

Other sites that list speculative fiction clichés are:

http://www.findcliches.com/sciencefiction.htm

http://www.cthreepo.com/cliche/

http://amethyst-angel.com/cliche.html

http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml

http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common-horror.shtml