What clichés of talk do you avoid in your fiction?

[Eldoria]

What Clichés of Talk do You Avoid in Your Fiction?​

Me: "Are you okay?" Even though she/he (usually the protagonist) sees that her/his interlocutor is already dying.
Reason: Unempathetic words that show an immature character. Instead of asking what she/he already knew (the person she/he was talking to was dying), she/he would have been better off administering first aid without saying anything.

Spoiler: Edit

I once experienced an emergency. My friends, who were riding together, suddenly fell off a speeding motorcycle... and passed out on the road. My response? FREEZE! For a few seconds, I froze in place before the people around my friends finally came to my aid. I panicked... but ultimately, instead of accompanying my friends to the hospital, I continued my journey to college. Since then, I've regretted my decision. I contacted my friend a few years later, and she responded calmly. But it still stuck with me... because I responded incorrectly at the time.

So, I understand how unrealistic the fictional phrase "are you okay?" is when addressed to a dying person. I researched and discovered the brain's typical response during a panic attack: fight-flight-freeze-fawn. Most people (including me) choose "freeze" because their brains don't know what to do. While others choose to "fawn", saying anything that seems helpful but actually isn't (like the cliche "are you okay?" "you are alright", etc), because our brains are educated by fiction that is actually unrealistic to face emergency situations in the real world.

 

[JayMark]

I'm going to be honest, I don't seek to avoid any dialogue in my fiction. I see characters as having a spectrum of reactions, sometimes inconsistent, so it depends on the contruction of the character, their personality, and the intent in a given scene.

"Are you okay?" [The addressed character is severely wounded and obviously dying]

[Protag is trying to process before taking action]
[Protag is speaking on auto while readying for action]
[Protag is panicking internally]
[Protag is a dumbass]
[Protag is deciding whether the person is worth helping]
[Protag actually never gave shit all along]
[Protag wants this specific person to die]

All of these possibilities would could make this dialogue work as long as it meshes with context either seen or unseen. In the early chapters of the novel this establishes a subtle context that will need to be dealt with in later chapters. In later chapters this dialogue must make sense with the personality of the character we've explored.

On this note, I don't often critique authors on their character's words and actions alone, especially early in a novel. This doesn't mean I don't have preferences, but my preference check list does not reflect on the quality of the work.

 

[empalgepuk]

What Clichés of Talk do You Avoid in Your Fiction?​

Me: "Are you okay?" Even though she/he (usually the protagonist) sees that her/his interlocutor is already dying.
Reason: Unempathetic words that show an immature character. Instead of asking what she/he already knew (the person she/he was talking to was dying), she/he would have been better off administering first aid without saying anything.

I don't do this, but I still can't shake off the "stay with me" panicked dialogue.

I use "you okay" for comedic effect most of the time.

I don't avoid a specific type of other dialogues yet. Maybe when I write more I'll get to learn a few

 

[CharlesEBrown]

The only things I try to avoid are the use of the word "trope" because it was way overused for a year or so, and anything that just does not fit a specific character.

 

[MFontana]

What Clichés of Talk do You Avoid in Your Fiction?​

Me: "Are you okay?" Even though she/he (usually the protagonist) sees that her/his interlocutor is already dying.
Reason: Unempathetic words that show an immature character. Instead of asking what she/he already knew (the person she/he was talking to was dying), she/he would have been better off administering first aid without saying anything.

Ultimately, I try to make the dialogue feel real for the reader, beyond simply conveying part of the narrative. It's less about cliche for me as long as it delivers the appropriate feeling.
So I'll use, or not use, whatever works to deliver that feeling, and depending on the mood, I'll try to sneak in some light snark, or comedy (depending on the character's personalities) as a way of showing the characters' struggles to cope with the darker aspects of the setting, or their situation.
For example, some of Morrigan's lines here [From Duskfall chapter 1]:

“Yeah, I know. But you’ve been locking yourself in here for the last week.”

“You’ll rot away if ya don’t start doing stuff. Ya know… Outside.”

And yes, I know there's no context here to the rest of the exchange. Even without the context, it should still be fairly easy to get an idea of the character's personality (I hope).

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

I don't think I actively avoid anything specifically, since dialogue should be true to the character who is speaking...but I sometimes have to (painfully) force myself to use incorrect words that irritate me in real life:

fewer/less
envy/jealousy
who/whom