Q. Did the candidate campaign in Ohio?
A. No. He took his campaign to the Buckeye State.
Q. Then what did he do?
A. He criss-crossed the state.
Q. Is that all?
A. Sometimes he zig-zagged across the state.
Q. How would you characterize the state?
A. It is a key battleground.
Q.What did the candidate do when met by a big crowd at the airport?
A. Sometimes he pressed the flesh. Other times he worked the ropeline.
Q. What did he propose to solve a problem?
A. A 10-point program. (Headline writers rejoice at that; readers shrug.)
Q. Is the candidate confident?
A. He is buoyed by the polls.
Q. Nonetheless…
A. He will take nothing for granted.
Q. So what does his opponent face?
A. He faces an uphill battle.
Q. So what does he do over the weekend?
A. He huddles with advisers.
Q. And if he does it in midweek?
A. He breaks off campaigning to hole up with advisers.
Q. Just any old advisers?
A. No. With key advisers. Sometimes top advisers.
Q. What if the leader exaggerates his opponent's advantages?
A. He's playing the expectations game.
Q. One candidate has lots of money.
A. He amassed a campaign war chest.
Q. What does the frontrunner remind the voters?
A. That every vote counts.
Q. And his opponent?
A. That the only vote that counts occurs on Election Day.
Q. What did the candidates do in the hours before Election Day?
A. They sprinted to the finish line.
Q. What about seats that are open?
A. They are up for grabs.
Q. It looks like a close election.
A. It is down to the wire.
Q. In that case?
A. It promises to be a long night.
Q. And the voters?
A. They went to the polls in droves.
Q. Is that all?
A. No, they trooped to the polls.
Q. Before the results are known, where was the candidate?
A. He holed up in a hotel.
What can we say about clichés? They're useful, sometimes unavoidable. They're a form of shorthand, a code used between the writer and the reader. They convey a lot in a little space.
But.
They inhibit real communication. They are imprecise. They convey nothing about what makes the situation you are writing about differ from similar situations. They go down too smoothly, and the reader hardly notices what you are trying to tell her. They make every election story read like just another election story. They leave you with nothing to be proud of.
So as you reach for a cliché, stop. Look for a fresher way to say it, one that draws a picture for the reader, conveys a sense of the moment.
If you use a lot of clichés in your story, wipe them out in the next writethru. That's why God gave us writethrus. You will feel better in the morning.
