“A cliche is not just something that lots of people say; It's something that lots of people say and it conveys some sort of idea or message.” - Cliché Finder

Ever struggle to find just the right way to say something?  Would you’d like to communicate a word or thought, but don’t want to be too on the nose?   Is the thesaurus in your writing program just not diverse enough?

Well I’d like to offer a solution:  Just type the word into Morgan Friedman’s comprehensive website, Cliché Finder, find the most cliché way to deliver your message.

Many literary purists would consider this site to be a travesty.  Not only are you stealing phrases from the public domain, but you’re actively promoting the final demise of the MLA Style Manual.   A person who uses a web site to look up clichés must be cliché themselves. 

But that’s the beauty of it.  As admirers of the English language these purists should be the first to recognize that it’s never what you say that’s important - it’s how you say it.  For a retro-literate such as myself (a screenwriter who laughs in the face of their sixth grade grammar teacher), this site is a very pertinent tool.  Not only is it the most educational way to kill six hours of writer’s block, but it is genuinely valuable when writing that buddy/cop/action/thriller/comedy that teams an urban cop with a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master. 

The site boasts 3,300 indexed clichés.  Type in the word ‘Dog’ and you’ll discover that there are well over 50 excessively exploited canine phrases.  Type in the word ‘Cat’ and you’ll find over 30 feline-related expressions.  Type in the word ‘Cliché’ and you’ll even get three.  But type in the word ‘Writer’ and you’ll find that there are… what?  No matches?  How can that be possible?  The cliché creators themselves have no clichés?  Now that’s a real travesty.

Visit Cliché Finder