This post originally ran on September 3, 2010. If we run it again, will it become cliché? Stop in the name of love. You can’t hurry love, no you’ll just have to wait. Whenever you’re near I hear a symphony. If the Supremes sang it in the sixties, chances are it’s a cliché today. And what are we writers told? Don’t use clichés. This makes sense from a business perspective. Why should a publisher pay a wordsmith to regurgitate combinations so recognizable that readers are numb to them? We need to do the work of writers and come up with new word combinations that will snag the reader’s interest and inspire new thought. But don't throw the love child out with the bath water just yet. A known cliché could lay the groundwork upon which you could create a meaningful—even a Supreme—twist. In House of Leaves , Mark Z. Danielewski did just that in the following exchange between the narrator and a woman he just met. Even out of context it is easy to see how he uses a lyric from ...