There is a fascinating discussion going on over on the Voyageronline board about cliches. I just got really carried away with one of my answers, but I thought it was worth posting here and filing under writing advice.

It's all well and good to have realism, but readers are usually attracted to this genre because they want to identify with a world where things are not as they are in this one.

One doesn't read fantasy if one wants to read about a short, dumpy unattractive girl with skin problems and credit card issues who falls in love with the short dumpy, unattractive sanitary-bin salesman next door, who, after vanquishing the evil termites threatening her foundations, sweeps her up, throws her into his Mazda and drives off into the sunset to live happily every after.

You read fantasy because you want to be taken out of yourself, and that's why the world building is so important. The more real the world seems, the easier it is to escape to it.

Would Buffy have been half as much fun if she been played by a "plain" actress. Would you have cared that she fell for a vampire if he looked like creepy IT guy in the next office?

Fantasy isn't just about the fabulous settings. It's as much about the idealised people as it is about the scenery. To scoff at the cliche of a pretty heroine or an handsome hero is naive. And it's not necessarily commercially viable, which is why you see it rarely, and why you will have trouble selling it if you're trying to break into the market.

Right or wrong, people want to imagine they are prettier... that Brad Pitt might want them instead of the some other, better looking, thinner, taller,(insert your own attribute here)girl. Look at Twilight. That's the cliche down pat and Meyer is a multi-millionaire.

Another thing to note about cliches... they become cliches because they work and people like them, buy them and therefore publishers print them. They don't become cliches because writers are lazy and it's easier to repeat the same thing over and over than to think up something different.

The second thing to remember is that to buck a cliche you need to thoroughly understand the reason behind it. That's the trick with writers who do this sucessfully. They give you the essence of story or plot element the cliche provides by other means. Cecelia Dart Thorton did this with her heroine, who was exceedingly ugly... right up until she was magically made beautiful, because she understood that you can only get away with bucking the trope for so long before you lose your readers.

Let me put it this way... suppose you decide "The undead are poorly represented. I'm going to buck the Zombie cliche and make them smart, thoughtful and attractive corpses with a sincere humanitarian agenda". You've bucked the cliche, sure enough, but you no longer have Zombies...

I speak with some authority here, because I've just done my Masters thesis on bucking the trope of immortality, and I've looked at this issue in depth.

Cliches in and of themselves aren't bad. It all gets back to how they're handled. And if you're going to buck them, be really, really certain you know what it is you're throwing out. Unless you understand the purpose of the cliche and why it is so common, you may be chucking out the vital element of your work that makes it publishable.