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Clichés, leads and active voice

(Based on a lecture by Ross Collins, professor of communication, North Dakota State University)

Clichés are those cute, once original phrases or expressions that have become tired from overuse. It's sort of like hearing the same joke for the second or third time. Good writing ought to be fresh and original, and while clichés are often part of our everyday speech, they are less part of written work. I like to divide clichés into categories.

Common phrases.

Category one is the old common phrase, often a metaphor, sayings that have been around for perhaps centuries. Examples: "Bee in his bonnet." "Beehive of activity." "Thorn in his side." "Avoiding something "like the plague." "Cut and dried." Chicken with its head cut off." Sometimes they evoke barnyards or other experiences long gone from our day-to-day lives. How many of us have seen a chicken with its head cut off? But my grandmother did.

Writers can occasionally find a fresh and amusing version of an old cliché. Examples: "He opened Pandora's Box" is an old cliché, but in a story about lawyer advertising regulations being made more flexible, I read, "He opened Pandora's briefcase."   I hear you groaning. Okay, I'll admit, trying this kind of thing is risky.

A variety of old cliché is journalese, trite expressions particularly common in the journalism or business world: "acid test"; "long-smoldering"; "the bottom line"; "finalize"; "impact" (as a verb); "firestorm of criticism"; "cautious optimism."

Old clichés exist in the hundreds and, yes, you should be able to recognize most of them. Here's one good list.

Pop culture clichés.

A second cliché category is material not so old, but quickly made popular from television programs or movies. Usually they are fads that come and go. From the 1960s, 70s and 80s, for example, we had "Sock it to me!" (Laugh In); "Sorry about that, chief!" (Get Smart); "Isn't that special." (Saturday Night Live); "Well, excuuuse me!" (Saturday Night Live); "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." (Alka-Seltzer commercial).

All of these are way out, man, but current clichés include: "You are the weakest link"; "Been there, done that"; "Yada, yada"; "Same old same old"; "The mother of all..."; "I hate it when that happens."; "What's wrong with this picture?" "No-brainer." No doubt you can think of more. And no doubt they'll soon be as moldy as "Sock it to me!"

A Society for Professional Journalists' Quill magazine writer noted that someone probably could do a dissertation on why we'd rather copy fake dialogue of fake characters living false lives instead of making real-life conversation. But, of course, it's easier to let someone else be clever. But not in our media writing--we need to be fresh and original.

Stereotypes.

A third level of clichés is perhaps more insidious, and more dangerous. These are the things you write based on assumptions, without ever having been to a location or experienced a culture. That is, stereotypes. They may be based on our bias or ignorance of a culture, or a country, or a part of the world. For instance, a few years ago , a report of an airplane crash said the plane went down in Florida, in a "snake-infested swamp." Actually, however, this is not true of all the Everglades, particularly the area in which the plane crashed. And one could argue that animals don't really "infest" anything--they just live there. It's a stereotypical cliché someone wrote without thinking. Similarly, writers from elsewhere seem inevitably to cover a story in North Dakota by including weather clichés that have nothing to do with the topic. For instance, during the 2004 presidential campaign a Democratic candidate visited North Dakota. Associated Press writers from California squeezed in the usual clichés of the "remote state," "frozen North," "braving frigid temperatures." Of course, would we do the same thing writing about California? What clichés do we keep about that state?

As dangerous is the tendency for us to compartmentalize groups in society. Most of us would edit material that branded African-Americans as "ghetto-blasting drug dealers" or Native Americans as "lazy boozers." But sometimes we let go stereotypes such as the "attractive blonde coed," the "wild-eyed feminist," the "farmer looking for another government handout," "lazy know-it-all student," "Islamic terrorists," "Frozen Fargoans," or even those "rumpled, absent-minded college professors!"

Leads and active voice

Probably my biggest pet peeve--and don't you dare use that cliché--is slow leads in media writing. Nowadays people have so much to read. Why should they read your stuff? The answer is usually, no reason at all, unless you offer a compelling lead to snag them.

A lot has been written dissecting the importance of leads and the best way to approach "nut grafs," the first paragraph of a story that sets the theme and emphasizes the most important points. But I like to just rely on another memory jog, which I call

Ross's SAVE formula: SAVE your readers from boring leads!

A good lead ought to be:

S=Specific.

Go ahead and begin with a grand general statement for your term papers or academic articles. Example: "Interpersonal skills have been the subject of scholarly study for two decades." Sure this lead is boring (and in passive voice, see below), but readers of academic work don't need snagging--they'll read your research regardless. (Well, maybe. I'd make a pitch for better beginnings in the academic journals, too.) If you're editing for a newsletter, newspaper, or magazine, however, you need to do better. One common lead we find in weekly newspapers or organizational newsletters is based on someone's knowledge of how to write meeting minutes: "The Burleigh County Commission met Monday at its regular meeting. Many issues were discussed. A motion was made to increase property taxes 50 percent. It passed unanimously."

This is a classic example of the "buried lead," meaning the specific and most interesting information is not at the beginning. Be specific: "The Burleigh County Commission Monday voted unanimously to raise property taxes 50 percent." Another example: "The CEO of Acme Mills held a press conference today." Too general! What did he say? Better: "Acme Mills will expand production of its popular "Toast Tarts Plus," CEO Erv N. Nern said today."

A=Accurate.

We're not writing fiction here. Recall the discussion about credibility and the mass media: if people don't believe you, what's the point?

V=Voice.

Perhaps three quarters of the time you need to emphasize active voice in media style writing. It's livelier, more immediate, more like the way we actually talk. It emphasizes, well, action. What is active voice? Lots of students think they know, but can't offer an example, so let's take a closer look. A sentence written in active voice emphasizes the subject performing an action, so Subject-Verb-Direct (or Indirect) Object. Examples: "Nern makes coffee every morning before work." "East Gulch High School updates its website twice a month." "Collins proposes a silly formula for writing leads." Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton offered an optimistic assessment of state spending."

In passive voice, the subject is acted upon, with or without the person doing the acting. A form of the helping verb "to be" is used. Let's put the examples above into passive voice: "Coffee is made every morning before work." "The East Gulch High School website is updated twice a month." "A silly formula for writing leads is being proposed." "A pessimistic assessment of state spending was offered by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton."

Note that last one: it's in past tense. But I can still put it in active or passive voice--the tense of the verb, past, present, future, or other, doesn't matter. Okay, here's a quick quiz: is the lead below in active or passive voice? "The Cass County Commission met at its regular meeting Tuesday."

Some students confuse active voice with past tense, or with a blah, general lead. The above example is indeed active voice: subject (commission) performs and action (met). Okay, how could you put that lead into passive voice? Easy: "A regular meeting was held yesterday by the Cass County Commission." Gee, that's even worse than the first example, hard to believe.

Okay, so now we know most sentences need to be in active voice, for sprightly, readable stories. Can we ever make an exception? The truth is that passive voice comes in handy for a variety of reasons, such as:

1. Who performed the action isn't known. For instance, often in crime stories the victim is more important, or we don't know who the performer was. Example: "The mayor was robbed at gunpoint today in the city hall parking lot." Who did the robbing? Don't know. What's more, the mayor, as victim, is more important here, and should begin the sentence. Accident stories also often begin in passive voice: "Two farmers were badly injured Friday in a tractor accident." Who (or what) did the injuring? Well, I guess we could come up with a reasonable lead to answer that: "A tractor badly injured two farmers near Kulm, N.D., Friday." But passive voice is a better option here.

2. Need to vary sentence structure. Writers look for sentence variety, and an occasional passive voice can do that.

3. You're not sure of the facts. Every once in a while an editor needs to rely on a waffle. That is, a way to word a sentence when you're not sure of the facts. For instance, if you're not sure of the precise amount of tax increase (was it 30 percent or 35 percent?), you can just say, "A tax increase of about one third." If you're not sure of a superlative (is he really the only carver of buffalo dung in North Dakota?), you can write, "one of the only" or "arguably the only." Similarly, if you aren't sure who performed the action (Did Jones really hit Nern with his cane?), you can slip into passive voice: "Nern was hit with a cane." Who did the hitting? Can't say.

Using passive voice to avoid assessing personal responsibility can be taken into a realm of official policy or tradition. For instance, academic researchers in the sciences often rely on passive voice to avoid emphasizing the significance of a research team, but instead to emphasize the results of the research. "An experiment was performed. Results were analyzed. Conclusions were made." Probably this is legitimate usage of the passive--readers in this case are more interested in research results than in performers. But in the business world such an approach can be used to hide responsibility behind critical decisions. "A decision was made to lay off several hundred workers." Who did the firing? Don't know.

An interesting case study of the power of passive voice to eliminate responsibility from a paper trail can be made by tracing the investigation following the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion of 1986. Investigators examining documents provided by the manufacturer of shuttle parts that failed tried to pin responsibility on those who made the decisions that led to the disaster. It was impossible, because documents relied on passive voice: this decision was made, that action was taken, this was done. Who did it? By relying on passive voice, company executives could avoid taking blame.

E=Energetic verbs.

We tend to be lazy, to use the same old blah verbs over and over. "To walk," for instance. She walks to the store. He walks with her. They walk to the ice cream counter. They walk away with two scoops of vanilla. Zzzz. How many alternatives "to walk" can we think of in a minute? I'll race you. Ready...go! Stomp, trot, stroll, trudge, skip, drag, weave, trip, wend their way....   Hey, I'll bet you did even better than I did. Get the point? Think active verbs in your leads.

Beyond that, it's important to consider two common lead problems. The first we've already mentioned, buried leads. That is, the most important thing is somewhere else in the story, or maybe even in the second sentence. Writers working on deadline often warm up with a sentence or two before getting to the real meat of a story. Editors sometimes can find the best lead by just lopping off the first sentence and perhaps rewriting slightly. Example: "The governor presented a proposal yesterday that would affect state employee health insurance coverage. The state will require full-time employees to pay $20 a month toward their family policies. The change begins next month." Why do you need that whole first sentence? How about: "The state will soon require government employees to pay $20 a month for health insurance coverage, the governor announced yesterday."

A "backed into" lead puts the most significant aspect into the last part of the sentence. Example: NDSU President Dean Bresciani Thursday said he would authorize $2.1 million for an addition to Morrill Hall." Is Joe the most important part of this story? Not really. How about: "More than $2 million will go toward remodeling NDSU's Morrill Hall, President Dean Bresciani announced Thursday."

Lastly, try to keep your leads short. I've seen single first sentences that go on and on. Once I counted a 33-word lead in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Can you be so short that you sound choppy? Sure. As Albert Einstein said: "Keep things as simple as possible. But not simpler."