Not only do cliches tend to reinforce the status quo and stereotypes, they are also pretty boring. Here is an exercise to practice doing without:
1) Chose a any word… eg love, old, sky..
2) For the word, list the 6 most obvious associated words. Eg
Love: romance, heart, couple, kiss, date ..
Old: wrinkles, frail, weak, ill, grey, slow, retired..
Sky: blue, big, rain, clouds, vast, sunny..
3) Now, write a description of the word (or a poem or whatever you feel like) without using any of these associated words. Or you can pick from one of the examples above. You’ll find you’re writing is much more interesting and probably fairly prejudiced free (funnily enough- the two do tend to go together :)
resistance words 