Sliding into banality is a significant risk for a novice author.
The flat plot, heroes of the same type, and meaningless dialogs are scary, and it is clear to everyone that they do not belong in a good book. But until we figure out what exactly is meant by "banality," the manuscripts will begin with awakening the hero and searching for slippers with bare feet, with the smell of grandmother's pancakes and with a look at the color of the heroine's eyes in the reflection of the mirror.
Banal is all that has lost expressiveness. Both the plot, speech, and even the appearance of the heroes lose their expressiveness after repeated too many times.
Commercially successful genres especially sin in this, books in which are stamped by hundreds.
What do you need to check first to make sure that the banalities did not slip into your text?
Commonplace plot
The predictable plot is not equal to the banal. It is worth remembering that, for example, there are only a few schemes for the development of a love story. And there are not so many designs on how to write drama. The main thing is that your story has a unique set of details and several levels of meanings and not a sudden ending that no one can guess about. Move from the plot to develop, step up the tension to the climax, and provide the reader with catharsis. But be careful: is your story exactly new and unique? What will happen if the heroes change their names and surroundings? Will the book resemble dozens of others? Ruthlessly review and edit all the visible moves in other people's books and form a story stamp.
Commonplace images
The hero is an eternal loser. The boss yells at him and humiliates him, forcing him to work on the weekend, and his beloved girl cheats with her best friend. Trite? Still would! Avoid boilerplate images! Think about the details. What failures happen to people around you? It is unlikely that every second bride goes to a childhood friend. And bosses are not angry tyrants for everyone. These are stamped images from second-rate fiction, get rid of them as soon as possible! No shortcuts or general descriptions. A blocked bank card, a dog's laptop wire eaten by a dog, quick loans that your character scored from despair, and which must be paid - closer to reality, to life. Put the hero in an environment you know yourself. Engage all the reader's senses: let him hear the smell, squint at the light, and wrinkle from the creak. Show familiar and straightforward from an unusual angle. And yes, no awakenings of the beautiful red-haired beauty, who considers herself inconspicuous and unattractive, no mom's pancakes and a hot forehead pressed against the icy window glass.
Common phrases
Speech stamps in your text can be challenging to find. We are so accustomed to a regular expression that we did not notice how they ceased to mean something. In a speech, we use them out of habit to convey the meaning as soon as possible, but in the literary text, they do not cause the reader any response. The cloud is blacker than night. Bottomless blue eyes. Sweeter than honey. Leaves something to be desired. Cold as ice. Take appropriate action. These phrases mean nothing to us emotionally.
Once bright and fresh, these phrases turned into dummies. We leave them in the text-only when we want to emphasize the hero's stereotypical thinking through direct speech. For example, a small-town deputy who blindly obeys orders of his superiors and does not make his own decisions, speech filled with cliches and the office may be suitable.
Walk through the plot, images, and language, cross out the plot stamps at the very early stage of work on the manuscript. Language stamps and clericalism can be removed during editing after completing the story.