Questions & Help : How do I reverse this Cliche: Dark, sleazy bar where shady dealings are taking place

Lots of imaginative and non-cliched details.

Or write so minimally that the reader imagines whatever they want; in other words, don't say it's a darkened, sleazy bar. in which shady dealings take place.

Either way, you want the cliche, you like the cliche -- you've admitted it -- so maybe other people do to.

Dark, sleazy bars are real places to a lot of people. You could change it to a swanky cocktail lounge or a booth at the Hungry Howies and it could be just as good an just as real, it depends on what the story you want to tell demands. I would probably be more interested in reading a story with a scene in said swanky lounge or Hungry Howies because it would be something I don't see too often and it could be cool. The story would have to fit though.

Gradually unfold the scene rather than launching in with 'dark sleazy bar'. Begin with a character. Start inside them, move gradually out to where they are sitting, what they are drinking, then who is next to them. Bring in the ambience, the lighting, the general atmosphere. Then introduce other characters at nearby tables, then maybe a new character walks into the room, up to the bar, and you can introduce the barman to the reader. By this point we know it is a 'dark sleazy bar' but you've not mentioned it, plus we're halfway through the chapter and engrossed in the story, as you've dropped in descriptions amongst the narrative. Goodbye cliché, hello great opening chapter.

I agree with what Seb said. I don't believe it's a matter or 'reversing' the cliche, but unpacking and opening up your setting. 'Show' us the sleaze. I also like Renfields idea, too, and think it'd be a nice contrast to the sleaze. I've read the story and I know this scene takes place in a bar. It just needs to be shown.

For Matt:

Well if you want to get ride of the cliche you have three ways to go about it. The bar or the deal a combo.

If you need the place you could have it be a totally legit business deal. The two honest business men (who I would imagine are tough guys if they are there) sit down and come to a open honest deal they are both going to file all the paper work and pay the taxes on. They just go for the BBQ or something.

If you go with the shady deal, have them be any place BUT a rough spot. A parking lot, driving around, a family restaurant, a mall, whatever. Just any place that doesn't look odd to law enforcement or by standers.

Why does it have to be bucking the trend in some campy off-key place instead of a very well fitting dive bar, though? I mean I go to the library a lot and on a rare chance been spotted at a juice bar with my womanthing, don't think I've ever done some shady shit with criminal acquaintences in those places though. Bodegas, yes, are kinda sleazy. Parking lots are good for certain transactions IRL. Family restaraunts have too many non-shady people walking by and in your business, notably so because you yourself would be pretty damn shady looking. I think what is more important is why does the shady deal have to take place in a public place at all? That says a lot about the particular deal going down. Note that in that flick JACKIE BROWN the big shady deal takes place in a mall food court, while there's one or two scenes in bars where said shady deals are being discussed and planned. Why? Probably because that's just where you'd find people, maybe because the loud atmosphere is good cover for conversations. There's a lot more to consider there.

Though why reinvent the wheel just for the sake of it when you could have a better product by rendering a really good fuckin super-round wheel?

I like those computerized jukes that have everything on there and after a series of typically terrible Radiohead and Staind tracks played by bar mongs I'll get annoyed and load up four bucks worth of doom metal or Terry Riley drone. Spite juking. I need to put that act into a story sometime. No, it'd be stupid. The classical music is a better touch.

not a bar, a club, a special club that happens in places where people need to meet and do deals

in airports they have stealth facilities for the high rollers, frequent flyers of first class, innocuous doors without labels that lead to an open bar and other necessities, sometimes showers, private nooks and talking areas - while across the tarmac the private ultra class have a facility that no one needs see anyone else because their planes do 5-7000 kilometres a hop and their money has no reflection or affiliation

professional mercenaries would have a place or two to go, officers for contracts with primaries, officer clubs and hiring halls, any mission would perforce mean a trip to assemble a team after first level is established when the specialists are spec'd

you want high end, swanky, full service, discrete in and out, security, members only, invite only, low lights, separate rooms for sex, higher class hookers than the one that came on to your man, escorts able to do a fighter as well as a roller's designate because what roller would come out in public in an environment that has tech for a middle name and biometrics are at least 50 years advanced - something to think of when making the payment, making it secure, simple password tricks notwithstanding, there would be layers, a mercenary gets payed to be used, he is not likely to be administratively as savvy as the roller's agent or the roller's agenda his edge is operationally, one of his attributes is burnability, so realizing that and acting accordingly is what makes him successful

that's how you advance, you survive, you learn, you get included in higher level ops and learn the ropes and how the best survive and how the rest get burned or just break even or get broken a bit more and you have the little edge that no one knows about, hopefully or they hire you for that edge because they do know

a suite is nice, you get security, a meal, drinks, minimum level of staff, the higher rank a roller commands the better the amenities, even up to the point of one way glass on the common area as a voyeur benefit and it may be the first time your guy has been on the other side of the glass

Hey David, I enjoyed your story and thought the Congo was a great setting for that sort of dealing, and Kinshasa was the perfect city. If you haven't read this take a look, there is  a list of bars and restaurants down the bottom of the page, some great names there and plenty of  places for a bit of research on the net., or something to start with

.http://wikitravel.org/en/Kinshasa

Also travelers true tales are great for getting a feel for a country, and if you include something of this when you write it should sound more authentic.

If this fits your story, the problem I have with stories set in bars is just that bars are places where characters often just sit and talk, which can get boring if they stay there too long. If possible, I would move the story to where the action that the shady deal concerns takes place and show that actually happening, rather than just where the agreement to do them is made. Assuming those are two different places...

Cliches are more about the way things have been depicted before, not what has been depicted.

I'm sure some people would disagree with me. I'm thinking like this: the object you're describing simply is what it is. If the reader has a particular notion about it, that's due to their experience. Take something totally imaginary, like an elf. You can do the cliche elf, or something else. Or a plot point: a pregnancy. Too general to be cliche itself even though it's been in a million stories. So the cliche is not the item or object, but what is done with it.

The more specific you get, the more it becomes about the details and not the item. "A drug deal" has been in a billion stories. "A drug deal gone bad" has been in slightly fewer. "A drug deal gone bad which results in threats to the hero's loved ones, so he has to do stuff he doesn't want to do" slightly fewer. And on and on. The third example is still viable, but the specifics must be fresh. (Then again, a new rehash telling of this plot could be a reader's first experience of such a story, so the fact it's been done wouldn't matter to them.)

I might be a little late to the show here but you could even open up on the cliche bar but have the deal go on right outside or in the bright bathroom or something because the manager or bartender wants to attempt to keep the bar unsullied or one of the patrons is a known undercover. 

Maybe a bit less threadomancy Thuggish.

Threadomancy?

Yes, I googled it already