What is interesting to me about this essay is that I was just talking about this, this morning. About how we can't use certain words in both our language or on the page. And it isn't even the fact that it is so much a cliche, but merely the fact the word tear has lost all connotation with what is it can emotionally mean. I has become a dried up word, like a fruit left out in the sun. I do like the mini conversation that Davis gives between her and her student. I feel like she was trying to tell that student that it isn't the fact the Shakespeare is timeless, the word tear isn't. Five centuries, the word tear wasn't used in every single romantic, teenage, fanfiction piece of fiction, film, or conversation. The word tear could be said to readers and listeners and give them the emotion it is trying to provoke.
These days we can't do that, we as writers have to come up with clever ways to say things that provoke emotion and meaning. I know many times I fall into that trap that is cliche and I have used the "tear streamed down her face and began for form puddles of salty pool on her pants" in some form or fashion more than I'd like to admit, but at the time it was mainly because I was lazy and didn't want to be clever. In today's writing world people have to learn that the words they think hold some emotional power just don't anymore and tear is one of them.
Yes, but remember she doesn't want you to be clever, either. She wants you to be genuine.
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