A cliché is a familiar, predictable, and—let’s face it—boring comparison. “Everything but the kitchen sink,” “easy as pie,” “dead as a doornail”—these and other clichés are used so often they have been drained to the dregs of all meaning as comparisons.
Try this switcheroo!
Image: "clichés" crossed out
Find the clichés (or just phrases that don't excite) you've written and put them in a list, like so:
everything but the kitchen sink
easy as pie
break the ice
once in a blue moon
calm before the storm
curiosity killed the cat
And so on. When you’re finished, make sure you have an even number of items in the list. Then switch the order of your objects from last to first.
everything but the cat
easy as the storm
dead as a blue moon
once in the ice
calm before the pie
curiosity killed the kitchen sink
Not everything here works, of course. (Though I imagine a tense extended family dinner remaining calm before the pie!) But by creating the list, we've broken apart the language and let in the fresh air.
Maybe you won't want to specifically replace "everything but the kitchen sink" with "everything but the cat," but you can nevertheless see another option for more surprising and apt language choices.