Which device is that?

Correct me if I’m wrong - I have only ever written one story where “it was all a dream”. It was in Year 9, I think, and involved leaking gas from a science experiment where tomato soup was mixed with something else … possibly inspired by a Goodies episode!

Very early on in my ‘writing’ lifetime, I was discouraged from using that device! It’s a bit like “it was a dark and stormy night” (Edward Bullwer-Lytton in his novel Paul Clifford) or “and they all lived happily ever after”.

There’s just one more that I really, really (and I do want to emphasise this point) REALLY hate. You see it most oft in light weight romantic comedies.
SPOILER ALERT
And that’s where the hero must stop the great love of his life from getting on to an aeroplane and flying out of his life forever. This usually includes a high speed chase to the airport through peak hour traffic, and in the case of The Zoo Keeper, a climb up the side of a massive bridge on the back of a gorilla who sounds a bit like Nick Nolte … funny that.

I wonder who was the first to think up that device? And what form did it take before air travel became accessible to the plebeian multitudes? After all, the romance is not quite there with a high galloping pace for the hero to ride his burrow to the Cobb and Co Station to stop the love of his life hopping on the coach to rattle away forever … or watching from the banks of the Nile as she sailed away …

In the future, will he be trying to beam across to the spaceport in time to stop her checking her hand luggage in and hopping the first shuttle to Magrathea?

Of course an exception to the rule is Casablanca where he watches her fly away on purpose.

The point, I guess, is why the mad dash to stop the fleeing lover when you could just hop a plane/coach/train/wagon/spaceship and follow them to their destination and possibly bring them back – or here’s a twist – stay with them?

I don’t really hate clichés; I think they present any number of options, such as providing a gorilla with a celebrity voice! I just hate it when they are used in a lazy way.