Inelegant Variation

This Monday morning, my mind is on elegant variation, a term coined in the early 1900s to describe the using of synonyms and substitutional phrases to avoid repetition in prose. Taken with a pinch of salt, it’s not such a bad idea, but taken to the nth degree, it can produce some pretty hilarious results. And unfortunately, it seems to crop up a little too often in indie writing.

Let’s take a moment first to consider the writerly avoidance of repetition. I don’t know exactly why we do this—and if there are solid, well-researched answers out there, I’m too idle to look for them—but it appears that we do, at least in the Anglophone world. When I notice recurring terms in quick succession in my own writing, I find myself cringing and doing what I can to remedy the situation, and I strongly suspect that you do too.

So, accepting that repetition is something we want to avoid, what’s to be done about it? Well, I never envisioned this weekly blog as a writers’ advice thing, so I’m not about to start pontificating now. Surely we can all find our own methods, either by trial and error or by doing some research. But I don’t mind pointing out a couple of things we might consider avoiding.

The first is tarrying too long within the pages of the old thesaurus. I’m not a fan of this at the best of times, as I feel like synonym-seeking can take away our natural voice, but when we end up with particularly outlandish new words just to avoid saying walked, well, there’s only so much traversing and perambulating this reader can take, that’s all I’m saying.

And the second, akin to the previous point, is coming up with entire phrases to replace the repeated word. This can be quite the creative endeavour—I mean, yes, a wallet is indeed a small leather pocket receptacle for the storage of cash money and bank cards—but I’d contend that it doesn’t lead to breezy prose or some degree of gravitas, if that’s what we’re aiming for.

I don’t think there’s anything to add on the matter, at least not from my end, and what I’ve pointed out may just be a case of personal preference, though other writers I chat with on the regular seem to share my misgivings. Either way, do with it what you will.

And that’s my penny’s worth for today. Until next week, happy writing to you all.


Comments

  1. Cufarmer1 February 2026 at 14:26

    That is a writer's burden. After I released The Falling Sky to the world, I found a couple of errors and worked on them and after a few weeks replace the manuscript.
    Afterwards, few weeks ago actually, I read my manuscript over one more time as I was uploading it to ACX. In the first damn paragraph of the first damn chapter, I was confronted with this very issue and the word I think was pounded.
    I wrestled with it for a bit, And in the end nothing else really fit. I don't write purple pros by any means, and my options were leading me that way. The simpler replacements were already used within that paragraph or the next.
    So I let it go.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Putting the Ew in Book Reviewing

Image
This Monday morning, my mind is on some iffy behaviour from book reviewers in the indie writing space. If you’re looking for something light and uplifting,  I suggest you read no further, but  if you also have some gripes with reviewers, please be my guest. (Let it be known, by the way, that most reviewers seem to be doing great things. Pretty sure I speak for other indies when I say we appreciate you and are thankful for the love and attention you bring to our work.) Okay, so with that said… Gripe one, why announce you’re reading a book (or planning to) if you’re going to go quiet about it afterwards? It only makes writers wonder what the hell is wrong with their work, and they’ll probably end up thinking a whole lot less of you. And yes, we’ve all made the mistake of speaking too soon then finding the story or prose or whatever isn’t to our liking. But doing this on the regular? Come on. Gripe two, why seek favours, or even some form of compliance, from writers by dangling a...
Read more

Blurb Before Story

Image
Welcome to my Monday morning blog, which is basically me smashing out a few half-baked paragraphs about whatever’s on my mind. I’m no article writer, so please don’t expect anything polished or SEO-compliant, but here goes anyway... About a year ago on Twitter, in response to the common gripe that writing book blurbs is a nightmare, someone claimed to habitually write theirs before even getting started on the story. I was so impressed with this idea, which does sound kind of barmy, true, that I tried it myself. And two novellas later, I have to say I’m a convert. Blurbing first allows me to get the essence of the story down in writing, and that blurb then acts as kind of a pole star to guide me as I pants the first draft. I may need to tweak it as I go along, but so far that’s been easy enough. Pushback to this idea (when I float it, which isn’t very often) generally comes as the claim that “I don’t even know what the story is yet, so how the hell can I write the blurb?” Which for me r...
Read more

The Town of Hartmouth

Image
This Monday morning, my mind is on the fictional town of Hartmouth (heart in mouth), venue of my Hartmouth Horrors series. And I just want to expand a little on how it came about. When I started writing Eyes Wide Open —which I had no idea was going to be part of a series—I wanted a setting that felt familiar to me. Somewhere I didn’t have to spend too much time and energy rendering and researching. So it made sense to stick to my roots and base it on the places I know from growing up in South West England. I have a feel for the lay of the land, the pace of life, the way the people act and speak. So I basically cherrypicked the things that would serve the story, a seafront, a harbourside, a train station, some older properties, a small town centre, a graveyard, a hospital, a university, and so on. Then, when I started writing The Devil in Mia and decided to use the same setting, I simply added to what I already had. Cliffs and coast to the south west, houses over by the rail embankment...
Read more