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  • The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."
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« TUESDAY MARGINALIA | Main | SWINK READING UPDATE »

July 31, 2007

HARRY, REVISED SNEAK PREVIEW

Remember, if you're in the Los Feliz area tonight, please come by and check out the Swink reading, where we'll be reading a preview from our forthcoming novel, Harry, Revised.  Make sure to say "Hi."  We'll be the pale, sweaty one on stage.

Posted by TEV at 12:39 AM in Events |

Comments

Wish I could be there, Mark.

Posted by: Maud | July 31, 2007 at 11:50 AM

Wish you'd drop the royal "we," Mark.

Posted by: Chuck E. Cheese | July 31, 2007 at 12:35 PM

We think Mark is being ironic.

Posted by: Brady Westwater | July 31, 2007 at 12:58 PM

We thank you, Brady.

Posted by: TEV | July 31, 2007 at 01:40 PM

Wish I could be there, but am up north this week.

Posted by: stephan | July 31, 2007 at 05:36 PM

Would that I could, and hope it's going supremely...

Posted by: shauna | July 31, 2007 at 07:45 PM

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