: Re: Techniques for creating variety in prose When I write my short stories, I usually end up using a direct style as follows: Tim remembered the day he had to say goodbye to Cathy. He did

@XinRu607

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Many great books repeat common phrases. For example, this is Sherlock Holmes: www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1661/pg1661.txt You will see many instances of "said I," "said he," "said Holmes."
Here's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11/pg11.txt "said Alice," "said Alice to herself," "said poor Alice."
This type of repetition is not noticed by the reader if your dialog drives.

Some notes:

~ Tim remembered the day he had to say goodbye to Cathy. He did not really have a choice. He had to let go of Cathy, for she had no future with him. -- "remove" equivocates. Could be removed. The phrase "He had to let go of Cathy" is redundant with the first sentence.

~ "I'll never forget you," that was the last thing Cathy had said as he had pushed her away. -- "that was the last thing Cathy had said as he had pushed her away" could be replaced with "said Cathy, as he pushed her away."

~ The words had continued to haunt Tim all these years. -- "had" is unnecessary. In fact, " had continued to haunt" could be replaced with "haunted."

~ Tim picked up his backpack. It was time to move on again. He had just caught a glimpse of Cathy. -- "It was time to move on again." could be tightened to "Time to move on again." Again the "had" is weighing you down. He just glimpsed Cathy.

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