When a reader is forced to work through one stale idiom after another, she stops converting the language into mental images and slips back into just mouthing the words.
Examples:
Bread and butter
Coasting on its laurels
Renaissance man
Bite the bullet
Knock people's socks off
Sky's the limit
Throw the baby with the bathwater
Elephant in the room
Even when a shopworn image is the best way to convey an idea, a classic writer can keep his reader engaged by remembering what the idiom literally refers to and playing with the image to keep it in her mind’s eye.
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Style is the effective use of words to engage the human mind. Below are some common approaches that could be minimized to make your writing more effective and and engaging, whether that's fiction or non-fiction.
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