Writing’s hard work. When you’re grinding through a draft, a business proposal, a testimonial or writing a speech, it’s tempting to let your fingers do the thinking. You reach for phrases that feel right. They’re smooth. Familiar. Harmless.
They’re also worn out.
I’m not talking about clichés exactly. More like recycled comfort food. Easy lines you’ve seen a hundred times that slide into your prose when you’re not paying attention. Your prose often carries emotion through the body. That’s a strength, that will lead to recurring phrasing like my old favourites:
- “My chest tightened.”
- “My hands forgot how to unclench.”
- “Something sat behind my ribs, heavy and still.”
Beautiful lines, but worth rotating out or refreshing when you catch yourself relying on them. They read fine. But they say nothing new.
Worse—they sound like someone else. Like the last book you read. Like a dozen writers before you. Like me before. That’s the real issue. These word clusters slip in unnoticed and rob your sentences of edge. Voice. Identity. Emotion.
These phrases aren’t wrong. They just aren’t yours. These ones show up in many emotional essays or narrative nonfiction:
- “I carried it for years.”
- “Some burdens don’t show up on a scale.”
- “The weight was invisible, but real.”
Readers start to see the suitcase coming before they open it. They sound like “proper writing” because we’ve seen them published. But trust me: leaning on these words weakens your voice. The reader asks, “Did you look hard enough for the right words, or did you go for the easy ones?”
You don’t have to ban them. If one of these lines fits your scene like a key in a lock, leave it. Ask yourself: is this easy, or is this mine? Originality isn’t about reinventing the dictionary. It’s about noticing when you’re on autopilot (maybe better words would be zone-out, writing autonomously, free-falling).
Lie Detector Test Thursdays
Here is a story I wrote for my upcoming book, Off the Record: A Collection of Short Stories for Men. My story for the first draft of Lie Detector Test Thursdays went like this:
“The note stuck to the fridge caught my eye: ‘Lie Detector Test Monday. ‘ ” Ten a.m.” Black ink in block letters, pressed hard into a recent Safeway receipt that I could barely make out what lay beneath: prunes, canned soup, creamed peas and something smeared beyond recognition.”
After a sleepless night, a can of coffee, and three unimpressed beta-readers, I finalized on:
“Pinned to the fridge with a novelty magnet: a receipt from Safeway, repurposed as stationery. The list was predictable—prunes, puréed peas, creamed soups. Then a smear I couldn’t decipher. Across it, in stiff black strokes: Lie Detector Test Monday. 10 a.m. Who the test was for, and what lie we’d finally landed on, was less clear.”
This revision is detached, clinical, with a hint of dark humour. I am not someone who cares to use the word “it,” but this time I gave in, because IT added to the clinical part I wanted. Pinned. Smear. Puréed. Decipher. Black strokes. In one paragraph, these words lean toward a slightly ominous, tactile, and emotionally dense atmosphere. They’re chosen for texture and tone. The mood is one of subtle menace, confusion, or grief, with the narrator an observer/decoder of things that have already begun to fall apart. My editor approved.
The word predictable? I am rethinking that one. The last thing I want to do is be predictable.
Here is what the published version looks like:
“The Westinghouse hosted its scraps of lists and notes, but a Safeway receipt rose above them all. Lie Detector, Thursdays.”
This hook works because it transforms the mundane into the uncanny with precise detail and tonal control. It starts in the kitchen and ends in the Twilight Zone—and we trust every step of the way.
And it took me 32 drafts!
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Richard@smilingeyespress.com
