I have added your guidelines for poetry writers to my favourites menu, even though I don’t write poetry.
Why? So much of it can also be applied to prose that I want to be able to access and refer to it easily. I remember, at a writing group meeting, talking about clichés and over familiar phrases generally. Next day I thought I’d give an article I’d written one last look through before putting it in the envelope.
One sentence jumped out at me: “A whole new world opened up.” I thought I’d revised it enough times, but I’d missed that. If I hadn’t been talking about hackneyed phrases the day before I’d probably have missed it again. I got rid of it, reprinted the article and sent it off. It was published.
That’s why it’s so helpful to have guidelines like yours to refer to when revising. Thanks for that.
