What I look for in my experiments in style

Or: what makes a style a suitable case for treatment? PLUS: Two extra styles!

Greetings!

First of all, something completely unrelated but which may be of interest. I teach at the CityLit institute in London, both online and in person. It runs hundreds of courses, with incredibly well-qualified tutors. They are running a cyber weekend this weekend, in which you get 15% off the price of some courses as long as certain conditions are met. All the information you need is here: cyber weekend. Please note: I am not benefitting from mentioning this.

Now, before I get started on today’s ‘extra/behind the scenes’ post, I’d like to ask you a question. My original intention for today was to write a behind-the-scenes look at the Hardboiled experiment. That is, why I used certain phrases, and the literary devices employed. But then it struck me that it could seem all a bit referential to, in effect, do a lit crit analysis of my own work. Therefore I thought I’d pass it over to you. Would you like a deep dive into that post or not?