Dahlia was lying in a pool of blood.

Nah. Pool of blood? Too cliché. Horribly overused. What could be more unimaginative than a pool of blood? We’ve got to spruce it up a bit, or take it out.

Dahlia was lying in a puddle of blood.

Nope, that’s even wimpier. Go back to the pool. But change the blood.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of gore.

Does that really make sense? Can we use “gore” like that? Let’s actually go look up synonyms for blood.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of ichor.

What is she, a slain Greek god? Nope! She’s a totally normal detective-story murder victim in a totally non-mythological context. “Ichor” is inappropriate and distracting in this context, and it also sounds as if we looked it up in a thesaurus, which we did.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of red and white blood cells and platelets.

Too literal, not literary.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of liquid life-substance.

That’s even worse. Okay, maybe we don’t go strictly for synonyms?

Dahlia was lying in a pool of bodily fluid.

Ewwww. No. Reverse direction.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of death.

That doesn’t solve the problem. Okay, what if we ditch the thesaurus and just add adjectives?

Dahlia was lying in a pool of red blood.

Red’s almost superfluous here.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of dried blood.

Okay. Still a little cliché?

Dahlia was lying in a pool of steamy blood.

Whut.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of caked blood.

Maybe? Does blood cake like that? Let’s go back to the dried blood. Actually nah, still feels like a cliché. Hey! Let’s ditch the noun and just use the adjective metonymically!

Dahlia was lying in a pool of red.

That could work?

Dahlia was lying in a pool of crimson.

Ooh, I like crimson. Or scarlet. Yeah, let’s go on.

Her lantern flickering, Jill stepped gingerly across the floorboards—

Wait wait! Is pool of crimson still too time-worn? When we send our manuscript sample off to agents, will they think, “Really? Pool of crimson? Hello, we’ve got a dead horse being beaten here! How does she not know how stale ‘pool of crimson’ is? Has she not got the memo that detective writers stopped recycling that tired phrase in nineteen twenty? Pool of crimson ain’t gonna cut it, kid. And just in case you’re thinking, scarlet’s just as overdone. Hard pass.” Okay, let’s revisit.

Dahlia was lying in a pool of burgundy.

Uhhhhhh, are we overwriting? You know what? Screw it.

Dahlia was dead.