Litotes, pronounced lie-toe-tease, is a literary technique whereby you express things in a negative formulation. For example, rather than say:

I was impressed

you say

I was not unimpressed

It sort of means the same thing in the end, but the feeling conveyed is rather different. I think the litotes version suggests that you were not expecting to be impressed and so are pleasantly (?) surprised.

But what would it look like if a whole story was written in this fashion?

I’ve been experimenting with writing the same story in all different ways, and my most recent version was full litotes. You can check it out for yourself, and leave a comment if you wish, here: Experiments in Style: Litotes.

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