I'll betray my ignorance on this topic. What would a first-rate writer do when faced with a situation where the subject of every line in a narrative is the same? As an attorney, I face this problem often in relaying facts where there is often only one actor.

Well, it's nice to hear the original origin, but I think I'll keep crediting my former colleague Maggie Robbins, who was known to say, "it's the 'elongated yellow fruit' problem--try to find a synonym for 'banana'."

Anonymous, a writer facing the situation in which "the subject of every line in a narrative is the same" would:
- vary the sentence structure to the subject could become an object;
-combine some sentences to have a single subject but compound predicates;
-use some pronouns
-use "the fruit" perhaps instead of "the elongaged yellow fruit"
-live with the repetition that couldn't be eliminated by these means
-pick a different topic that has better synonyms (joking! because even when there are better synonyms, using them to avoid repetitions can make for some really annoying reading)

I nominate TV broadcaster Dick Emberg as the biggest abuser of elongated yellow fruits (which sounds more tawdry than intended).

"What would a first-rate writer do when faced with a situation where the subject of every line in a narrative is the same? As an attorney, I face this problem often in relaying facts where there is often only one actor."

Use a pronoun.

I've been reading The Portrait of a Lady. Henry James certainly isn't afraid of the "elegant variation." And in his hands it's a magnificent figure.

We had a story recently about an old outhouse that was being restored, and the reporter took extreme pains to use 27 different descriptive words for "toilet."

Some were just too ridiculous. I agree that it's sometimes necessary to avoid repetition, but saying "toilet" more than once is way less noticeable than using words like "loo" and "privy," much more suited to the UK than Florida. . .

Dorothy Parker recorded a couple of doozies in her review of Aimee Semple McPherson's autobiography:

"The sun becomes 'that round orb of day' (as opposed, I expect, to those square orbs you see about so much lately); maple syrup is 'Springtide’s liquid love gift from the heart of the maple wood; the forest, by a stroke of inspiration, turns out to be 'a cathedral of stately grandeur and never ceasing wonder and awe' (argue, if you will, for 'cloying quicksand' as the phrase superb, but me, I’ll hold out for 'stately grandeur'); the ocean—you’ll never guess—is “a broad expanse of sparkling silver”; icy panes are portrayed by the delicate whimsy 'Jack Frost had completely painted the windows with his magic brush'; and the gifted author is frequently asking you to 'But Hold!'”