Barely a trickle of prose, a little limited in variation (8)
I believe the answer is:
droplets
'barely a trickle of prose' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'a little limited in variation' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'a little' could be 'drop' (I've seen this before) and 'drop' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'lets' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for droplets that I've seen is " small amounts of liquid".)