We prove a strong variant of the Borwein-Preiss variational principle, and show that on Asplund spaces, Stegall's variational principle follows from it via a generalized Smulyan test. Applications are discussed.

We develop a method of separable reduction for Fr\'{e}chet-like normals and $\epsilon$-normals to arbitrary sets in general Banach spaces. This method allows us to reduce certain problems involving such normals in nonseparable spaces to the separable case. It is particularly helpful in Asplund spaces where every separable subspace admits a Fr\'{e}chet smooth renorm. As an applicaton of the separable reduction method in Asplund spaces, we provide a new direct proof of a nonconvex extension of the celebrated Bishop-Phelps density theorem. Moreover, in this way we establish new characterizations of Asplund spaces in terms of $\epsilon$-normals.