Writer's craft

Every writer makes decisions about diction (word choice) and what order to present the information in, and these decisions influence how readers experience the text. A text might also include double meanings, surprising reversals, irony, or satiric arguments that undercut what it claims to be doing.

This chapter covers the literary techniques that you will be asked about on the test.

Denotation and connotation

A word’s literal meaning is its denotation. Its connotations are its various shades of meaning.

For example, the denotative meaning of “sunshine” is “light that emanates from the sun.” However, it connotes warmth, light, and happiness because most people connect sunshine with those three things.

Here’s another example: The denotative meaning of consequence is “something that happens as a result of something else.” This meaning is neutral: there is no indication of whether that result is good or bad. However, the word has acquired negative connotations because it is frequently used as a synonym for “punishment.”

Figurative language

Figurative language seeks to paint a picture in the reader’s mind. It can include descriptive language, similes, metaphors, and imagery. On the test, you will be asked to identify and interpret figures of speech.

Similes and metaphors

A simile is a comparison that uses “like” or “as” to compare two things. For example:

• The children were as busy as bees today.
• My heart was pounding like a drum.
• Ebeneezer Scrooge’s heart is like an old, shriveled raisin.

A metaphor is a comparison that does not use “like” or “as.” For example:

• The children were busy bees today.
• My heartbeat was a pounding drum.
• Ebeneezer Scrooge’s heart is an old, shriveled raisin.

Alliteration

Alliteration occurs when two or more words together begin with the same sound. For example, “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” is alliterative because most of the words start with “p.” Writers use alliteration for emphasis and to create mood, tone, and lyricism in their writing.

For example, here is the first sentence of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

Here, the repetition of the “d” sound in “dull, dark, and soundless” emphasizes the dreariness of the day and landscape.

Personification

Personification occurs when a writer attributes human qualities to something that is not human.

For example:

• The sun smiled on the wedding party.
• My house was shouting at me to clean it.
• The raindrops danced in the road.
• The telephone pole jumped in front of my car.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia occurs when a word sounds like the sound it describes. For example, we hear the sound of buzzing when we say “buzz” and the sound of hissing in the word “hiss.” Writers use onomatopoeia to make their writing come alive for their readers.

Allusions

Allusions are references, often to another text. They are usually brief and refer to something outside the text without mentioning it directly. Writers use them as shorthand to express complex ideas.

Here are two examples:

Buried within the forest lay an Edenic garden complete with fruit trees, a waterfall, and wildflowers.

“Edenic” is an allusion to the Garden of Eden, a common image of perfection on earth. The word instantaneously evokes innocence and bliss without the writer having to spell out the idea.

The substitute teacher, who looked remarkably like Professor Snape, was nonetheless a genial guy who happily helped students with their assignments.

Professor Snape is the greasy, sallow-looking Potions teacher from the Harry Potter series, so alluding to him paints an immediate picture in the mind of the reader.

Analogies

Analogies are comparisons between two things–usually a familiar thing and an unfamiliar thing–to help readers use their knowledge of the familiar thing to understand the unfamiliar thing.

For example:

Trying to get my teacher to give a simple answer is like hoping that you won’t get wet in the rain.

During his summer as a camp counselor, Mike learned that moving a group of ten-year-old boys from one place to another was like trying to direct an amoeba on steroids.

Her words were as comforting as a bowl of hot chicken soup.

In each case, the analogy presents readers with a familiar image that is used to characterize an unfamiliar one.

Proverbs and idioms

Proverbs are short sayings that express wisdom, warnings, and morals. They are generally old sayings and often include word play, as in “a stitch in time saves nine,” which uses rhyme and a sewing image to express the idea that attending to small problems prevents them from becoming big ones. Proverbs are also often about animals, as in “the early bird gets the worm,” which encourages people to get up early.

Synonyms for proverb include:

• Adage
• Axiom
• Maxim
• Moral
• Motto
• Saw (as in “that old saw”)

Here’s an example:

The following passage is from “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” by Benjamin Franklin.

“But, dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,” as Poor Richard says.—How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep! forgetting that, “the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave,” as Poor Richard says.

Which statement from the passage contains a proverb?

a. “But, dost thou love life?”
b. “Do not squander time…”
c. “How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep!”
d. “The sleeping fox catches no poultry.”
e. “There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

Idioms are phrases that have meanings that are not logically connected to what they say. For example, “It’s raining cats and dogs” is intended to mean it’s raining really hard, not that people’s pets are falling from the sky.

Here are a few of the most common idioms and their meanings:

By the skin of one’s teeth	To just barely manage to do something in the nick of time
To let the chips fall where they may	To let things work themselves out
Every cloud has a silver lining.	You can always find something good, even when everything seems bad
To bite the bullet	To brace oneself for a difficult or painful task
To hit the sack	To go to bed
Costs an arm and a leg	Very expensive
To beat around the bush	To take a long time to make a point
To lose one’s marbles	To go insane
Straight from the horse’s mouth	To hear something directly instead of in a roundabout way
Up a creek without a paddle	To be stuck in a bad situation

If you are uncertain about your knowledge of English idioms, these websites provide extensive lists for you to review:

• Education First
• Wikipedia
• Leverage Edu

Irony

There are three kinds of irony: dramatic, situational, and verbal. In each case, what’s intended isn’t what happens, so you can think of irony as an expression of dashed expectations. The ironic writer is cynical and expects undesirable outcomes as a matter of course.

Dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows more about the characters’ situation than the characters do themselves. For example, in Shakespeare’s play Othello, the villain Iago announces his evil plan to make Othello mad with jealousy so that the audience can see exactly how Othello is duped into distrusting his wife without being fooled themselves.

Situational irony occurs when the outcome of a situation is the opposite of what was intended. For example, in The Wizard of Oz, the characters travel to ask a wizard to grant them their heart’s desire; ironically, they learn that they already had it.

Verbal irony occurs when what is said is the opposite of what’s meant. For example, if Bill gets into a car crash and misses his job interview, he might announce ironically, “I had a great day,” when what he means is that he had a really bad day.

Allegory

An allegory is a story that contains a hidden meaning, usually moral, religious, or political. Allegories you may have read in school include:

• Fables in which animals stand in for human characters to illustrate right and wrong ways to behave.
• Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
• Animal Farm, by George Orwell
• A Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan
• The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser

Here’s an example:

A Hare one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing: “Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race.” The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race the two started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course. The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue. Slow but steady wins the race.

What does the tortoise represent in the fable?

a. Arrogance
b. Perseverance
c. Turpitude
d. Dishonesty
e. Covetousness