You’ve written your draft, smoothed out the rough plot points, developed your characters, and eliminated continuity issues. So, what’s left?
How about using some tried and true literary devices to level up and enhance your prose?
Here are 9 ways to enhance your prose, using literary devices that you have likely seen and even used in practice but that you might want to become more familiar with.
Alliteration—the repetition of an initial word sound in a phrase.
Example: Tattered tickets twisted in the wind, falling like ticker-tape on the empty street.
Anadiplosis—repetition of a word or phrase from the end of one line to the beginning of the next line.
Example: She wanted to run away. Run away to a place where these burdens would not fall upon her shoulders.
Analogy—a partial similarity on which a comparison is made.
Examples: Comparing legs to pistons or the heart to a pump.
Concreteness—a quality of reality achieved through specific elements the reader can hear, taste, smell, touch, and emotions and sensations that seem tangible.
(Provides access to the character and addresses show don’t tell.)
Example: The sharp air lashed her cheeks. She licked her lips, savoring the sea salt flavor and dug her bare toes into the gritty sand as the white noise of the crashing waves filled her with calm.
Imagery—the use of language to represent actions, persons, objects, and ideas descriptively. This isn’t just about painting pictures for the reading using sight. It is about using specific descriptive words and nuanced words to immerse the reader in the story.
Example: Don’t tell us a character walked into the room, show us how they walked, crept, snuck, strode, rushed, galloped, etc.
Metaphor—applying a word or phrase to a person, idea or object to which it is not literally applicable.
Example, referring to emotional distance as a wall built between one’s self and others.
Simile—comparison of two things that are essentially different but thought to be alike in one or more aspects.
Example: Shakespeare’s character Hamlet’s comparison of man: “in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!”
Symbolism—representing objects or ideas via symbols or giving them symbolic or associated meaning.
Examples: Flying birds as symbols of freedom. White doves representing peace.
Synecdoche—a kind of metaphor, wherein a part of something is used to represent the whole or the whole is used to represent a part.
Example: Bread used to represent food/sustenance.
A word of caution: Any and all of these fabulous literary devices can be used to enhance your prose. However, like anything, they should be used sparingly and not overdone.
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