Skip to main content

                Putting that Literary Touch on Your Writing


Writing can be enhanced by a turn of phrase—a sentence or expression that is artful. Here are three basic ways you can put a literary touch in your writing.



PERSONIFICATION
Personification is a form of figurative language. It gives an inanimate object a human trait. Here are a few examples.

"Then the wind increased, joined by large pelts of rain, the mid-morning having made up its mind to be rainy."

"I sometimes think my car hates me."

"I’m convinced the eyes in the painting were following me."

Obviously, wind cannot make up its mind, a car cannot hate you, and the eyes in a painting, though it might seem like they are following you, are not. We are simply ascribing human attributes to inanimate objects.


OBJECTIFICATION
This is the reverse of personification. You objectify when you give a human the characteristics of an inanimate object. Here are some possible ways to do it:

"A pair of tiny black beads stared at her."

"The hoodlums cruised the streets like hyenas, sniffing the air for a weak animal."

"Nancy had a voice as quiet as an exam room."

"Ted was as blue as a butterfly without wings."

The examples take from the natural world to provide a point of inspiration. Otherwise, they would read like this:

"The man stared at her."

"The hoodlums walked the streets looking for people to rob."

"Nancy spoke softly."

"Ted was depressed."


CROSS-ATTRIBUTION
Cross-attribution is like personification insofar as we attribute qualities to something that is not intrinsic to it. The difference is that the characteristics are borrowed from one inanimate object and given to another. Some examples:

"Bill’s morning slippers scraped along the kitchen floor like a lumbering crab."

"A slight touch of air grazed the back of Mary’s hair like a feather duster."

"Terry grabbed the arms of the chair and lowered himself as if he was getting into a bubble bath."

Many people wear funny slippers. But no one literally walks on crabs. And I would think I was losing my mind if I really thought a feather duster suddenly appeared by itself and touched the back of my hair. Now, I do have a back problem, so I can identify with Terry.


I hope that these simple tips help your writing. We are always in need of inventive ways to dress things up a bit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spurgeon Doesn't Help Us With Trump

“ Of two evils, choose neither ." Spurgeon's quote has been posted numerous times on social media by Christians who find themselves in a moral conundrum at the very thought of voting for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Here’s the problem with Spurgeon’s idea. Biblically there is no such thing as a choice between two evils. Let me explain. Moral philosophers and theologians have long spoken of the problem of "tragic moral choice", also known as the “incommensurability in values.” The man on the street simply calls it “choosing between the lesser of two evils.”   The best known example of tragic moral choice is the one about the Nazis during WW II. Do you handover the Jews knowing that your choice makes you complicit in their deaths? Or do you lie and violate the Ninth Commandment? The Lutheran scholar, John Warwick Montgomery, has argued that such choices are unavoidable and of necessity cause us to sin. The Bible, however, takes a dim view of the...
66 comments
Read more

Tullian Tchividjian Bounces Back?

It is unfortunate but every so often a Christian, including a pastor, wanders away from the sheepfold and finds himself perilously ensnared by sin and in grave danger. In keeping with the duty of the church, especially its elders, it becomes necessary to vigorously seek the full repentance and restoration of the lost sheep. As in the case of the prodigal son (Luke 15:3-8) the contrite heart is one both heaven and the faithful saints celebrate.  In the case of Tullian Tchividjian we have an example of a lost under-shepherd. Having admitted to adultery, the South Florida Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) deposed  Tchividjian on August 11, 2015, ruling him unfit for Christian ministry. Tchividjian followed his removal from the pastoral office by filing for divorce from his wife, Kim, on August 27 th . They were married in 1994 and together have three children. Deposition from office is a serious infliction of church discipline. The goal of all ...
24 comments
Read more

Is Our Knowledge of God Analogical of Univocal?

As a matter of first principles in apologetics, we can ask, “What does the unbeliever know about God?” However, the biblical apologetic is shaped not only by what Scripture says the unbeliever knows, but also by what it reveals he can know; is capable of knowing, as a believer. So we might also ask, “Is it our hope that the unbeliever can know God as God knows himself or that he can know God reflectively, in a creaturely way?” This is the univocal/analogical problem in Christian epistemology.  The question arises in the context of the structure of human thought. It bears its own unique dilemma. If we stress too excessively that knowledge of God is univocal we run the risk of lowering the incomprehensible God to the level of the finite and make God as one of us. But if we stress too emphatically knowledge of God per analogiam we may very well deprive God of all likeness to the humanity he has created with the result that all we are left with is a barren, abstraction. To a cons...
3 comments
Read more