Author Tips
Figurative Language
Figurative Language.doc
Alliteration-- Repeated beginning consonant sounds, such as "feather fingers flapping"
Consonance-- Repeated consonant sounds, such as Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." For example: "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"
Personification-- Giving life to something not living; such as saying the feathers are fingers
Onomatopoeia-- (ah no mah toe pee ah) Words that sound like the sound they make, such as Bam! Pop! Bang! slap gurgle Phzzzzt
Simile-- Comparing two things that are different and finding a similarity -- write it using like or as , such as comparing how high the eagle flies to how a skyscraper is. The eagle flies as high as a skyscraper .
Metaphor -- comparing two different objects --- "Her sparkling eyes are stars."
Imagery: Use The Senses-- Write all sights, sounds, smells, tastes, texture, feelings about your topic
Describe what it LOOKs like.
What does it sound like?
How might it smell, taste?
How might it feel if you touched it?
Ideas from the poem: piercing eyes; white head; crooked yellow talons; munching grass; flapping in the cold winter wind
Hyperbole -- extreme exaggeration. “His grin is as wide as the ocean!” "She is as tall as a mountain!”
Author Musts:
Vivid verbs-- Action words like flies, spread, searching, hops, munches, drops, fold, dives, scopp, flaps, flows
Nifty nouns-- Specific nouns (persons, places, things, ideas); instead of dog, say German Shepard; instead of fast, say 100 miles an hour; instead animal, say rabbit or snake
Assonance-- Repeated vowel sounds, such as flies across the skies
Repeated words-- Repeat words for effect, like "hops, munches, hops, munches" to show the rabbit doesn't know the danger
Other Poetic Devices:
Rhyme-- Repeated ending sounds, such as fold, cold; poems do NOT need to rhyme
Line breaks-- Whereever you want the reader to pause or look carefully at a phrase, put a line break there (hit return).
Links
http://www.orangeusd.k12.ca.us/yorba/figurative_language.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/9502/figrtv.html
http://www.dowlingcentral.com/MrsD/area/literature/LitTerms.html
http://www.nipissingu.ca/faculty/williams/figofspe.htm
http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/rhetoric.html
http://wiwi.essortment.com/figurativelangu_rgpp.htm
http://www.criticalreading.com/inference_figurative_language.htm
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