 Drama: April 06, 2011 Issue [#4306] |
  Drama
This week: Using Figures of Speech Effectively Edited by: Joy  
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"To be clear is the first duty of a writer; to charm and to please are graces to be acquired later."
Brander Matthews
"Don't overwrite description in a story - you haven't got time."
Elizabeth Spencer
"Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area."
Nadine Gordimer
The more closely the author thinks of why he wrote, the more he comes to regard his imagination as a kind of self-generating cement which glued his facts together, and his emotions as a kind of dark and obscure designer of those facts. Reluctantly, he comes to the conclusion that to account for his book is to account for his life.
- Richard Wright
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. Our discussion in this issue is about using figures of speech effectively .
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Figurative speech adds depth and lyricism to descriptions, dialogue, and expository passages, but this literary device deserves quite a bit of thinking and editing to be as successful as it can be. The main trick of figurative speech is to define or identify something by comparing it to something else. Although most of us in WdC know and use the several forms of figurative speech well, let's start by defining the top few.
 Simile: It compares two unlike things by using words such as like and as
Under the traffic cop's gaze, her stride was like a wave.
To him, her hand in his felt smooth like silk.
Her pitch was as faulty as a blackbird's cawing.
Metaphor: It compares two unlike things also, and the resemblances are implicit but not introduced by like or as.
Time is a thief, stealing our youth.
"My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand" From Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
Personification: It gives something a human quality.
The salamander winks at you flirtatiously.
The stars follow you around.
Hyperbole: Comparison through exaggeration
She took a million years just to cook a bowl of soup.
He's older than Methusaleh.
A capable writer uses figurative speech only when needed but possibly takes it a few steps further than a novice writer. For example, a novice would probably say, Mrs. Bogart's demeanor like an old hen annoyed Carol.
See how Sinclair Lewis in Main Street gave the same idea by taking it a few steps further:
"She was the soft, damp, fat, sighing, indigestive, clinging, melancholy, depressingly hopeful kind. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and indignant hens who resemble Mrs. Bogart, and when they are served at Sunday noon dinner, as fricasseed chicken with thick dumplings, they keep up the resemblance."
Did you notice how the writer elaborated here?
Let us look at another example where a novice writer or poet could say, "Death is darkness."
D.H. Lawrence in Love Among the haystacks says the same thing as his character, Geoffrey, looks for the lamp inside a pitch dark shed. "He imagined death was like that, many things dissolved in silence and darkness, blotted out, but existing. In the dense blackness he felt himself almost extinguished."
Then, notice how William Faulkner describes a character in A Rose for Emily
"She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough..."
Here are a few pointers for using figures of speech:
 Figurative language can add drama, flavor, and colorful detail to writing, but don't overdo anything. If you write an entire page of metaphors and similes, you'll scare the reader and obscure the meaning, even when you are writing poetry. Use them once in a while if they fit in well with the heart of the topic and polish them to a perfect shine through several edits. Most of the time, however, telling your story straight through by using active verbs, nouns and other forms of speech will be just fine rather than stuffing it with clichés and ill-used devices.
Make sure the figures of speech you use match or complement the voice, the story's pace, and your character's mental capacity if the story's point of view is in first person singular or third person limited.
Stay away from figurative language which has turned into cliché over time, such as: She's as happy as a clam; He watches like a hawk; I could eat a horse; It rained cats and dogs; You are opening a can of worms, etc.
For poets and poetry lovers, here is a link to an interesting webpage that examines the figurative speech the poet Robert Frost has used:
http://www.frostfriends.org/figurative.html
As writing is drama in itself, may we all succeed with the special effects we aim to employ in our acts of writing.  
Until next time...
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Your Drama Newsletter Editors: Adriana Noir Fyn  Joy
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
This Issue's Tip:
Find evidence of character traits not in just the face but in the whole body of your character as in his body's shape, posture, and gait, since body may well represent the mind.
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 Reading Recommendation: A book with drama
If you have a recommendation, a few words on a book or a product review, send it to me or to this newsletter. I'll highlight it here.
by Dawsongirl 
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Steev the Friction Wizurd
That was an excellent piece about tension, Joy! So informative, but concise. Thank you! 
Thank you, Steve. 
I'm happy you found the newsletter informative.
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Fi
Thank you so much for highlighting my story in this newsletter! I just love these newsletters! Such awesome tips and advice and I learn something new every time.
Thanks, Kasia.
We are all thankful for WdC with its newsletters and everything else.
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Adriana Noir
Wow, Joy! What a brilliant lesson in building tension. This was not only fun to read, but informative. Thanks for sharing your winderful insights!
Thanks, Adriana.
I'm glad you liked it.
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BIG BAD WOLF is Howling 
Always be careful about what's behind door #1.
Yes, that door can be dramatic.
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