Today I learned the truth. Today my father’s actions made sense for the first time; why he always locked all the doors and windows every time I went to bed, why he scratched those strange markings on their frames, but mostly why my door had so many of them. Why he had the village healer inscribe both my eyelids with the same symbol. Today I learned why the entire village feared me, and cast me and my family away in the forest. Today, under the ancient weeping willow at the heart of the forest, I reshaped reality. My reality. I’m not sure, but I think there’s three of me now, and the other two were not very happy they were held captives for so long.
Rhetorical devices
Ever wondered what is the thing that makes certain passages within a story flow in a way that make us lose our connection with reality and instead draw us in their made-up world? Why the cadence of some sentences resonate with us in a way that makes us fall in love with a writer and their craft?
Aside from a reader’s preference to a specific setting or type of characters or plot or genre, I think a great deal should be attributed to something called “Rhetorical Devices.” Some of us use them, knowing fully well which one is needed, where to use them, and why (lucky you). Others, like myself, have no idea what they are called, or when or where one should be used, but use them none the less because something at the back of our heads insists it’s the right place to add them, that it adds a little something to our craft.
I think it’s best to be able to identify some of them, even if you don’t want to use them.
Margie Lawson, a guest blogger on Writer’s in the Storm, posted a few of them and gave some nice examples from published works in this post.
Then there’s Robert A. Harris’s, A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices, that provides an even greater list with 60 of these devices.
Happy studying and I hope they help you improve your writing 🙂
Inspirational prompt 29
“If we want to be completely honest with each other, my short friend, it was the silence that woke your queen, not I.”
The constable still struggled to maintain his grip on the ever shifting apparition that looked like that feisty woman from last year, the only one who had managed to ruin a perfectly well-organised execution. “Don’t give me that. Silence doesn’t wake anyone, nor does it put them in a slumber afterwards. We saw you -”
“You saw me doing what exactly?”
“Pulsing,” the constable said and made a point by waving a fat hand before her face when no other descriptive word came to his mind, “over her head. Now she can’t wake up.”
“That’s ’cause she stopped listening. It demands her attention. Mine as well, and your voice is so annoying.”
“Listening what? What does it say? Who says it?”
The shimmering woman paused, focused on the air around her, listened earnestly. “It says, ‘we should talk about your unborn ancestors and the crimes they’ll commit’.”
Comma rules? Comma rules!
Far be it from me to lecture native English speakers about English grammar rules. I used to love grammar and syntax at school. Yes, I was that type of nerd at school, but let’s not go into too much detail about it, shall we?
However, after more than two and a half decades since I was at elementary school, when we did grammar and syntax, and after stuffing my brain with the rules of another language, more or less at the same time with my native language, some rules have “migrated” from one language to the other. So I often remember a rule for this and that while I write, only to realise, oh say a year later, that said rule was not meant for English but for Greek or the other way around.
And yes, I’m one of those people who may have a sudden burst of epiphany to years-old questions in the most absurd places, like cinemas or the bathroom, and I make sure everyone around me knows I found the answer to something.
Which means I have to go back and change things around in my manuscripts. Those of you who beta read for me in the past must have noticed it. (Btw, thank you again, you awesome people you! – wink wink, nudge nudge, next novel will be ready at some point)
One thing I noticed a lot of people struggle with, not only in Greek but in English as well, also not only in self-published books but traditionally published too, is the comma. So, if you’re one of those people like me, have a look at this image with a few rules about comma, and see if it helps you.
Better ways to say
During draft, we are allowed to do anything, write our stories in whatever way we want, how ever they come natural, without paying attention at anything other than putting words down. Which means when it’s time to edit that first draft we will have used several words that are bland, repetitive, and are cliché. We’re supposed to weed those words out and make our work shine. For those of us that such a task doesn’t come easy, and have to spend a long time searching for that one perfect word in a their thesaurus (you all have one, right?), the link and the image I provide may be of some help.
First, this post will help you with some overused adjectives. At least the ones you absolutely need to keep in your MS.
You may also find this image helpful.
(image originally taken from http://imgur.com/UHjZ4Ra)
