University Writing Center » Creative Writing & Fiction

Glossary of Poetic Devices

admin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:31:37 +0000

Use this list of some of the most common poetic devices to guide you in analyzing and in writing poetry.Use this list of some of the most common poetic devices like to guide you in analyzing or in writing poems and stories.

Use this list of some of the most common poetic devices like to guide you in analyzing or in writing poems and stories

Sound Devices

Mimetic: words that suggest their meanings by the sounds that they make (ex: chunk or sleazy)1
Onomatopoetic: words that imitate their meanings by the sounds that they make (ex: splash or boom)
Alliteration: the repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more words in a line or phrase (ex: Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore)
Dissonance: harsh sounds that can be added to a poem through alliteration
Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds (ex: the wine became the night)1
- Ascend: the vowels in a poem move from low, rich o’s and u’s to short i’s and long e’s.1
- Descend: the vowels move from short i’s and long e’s to low, rich o’s and u’s.1
Rhyme: two or more words with the same sound
- End rhyme: rhyme that comes at the end of a line of poetry. This is the most obvious rhyme pattern.1 End rhyme often takes over the poem and makes it sound forced and awkward.
- Beginning rhyme: rhyme that occurs in the first syllable of the line1
- Internal rhyme: rhyme that occurs within a line or lines1
- True rhyme: the correlation of sound in the accented syllables of the words and the syllables which follow them (ex: wood and good, eaten and beaten)1
- Eye rhyme: words that look like they rhyme on paper but actually do not when they are read aloud (ex: cough and though)1
- Slant rhyme: rhyme that is imperfect, typically in the vowel sounds (ex: body and bloody)1
Syntax: word order within a poem. You can alter meaning in a poem by switching around the syntax to create irony or confusion.

The Rhythm of Poetry

Cadence: the natural sound pattern created by the spoken word1
Meter: the recurrence of a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables2
- Scansion: the process of examining a poem’s metrical pattern and deviation from the pattern1
- Foot: the basic unit of measure. This is a combination of stressed and/or unstressed syllables1
Stanza: a certain number of lines grouped together which usually forms a pattern throughout the poem. Common stanza forms are1:
- Couplet: two-line stanza
- Tercet: three-line stanza
- Quatrain: four-line stanza
- Cinquain: five-line stanza
- Sestet: six-line stanza
- Septet: seven-line stanza
- Octave: eight-line stanza
Punctuation: can be manipulated to change rhythm. Types1:
- End-stopped: when punctuation occurs at the end of a line
- Run-on/enjambment: when there is no punctuation at the end of a line
- Caesura: within a line of the poem; it usually divides a foot and is in the middle of the line.

Other Devices

Imagery: Words or phrases that appeal to any sense of any combination of the five senses2 (ex: blinding or salty)

Personification: Gives non-human things human traits (ex: the tree was sad)

Point of View: The perspective from which the poem is being narrated or told

Simile: Compares two objects which usually uses like or as. (ex: He is as loud as thunder)

Metaphor: Compares two objects that may use words such as is or was (ex: This house is a dump)

From: Candace Schaefer and Rick Diamond. The Creative Writing Guide. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1998.

Sunda. “Glossary of Poetic Devices.” The Poet’s Bookshelf. 06 Jan 2007. http://www.kyrene.k12.az.us/schools/brisas/sunda/poets/poetry2.htm, 2007.

Character Development

admin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:24:50 +0000

Characters are the most important component of any narrative. Without them, there would be no story. Character development is an important skill to master because characters are important parts of any creative writing from books and short stories, from biographies and autobiographies, to poetry.

The development of a character is a very detailed process, and one that requires a lot of thought. According to Candace Schaefer and Rick Diamond (The Creative Writer. Addison-Wesley, 1998), you should consider many factors when introducing a character to readers. All of the kinds of details mentioned below are necessary to fully develop a character because each of them reveals a different part of the character’s appearance or personality and gives background about that character’s traits.

Physical Details about the character: Is he/she short, tall, thin, old, etc?
Physical environment surrounding the character: Is he/she on a desert island, in an urban community, living in the mountains, etc?
The other characters surrounding the character: What kinds of people does the character associate with?
The things that the character does: Does he/she go to school, fly an airplane, eat pizza every night for dinner, etc?
The things that the character says or thinks: These things reveal the character’s feelings and opinions about things.

Schaefer and Diamond also state that character development is more effective when the author reveals traits about the character through the ways mentioned above and allows the reader to make his/her own judgments, rather than stating character traits directly. For example:

Option 1) The author simply states: “The young boy was mischievous and he was always looking for the next way to cause problems for everyone else.”
Option 2) The author mentions specific instances that the boy has caused trouble and reveals, through these cases, that he is mischievous and a troublemaker.

Option 2 is a more effective approach because it allows the readers to form judgments about the young boy themselves, rather than simply accepting the author’s word for it.

Sometimes it is difficult to think of things to mention about a character to give more insight into his/her life. Here are some ideas to help (From Sandra Miller, “Character Development Tips.” SandraMiller.com. 08 Jan. 2007. <http://www.pgtc.com/~slmiller/characterdevelopment.htm> 2006):

His/her family: relationships, beliefs, habits, religion, activities, etc. We are all greatly influenced by our family.
His/her vices: illnesses, drinking or swearing, compulsive spending, obsession with sweets, etc.
His/her pet peeves: disorganization, grammatical mistakes, slow drivers, etc. These things say a lot about a character’s personality.
His/her daily schedule: school, work, errands, etc. The narrative must weave around the character’s schedule, so it is good to detail it.
His/her strong point: strength, determination, forgiveness, etc. This trait may help the character to overcome hardship in the narrative.
His/her nicknames: Readers can learn a lot about a character by what his/her friends call them and why.

Memoirs, Autobiographies & Biographies

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:28:57 +0000

Definitions

Memoir

Plot

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:19:18 +0000

Plot is an essential element of a good story. This handout helps you understand plot so you can write your own stories or analyze those of others.

Definition of Plot:

“The series of events in the story, chronological or not, which serve to move the story from its beginning through its climax or turning point and to a resolution of its conflicts” (Schaefer 210). Plot is also why the story happens and why the protagonist learns or grows, or begins or chooses something.

Characters are an important part of a story’s plot, and there are many different types of characters.

Types of Characters:

Protagonist: The central character on whom the story focuses and with whom we identify. A story could have more than one protagonist.

Antagonists: The characters aligned against the central character. They can be internal or external.

Flat characters: Extra characters whose purpose is to highlight what the protagonist is experiencing.

Round characters: These characters are complex and three-dimensional; they are included to help the reader understand the scene in a way that advances the action.

Stock characters: Characters who are so obvious and predictable that their roles and personalities are clichés. Stories should not be too full of these characters or else they will be boring.

Most stories follow the same basic sequence of events, and as the character moves through these events he/she grows and develops.

Sequence of Events:

Rising Action: Everything that leads up to the climax

Climax/Turning Point: The point at which the protagonist decides how to resolve a conflict or faces those conflicts. At this point the story moves from building conflict to resolving conflict. It IS NOT necessarily the most exciting part of the story, but often times it is.

Falling Action: Everything that happens as a result of the climax.

Resolution/Denouncement: The part of the story that sums up or brings the conflicts to their conclusion. It should be believable, and not a huge surprise, because the plot should have been building up to that point.

Writers sometimes choose to use special elements of plot to enhance the story and make it more detailed or interesting.

Elements of Plot:

Foreshadowing: used as a way to create tension and rising conflict and to move the story closer to its eventual outcome. It gives hints about what may eventually occur or be decided.

Stream of Consciousness: The author provides the protagonist’s thoughts through interior monologues throughout the course of the story. These thoughts do not have to be sequential or linear, and they allow the reader to experience both external action and internal thoughts and feelings about the action in the story.

All information on this handout was adapted from: Candace Schaefer and Rick Diamond. The Creative Writing Guide. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1998.

Further Reading

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html offers creative ways to help with writing poetry and fiction. It also provides a link to a site that allows for online publication of creative writing.

http://www.fsu.edu/~butler/ Pulitzer prize winner Robert Olen Butler takes you deep inside the process of fictional writing. You can learn, from an expert, how to manifest ideas and write creative stories by drawing from some of the most seemingly simple sources, such as artwork from postcards like Butler uses.

http://www.teachingcompany.com/sensei/revising.ppt presents effective techniques to improve creative writing, such as advice on sentence-making, word choice, and perspective.

http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/jankej/Writing/tips.htm – This webpage is from Dakota State University. It focuses on fiction writing and gives information regarding the seven major components of a fiction story.

http://www.writingclasses.com/ – This site from the Gotham Writers’ Workshop provides a multitude of information on various types of creative writing, including non-fiction, poetry, plays, science fiction, and songs. It also provides information about how to publish your work.

Point of View

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:01:04 +0000

Understanding various ways a writer creates a point of view will help you both analyze and write stories. Schaefer and Diamond define point of view as “A further consideration beyond character, conflict, setting, and plot for the narrative writer.” It is not the writer’s attitude or opinion toward the subject; it is a technical device that the writer uses and the voice that he/she uses to tell the story.

You should first decide what you want to convey with your story. Then experiment with different points of view to determine which lets the reader “experience the [main character's] central experience” in the most effective way. This may not happen during the first draft. Good writers often write several drafts in different points of view until they find the one that best fits their story.

Different Points of View

First Person – the narrator takes on the persona of one of the characters and tells the story as that character. This view uses the terms “I” or “we.”

This point of view is limited, which means that the writer can only include details of the story that the character would actually know. For example, if you write from the point of view of a teacher, you typically could not write about what happens in the students’ homes, because the teacher usually would not know those private details.

This point of view is very powerful, because it places the reader directly into the story and actually lets him/her feel the emotions that are written about and experience the events in the story.

The narrator does not have to be the main character; it could just be an observer.

Third Person Limited – the narrator limits the action and information given to the reader to only that which centers on and can be known by only one character in the story.

You can change the character that you focus on in each section. The writer listens in on the character’s thoughts, but does not present them in first person.

It is powerful because the writer can focus intently upon one character’s experiences, as in first person, but can choose to use any style or tone that he or she wishes.

Objective – this is the “fly on the wall” point of view. The writer simply writes what he or she sees and offers to interpretation. The observer is not in the scene and is just watching and listening.

This point of view is characterized by descriptions of what the characters look like, say, or do.

It is effective because it is uncluttered with anyone’s interpretations or opinions of the events that occur. This point of view removes commentary by the narrator.

Omniscient – the narrator of the story “has and uses access to any information, past and present, stated or silent, enacted or thought, relative to any character in the story he/she tells.”

It may include details happening at the present moment or details that occurred in the past or will occur in the future.

Because “omniscient” means “all-knowing,” the writer can share any and all facts about any of the characters.

All information on this handout was adapted from: Candace Schaefer and Rick Diamond. The Creative Writing Guide. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1998.

Further Reading

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html offers creative ways to help with writing poetry and fiction. It also provides a link to a site that allows for online publication of creative writing.

http://www.fsu.edu/~butler/ Pulitzer prize winner Robert Olen Butler takes you deep inside the process of fictional writing. You can learn, from an expert, how to manifest ideas and write creative stories by drawing from some of the most seemingly simple sources, such as artwork from postcards like Butler uses.

http://www.teachingcompany.com/sensei/revising.ppt presents effective techniques to improve creative writing, such as advice on sentence-making, word choice, and perspective.

http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/jankej/Writing/tips.htm – This webpage is from Dakota State University. It focuses on fiction writing and gives information regarding the seven major components of a fiction story.

http://www.writingclasses.com/ – This site from the Gotham Writers’ Workshop provides a multitude of information on various types of creative writing, including non-fiction, poetry, plays, science fiction, and songs. It also provides information about how to publish your work.

Forms of Poetry

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 02:53:50 +0000

The following catalog can guide you in analyzing poetry or in writing your own.

Free Verse

Is not measured by metrical feet or syllables, but by other patterns such as line patterns, stanza patterns, or patterns of images.

Is broad in scope and offers much freedom to the poet

Is popular among contemporary poets

Haiku

Consists of three lines and seventeen syllables. The first line has five syllables, the second line has seven, and the third line has five syllables.

Is traditionally about nature, and often a specific season

Is a short snapshot of a specific moral or lesson

Often uses imagery to convey emotion

Sometimes deviates from the traditional 5-7-5 form. It is best to either stick with the traditional form or to be very deliberate in your deviation.

Traditional Forms

Blank verse: unrhymed words directly related to the natural patterns of English speech. Sometimes this is organized into verse paragraphs to give it some pattern

Sestina: a French form that does not rhyme, but uses repeating end words in the lines according to a strict pattern. It consists of six, six-line stanzas and a three-line stanza at the end. The style is somewhat artificial and not very popular.

Villanelle: a French form that is connected by rhyme and is intended to be light in nature. It uses line repetition rather than word repetition and has a specific rhyme structure. It is made up of five tercets and a quatrain and has the following rhyme scheme: aba/aba/aba/aba/aba/abaa. Also, line 1 is repeated in lines 6, 12, and 18; line 3 is repeated in lines 9, 15, and 19. These repeated lines carry weight and meaning.

Sonnet: The most well known and challenging of all poetic forms. It consists of 14 lines of words directly related to the natural patterns of English speech. There are two main types:

Italian Sonnet: consists of two stanzas: an octave which introduces a problem or situation, and a sestet which completes the thought or answers the problem. The rhyme scheme is:

Octave: abbaabba

Sestet: cdecde OR cdccdc OR cdedce

Shakespearian Sonnet: consists of three quatrains and a concluding couplet which provides surprise or irony. It deals with many images but only one complete thought. The rhyme scheme is:

Quatrain one: abab

Quatrain two: cdcd

Quatrain three: efef

Couplet: gg

From: Candace Schaefer and Rick Diamond. The Creative Writing Guide. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 1998.

For more information about rhyme schemes and poetic forms, this is a good source to consult.

Further Reading

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~leslieob/pizzaz.html offers creative ways to help with writing poetry and fiction. It also provides a link to a site that allows for online publication of creative writing.

http://www.fsu.edu/~butler/ Pulitzer prize winner Robert Olen Butler takes you deep inside the process of fictional writing. You can learn, from an expert, how to manifest ideas and write creative stories by drawing from some of the most seemingly simple sources, such as artwork from postcards like Butler uses.

http://www.teachingcompany.com/sensei/revising.ppt presents effective techniques to improve creative writing, such as advice on sentence-making, word choice, and perspective.

http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/jankej/Writing/tips.htm – This webpage is from Dakota State University. It focuses on fiction writing and gives information regarding the seven major components of a fiction story.

http://www.writingclasses.com/ – This site from the Gotham Writers’ Workshop provides a multitude of information on various types of creative writing, including non-fiction, poetry, plays, science fiction, and songs. It also provides information about how to publish your work.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/poetry-explication.html describes, in great detail, how to explicate a poem. Offers definitions of common poetry terms as well as methods for starting and producing poetry analysis. Links to other writing handouts.

https://my.hamilton.edu/academics/resource/wc/Writing_About_Poetry.PDF explains how to analyze and interpret poetry by developing a thesis and an argument.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_poetry.html – Answers the question many students ask when it comes to writing about poetry: “What’s the Point?” and then follows the answer (a bulleted list) with discussions of theme, genre, versification, figures of speech, and cultural context.

http://library.thinkquest.org/23846/writing_guide/poetry.html?tqskip1=1&tqtime=0906 provides an easy way to begin the process of analyzing poetry.

http://writingcenter.tamu.edu/content/view/473/76/ – Uses a series of questions to guide you through the process of analyzing or writing a poem.

Stories and Narratives

admin — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:09:09 +0000

If you have to write a story, or narrative, the following techniques will get you started.

Decide why you are telling the reader this story.

Choose an illustration, event, or experience that can be covered adequately and still interest the reader. Do not try to narrate the whole of World War II in one story!

Decide the point of view you will use. Do you want to tell the story from one character’s point of view (1st person narrative), or do you want the narrator to be outside the story and know everything (3rd person omniscient)? Which is more appropriate for your purpose?

Keeping your purpose in mind, select those details or events which seem the most important or the most revealing.

Arrange those details in an order, using either a strict chronological order or one that employs flashbacks. To help your reader follow your story, keep your verb tenses consistent and signal any switches in time.

Remember the differences between showing and telling. Which method will be better for your narrative?

Further Reading

http://www.mun.ca/writingcentre/resources/modelessay/index.php – This site specifically focuses on the short story and offers links to individual sections of a model essay at the end.

http://uwc.tamu.edu/handouts/writing/prose.html - Site provides a series of questions divided by plot, character, theme, point of view, and literary devices.

http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/criticalreading.html – Begins with the title “Critical Reading: A Guide,” but don’t be deceived! This site is about much more. It includes insights into analyzing poetry, fiction, prose, and how to write an analytical essay.