I Bet Octopuses Think Bones Are Horrific. I Bet All Their Cosmic Horror Stories Involve Rigid-limbs And

22 Essential Literary Devices and How to Use Them In Your Writing

hello, happy Monday. Hope you’re all having a wonderful day!

I will skip the pre-info and dive right into it.

What Is a Literary Device?

is a tool used by writers to hint at larger themes, ideas, and meaning in a story or piece of writing

The List of Literary Devices:

Allegory. Allegory is a literary device used to express large, complex ideas in an approachable manner. Allegory allows writers to create some distance between themselves and the issues they are discussing, especially when those issues are strong critiques of political or societal realities.

Allusion. An allusion is a popular literary device used to develop characters, frame storylines, and help create associations to well-known works. Allusions can reference anything from Victorian fairy tales and popular culture to the Bible and the Bard. Take the popular expression “Bah humbug”—an allusion that references Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol. The phrase, which is often used to express dissatisfaction, is associated with the tale’s curmudgeonly character, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Anachronism. Imagine reading a story about a caveman who microwaves his dinner, or watching a film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel in which the characters text each other instead of writing letters. These circumstances are examples of anachronisms, or an error in chronology—the kind that makes audiences raise their eyebrows or do a double-take. Sometimes anachronisms are true blunders; other times, they’re used intentionally to add humor or to comment on a specific time period in history.

Cliffhanger. It’s a familiar feeling: You’re on minute 59 of an hour-long television episode, and the protagonist is about to face the villain—and then episode cuts to black. Known as a cliffhanger, this plot device marks the end of a section of a narrative with the express purpose of keeping audiences engaged in the story.

Dramatic Irony. Remember the first time you read or watched Romeo and Juliet? The tragic ending of this iconic story exemplifies dramatic irony: The audience knows that the lovers are each alive, but neither of the lovers knows that the other is still alive. Each drinks their poison without knowing what the audience knows. Dramatic irony is used to great effect in literature, film, and television.

Extended Metaphor. Extended metaphors build evocative images into a piece of writing and make prose more emotionally resonant. Examples of extended metaphor can be found across all forms of poetry and prose. Learning to use extended metaphors in your own work will help you engage your readers and improve your writing.

Foreshadowing. At its core, storytelling has one ambition: to capture and sustain your reader’s attention and keep them reading your story. Foreshadowing, or slyly indicating a future event, is one technique a writer can use to create and build suspense.

Humor. Humor brings people together and has the power to transform how we think about the world. Of course, not everyone is adept at being funny—particularly in their writing. Making people laugh takes some skill and finesse, and, because so much relies on instinct, is harder to teach than other techniques. However, all writers can benefit from learning more about how humor functions in writing.

Imagery. If you’ve practiced or studied creative writing, chances are you’ve encountered the expression “paint a picture with words.” In poetry and literature, this is known as imagery: the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience in the reader. When a poet uses descriptive language well, they play to the reader’s senses, providing them with sights, tastes, smells, sounds, internal and external feelings, and even deep emotion. The sensory details in imagery bring works to life.

Irony. Irony is an oft-misunderstood literary device that hinges on opposites: what things are on the surface, and what they end up actually being. Many learn about dramatic irony through works of theater like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. When deployed with skill, irony is a powerful tool that adds depth and substance to a piece of writing.

Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy. Metaphors, similes, and analogies are three techniques used in speech and writing to make comparisons. Each is used in a different way, and differentiating between the three can get a little tricky: For example, a simile is actually a subcategory of metaphor, which means all similes are metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes. Knowing the similarities and differences between metaphor, simile, and analogy can help you identify which is best to use in any scenario and help make your writing stronger.

Motif. A motif is a repeated element that has symbolic significance to a story. Sometimes a motif is a recurring image. Sometimes it’s a repeated word or phrase or topic. A motif can be a recurrent situation or action. It can be a sound or a smell or a temperature or a color. The defining aspect is that a motif repeats, and through this repetition, a motif helps to illuminate the central ideas, themes, and deeper meaning of the story in which it appears.

Motif vs. Symbol. Both motifs and symbols are used across artistic mediums: Painters, sculptors, playwrights, and musicians all use motifs and symbols in their respective art forms. And while they are similar literary terms, “motif” and “symbol” are not synonyms.

Oxymoron. An oxymoron is a figure of speech: a creative approach to language that plays with meaning and the use of words in a non-literal sense. This literary device combines words with contradictory definitions to coin a new word or phrase (think of the idiom “act naturally”—how can you be your natural self if you’re acting?). The incongruity of the resulting statement allows writers to play with language and meaning.

Paradox. “This sentence is a lie.” This self-referential statement is an example of a paradox—a contradiction that questions logic. In literature, paradoxes can elicit humor, illustrate themes, and provoke readers to think critically.

Personification. In writing, figurative language—using words to convey a different meaning outside the literal one—helps writers express themselves in more creative ways. One popular type of figurative language is personification: assigning human attributes to a non-human entity or inanimate object in an effort to express a point or idea in a more colorful, imaginative way.

Satire. Satire is so prevalent in pop culture that most of us are already very familiar with it, even if we don’t always realize it. Satire is an often-humorous way of poking fun at the powers that be. Sometimes, it is created with the goal to drive social change. Satire can be part of any work of culture, art, or entertainment—it has a long history, and it is as relevant today as it was in ancient Rome.

Situational Irony. Irony: it’s clear as mud. Theorists quibble about the margins of what constitutes irony, but situational irony is all around us—from humorous news headlines to the shock twists in a book or TV show. This type of irony is all about the gap between our expectations and reality, and it can make a memorable and powerful impression when we encounter it.

Suspense. No matter what type of story you’re telling, suspense is a valuable tool for keeping a reader’s attention and interest. Building suspense involves withholding information and raising key questions that pique readers’ curiosity. Character development plays a big role in generating suspense; for example, if a character’s desire is not fulfilled by the end of the book, the story will not feel complete for the reader.

Symbolism. An object, concept, or word does not have to be limited to a single meaning. When you see red roses growing in a garden, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think literally about the rose—about its petals, stem, and thorns, or even about its stamen and pistil as a botanist might. But perhaps your mind goes elsewhere and starts thinking about topics like romance, courtship, and Valentine’s Day. Why would you do this? The reason, of course, is that over the course of many generations, a rose’s symbolic meaning has evolved to include amorous concepts.

Verisimilitude. Verisimilitude (pronounced ve-ri-si-mi-li-tude) is a theoretical concept that determines the semblance of truth in an assertion or hypothesis. It is also an essential tenet of fiction writing. Verisimilitude helps to encourage a reader’s willing suspension of disbelief. When using verisimilitude in writing, the goal is to be credible and convincing.

Vignette. A writer’s job is to engage readers through words. Vignettes—poetic slices-of-life—are a literary device that brings us deeper into a story. Vignettes step away from the action momentarily to zoom in for a closer examination of a particular character, concept, or place. Writers use vignettes to shed light on something that wouldn’t be visible in the story’s main plot.

I’ll make a post going into each of them individually in more detail later on!

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The sugar bowl page from Austere Academy brightened up to the best of my ability and transcribed below:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that volunteers prefer their tea as bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword, but few think to consider the true meaning behind that phrase. The [untrained or uninitiated] might assume that bitter tea means tea without sugar. But that assumes all sugar is sweet and all tea is bitter. In fact, there are many kinds of tea, that are not bitter at all, but sweet and fruity, usually identifiable by a whimsically [illegable] name and a box with a picture of an adorable animal wearing pajamas. So it stands to reason that, if not all tea is bitter, then not all sugar is sweet. The question we might ask is: why would sugar be bitter How would bitter sugar be created? And what greater purpose might bitter sugar serve? Lousy Lane, pg 678

THE SCHISM

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those hierarchies apart, and therefore instead of fixing one date for the schism, we may as well put a bracket around all of human history, and say: There! Are you happy? However, there is one thing that all sources seem to agree on: there is a vital connection between the VFD schism and the most import part of a tea set. No, not the teapot. (see “Sugar Bowl”, above)

Some people claim that the schism divided VFD cleanly in two, with one side devoted to starting fires, and the other devoted to putting them out. But of course, it is rare for anything to divide so neatly, with the exception of a particular sort of semi-soft cheese (see “Gorgonzola”, pg 401). No, it is far more likely

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remain shrouded in mystery, including the circumstances of its creation, we can only speculate at the connection between city’s official organization and its similarly-named counterpart. Some sources claim that the chief of the Offical Fire Department was a close blood relation of a prominent member of VFD, though this fire chief has stubbornly refused to answer to any of our questions, on account of being deceased.

Finally, there is much debate regarding the exact cause of the schism. While most experts agree that it stemmed from what one might politely call “philosophical differences” the truth is that these differences had been churning under the surface of VFD for some time, even going back to the organization’s very name. After all, while might assume that the phrase “fire department” would obviously refer to an organization that puts out fires, thus protecting highly flammable literary materials, the phrase could just as easily refer to an organization that prefers to start fires and burn books (see: Bradbury, Ray pg 451). Still, let’s take a moment to theorize about those philosophical differences. Volunteers claim to be acting for the greater good, but philosophers who speak to the concept of moral relativity would be quick to point out that words such as “good”, “evil”, “delicious” and “sandwich” can be ascribed different meanings, depending on the value system and dietary preferences of the

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Collection

every writing tip article and their mother: dont ever use adverbs ever!

me, shoveling more adverbs onto the page because i do what i want: just you fucking try and stop me

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

E.A. Deverell - FREE worksheets (characters, world building, narrator, etc.) and paid courses;

Hiveword - Helps to research any topic to write about (has other resources, too);

BetaBooks - Share your draft with your beta reader (can be more than one), and see where they stopped reading, their comments, etc.;

Charlotte Dillon - Research links;

Writing realistic injuries - The title is pretty self-explanatory: while writing about an injury, take a look at this useful website;

One Stop for Writers - You guys... this website has literally everything we need: a) Description thesaurus collection, b) Character builder, c) Story maps, d) Scene maps & timelines, e) World building surveys, f) Worksheets, f) Tutorials, and much more! Although it has a paid plan ($90/year | $50/6 months | $9/month), you can still get a 2-week FREE trial;

One Stop for Writers Roadmap - It has many tips for you, divided into three different topics: a) How to plan a story, b) How to write a story, c) How to revise a story. The best thing about this? It's FREE!

Story Structure Database - The Story Structure Database is an archive of books and movies, recording all their major plot points;

National Centre for Writing - FREE worksheets and writing courses. Has also paid courses;

Penguin Random House - Has some writing contests and great opportunities;

Crime Reads - Get inspired before writing a crime scene;

The Creative Academy for Writers - "Writers helping writers along every step of the path to publication." It's FREE and has ZOOM writing rooms;

Reedsy - "A trusted place to learn how to successfully publish your book" It has many tips, and tools (generators), contests, prompts lists, etc. FREE;

QueryTracker - Find agents for your books (personally, I've never used this before, but I thought I should feature it here);

Pacemaker - Track your goals (example: Write 50K words - then, everytime you write, you track the number of the words, and it will make a graphic for you with your progress). It's FREE but has a paid plan;

Save the Cat! - The blog of the most known storytelling method. You can find posts, sheets, a software (student discount - 70%), and other things;

I hope this is helpful for you!

(Also, check my blog if you want to!)

writer survey question time:

inspired by seeing screencaps where the software is offering (terrible) style advice because I haven't used a software that has a grammar checker for my stories in like a decade

if you use multiple applications, pick the one you use most often.

Do Hangfire and V.F.D. share a secret criminal past?

An overlooked aspect of “All The Wrong Questions”’s complex plotting is the apparently extensive knowledge Hangfire managed to compile on the V.F.D. organization. It seems that his sinister Inhumane Society acts as an evil (well, slightly more evil) counterpart to the volunteers, copying a number of their most frequent methods: disguises, arson, secret messages, trained animals, etc.

“The jig’s up for Snicket,” Stew sneered. “The boss told me to make sure he suffered. Hangfire has a particular revulsion for members of V.F.D.” [Shouldn’t You Be In School?, Chapter Twelve]

“That’s exactly wrong,” I said. “You’ve concocted a beautiful plan, Hangfire. I’m not going to mangle it.” He turned his mask to me. “But V.F.D. stands for the true human tradition of justice and literature,” he said. “I thought you’d find a lawless world an ugly place.” [Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?, Chapter Nine]

But we don’t exactly know HOW and WHY Hangfire got all this information. Dashiell Qwerty is young, but he’s clearly been the librarian of Stain’d-by-the-Sea for quite some time. When did V.F.D. start investigating the secrets of this town? And how does that factor in with the history of Inhumane Society? It seems that Hangfire and V.F.D. are much closer than either cares to admit.

The following article is highly speculative but nevertheless tries to paint a coherent narrative around Armstrong Feint’s start of darkness. Find out how V.F.D. created its own worst enemy after the cut.

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My writing tips

Sharing advice I found the most helpful from researching and reading that worked the best for me while writing.

How to write the first chapter

When you are stuck in your writing

How to find the right title

How to build a magic system

Dystopia vs post-apocalyptic fiction

Young adult vs new adult

How to find new writing ideas

Scene, story plan and plot

Tips on writing multiple protagonists

How to add meaning to your story

How to make a plot out of theme

Friends to lovers development

Sport stories

What makes a story

Developing a story

Types of enemies to lovers

Tips on writing the first page

Internal value of writing

Character building questions

Time passing in writing

Publishing and marketing discussion

How to pick the MBTI for your character

Key to binge-worthy stories

Why coax the story out of your head

How to coax the story out of your head

How to measure your story

Successful (online) friendships

Types of intelligence for OCs

Feel free to ask me anything about writing! My askbox is always open and I love talking about anything writing related :D