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Category: writing technique
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Sara Dailey #004: Hard and soft similes
I was always taught that similes are gentler than metaphors. You know–use simile in a Valentine’s Day card to your girlfriend; use metaphor for your angstiest emo poetry. Clearly, Sara Dailey didn’t get that lesson. First, look at the hard-hitting simile she works into her story, “The Memory Train”: Like the soul, a migraine…
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Sara Dailey week #003: Knockout idea–Use a theme!
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9 Now you know that if this idea is stated in the Bible, a book that’s a few thousand years old, then it’s not exactly a new idea that writers struggle…
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Sara Dailey week #002: Character and pathos
In “The Memory Train,” Sara Dailey begins by describing a man, Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who survived after a large iron rod punctured his left frontal lobe. The bleached bone shows a jagged U above the empty hollow of the left eye’s socket, bone that never again seamlessly met other bone. It…
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Sara Dailey Week #001: Starter from a title
Welcome to Sara Dailey week! Over the next seven days, we’ll be learning technique and getting ideas from a single article of hers, “The Memory Train,” that was published in Creative Nonfiction magazine, the one edited by Lee Gutkind. First up is taking a look at that title: “The Memory Train.” Other people’s…
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TC Boyle Week #7–Sanders and Boyle BEND the Rule of 3!
Touch gloves–Sanders meets Boyle today. Yesterday, we saw Rule of 3, a common technique employed by MANY writers, especially those who write in English. There’s something about the rhythms it creates that are pleasing to the ear. Today, we’re going to see how both Sanders and Boyle BEND that rule. First, I’ll show…
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TC Boyle Week # 6–Scott Russell Sanders stops by to teach RULE OF 3
In North America, in English, people love the sound of items in groups of three: Goldilocks and the 3 bears, 3 Little Pigs, 3 Billy Goats Gruff…but we even like the sound of simples lists of three. Many writers know this, and Scott Russell Sanders is one of them. Here are a few examples of…
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TC Boyle Week #5–Dealing with dialogue and tags
A common problem with dialogue? Too many tags, or tags that are just a bit hokey. Here’s an example of the problem: “Yes,” she said. “No!” he exclaimed. “Why?” she inquired. “Because we have to get out of the rain and under cover,” he said, inTENTly. And so on, and so on, and….…
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TC Boyle Week #4–Boyle, meet Picoult, the Simile Queen!
Yesterday’s simile work with T. C. Boyle reminded me of someone he should meet (if he hasn’t already): Jodi Picoult, the Simile Queen! What I mean by that is in My Sister’s Keeper, a 411-page novel, she uses at least 41 similes! That means, by my account, that about 10% of her pages in that…
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TC Boyle Week #3–Smile with similes!
A simile is a comparison of UNLIKE items, using the words “like” or “as” to do so. Today, I’m going to give you the beginnings of three similes T. C. Boyle uses in his short story, “The Night of the Satellite.” Try this: First, think of how YOU might end each of these comparisons. Then,…
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TC Boyle Week: #2–STRONG SOUND IMAGERY
Writers often use imagery–appealing to the senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch–to help create a mood. While examples of stunning sight imagery abound, it’s rare to find stellar examples of the others. Today, let’s look at another short passage from T. C. Boyle‘s short story, “The Night of the Satellite”: A truck went blatting…