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Tag: short story
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Cody Klippenstein #005: A gentle touch with personification…
Is it day five already? Our final day of looking at some of the writing technique Cody Klippenstein uses in “Case Studies in Ascension”? It’s gone by quickly. For today, I decided to end with a tool familiar to most every writer: personification. Let’s read the passage first: Neither Obaa-san nor I have been…
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Cody Klippenstein #001 VOICE through pathos!
If you want to add VOICE to your writing, Cody Klippenstein is the one to turn to. She has won many major writing awards for her short fiction, including “Case Studies for Ascension,” which won the Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction Contest. It’ll be our study text for this week and it’s up on…
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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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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…