I know I risk sounding like an English teacher when I use the words “figurative language.” The phrase may sound frightening but figurative language will make your writing more interesting evocative and memorable. And who doesn’t want that –even in non-fiction? Here are some examples of figurative language:
• allusion
• hyperbole
• metaphor
• oxymoron
• personification
• paradox
• simile
I read widely and follow many forms of media, keeping my eyes and ears attuned to figurative language so I can share a piece of it with you each week.
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors from neurosurgeon Henry Marsh…. Henry Marsh is a neurosurgeon, not a professional writer. But like many Renaissance Men, he seems able to turn his hand to many tasks. I […]
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from Peter Morgan. I am not what you’d call a monarchist. Nevertheless, I’m interested enough in the history of Queen Elizabeth II to have seen the movie The Queen (starring Helen
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about some personification from writer Olive Senior… Despite having several rave reviews on Amazon, the novel Dancing Lessons, by Olive Senior, hasn’t yet persuaded me to finish it. I find it too self-conscious and the characters
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from Lori Lansens… I jokingly like to say I have a “lifetime to 10 list.” By this I mean that I have 10 books that so impressed me they have changed
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about similes and metaphors from writer Ian McEwan’s new novel, Nutshell. As a longtime fan of British writer Ian McEwan (pictured above), I am always cheered when he produces a new book and I
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about figurative language from novelist Emma Donoghue… Born in Dublin, Emma Donoghue (pictured above) is an award-winning writer now living in Canada. Like thousands of other readers, I was impressed with her gripping novel Room,
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors from novelist Elizabeth Hay… As a longtime fan of the Canadian novelist Elizabeth Hay, pictured above, I was delighted to learn this summer that she’d written a book back
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors from Lauren Groff… Lauren Groff is a New York-born novelist who now lives in Gainesville, Florida. Her most recent book, Fates and Furies, won the 2015 American Booksellers’ Association Indies’ Choice Award
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes and metaphors from Michael Crummy…. Michael Crummy was born in Buchans, a mining town in the interior of Newfoundland — “as far from the salt water as you can
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about some figurative language from Jill Lepore… I am so profoundly tired of the American election that when I rediscovered a note I’d written to myself about it back in August, I sighed. Isn’t it
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