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: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a simile from Helen Oyeyemi…. I’m not a superstitious person, except when it comes to reading. I was standing in a bookstore on Galiano Island last weekend and the […]
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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 simile from Jonathan Letham…. I read the 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Letham on the strength of a radio interview I heard with him. I
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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 smart metaphor from a Margaret Talbot piece in the New Yorker. When my husband and I finish with our New Yorkers, we pass them along to a
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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 the figurative language of Elizabeth Gilbert. I was not ferocious fan of Elizabeth Gilbert’s signature book Eat, Pray Love. But I admired its (much less popular) sequel,
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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 some figurative language employed by Colum McCann. I read the Colum McCann novel Let the Great World Spin more than seven months ago. It took me
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Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a simile from David Leavitt. I read my first David Leavitt novel, The Lost Language of Cranes, more than 20 years ago and I can still remember
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Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from author Elizabeth Bard. I was standing at the public library, idly flipping through books on the shelves when my fingers exerted their willpower and
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Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from Lauren Collins. My husband is the tennis fan in our family. I didn’t even know the name Novak Djokovic until I read Lauren Collins’
The figurative language of Lauren Collins… Read More »
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 simile from Chad Harbach. I’m not much interested in sports (and I’m especially incurious about baseball) so I can’t figure out how the novel The
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Reading time: About 2 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes from Canadian writer Ian Brown. I don’t know Ian Brown personally. But I feel as if I do, from reading his writing. A
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