Applying Creative Writing Techniques

Style is the writer's fingerprint. Although there are no two identical styles, all writers use the same creative writing techniques in varying degrees. By using pertinent description, analogies, personification, allusions, and quotations, the writer can keep readers engaged.

Use Sensory Appeal: When appropriate, use all five senses-- appearance, sound, touch, taste, smell--to provide rich detail for your reader.

"The rich aroma of mama's spaghetti sauce filled the house, and our stomachs rumbled in anticipation of her spaghetti and the crisp, hot garlic bread that always accompanied it."
"She felt the rake of the frightened cat's claws on her face, felt the warm blood begin to trickle down her cheek."
"The baby, born seconds before, blinked in the bright light, puckered up her mouth as if someone had hurt her feelings, then cried lustily."

Use Description in Analogy and Contrast:

A. A simile compares two unlike things, using "like" or "as." Two basic tools of analogy are simile and metaphor.

"The wind roared like a freight train through the naked winter trees, which swayed violently from its force."
"The lifeless trees stood like sentinels in the dank swamp."
"She walked like a queen approaching her subjects."

B. A metaphor compares two unlike things without the use of "like" or "as."

"The monkey clawing my back was Teacher's Pet." Roger Hoffman.
"The bull is roaring, groaning, grinding, . . . my father is a tiny spider of flailing arms and legs." Teresa Jordan
"True wisdom is a rare and precious jewel."

When properly used, the simile and the metaphor invite us to see familiar things in unfamiliar ways and unfamiliar things in familiar ways. They do not just decorate the story; they help the reader understand the message.

C. Another form of analogy is contrast. Similes and metaphors establish similarities. Contrast shows differences. You can sometimes tell what something is by telling what it isn't. Contrast is also inherent in the word "than."

"To tell it straight out, there are 147,342,320 ounces of gold at Fort Knox, more than was ever viewed by all the pharaohs of Egypt or the conquistadors of Spain."
"Unlike Aphrodite, whose first priority is romantic relationships, Athena places the highest value on intellectual pursuits."

For writers who paint word pictures, analogy and contrast are the primary colors.

Personification: Personification is often the application of an extended metaphor. Animals, inanimate objects and abstractions are given human characteristics.

". . . the volcano in the past seven weeks had awakened from a century and a half of slumber. . . . Pressure built. Trying to accommodate that force, the mountain stretched and reshaped itself."
"The train would have its tongue hanging out." Roger Hoffman

Allusions: Allusion permits the writer to compare two things, people, places, or events in few words. It saves time on explanation.

"Living with him requires the patience of Job."

Apt Quotations: Quotations may be used to support arguments because of particularly appropriate syntax or for their historical context. Note: avoid overuse.

Pacing, Emphasis, and Repetition:

Pacing: Sentences should be consistent with the subject matter. Generally, longer sentences are appropriate for more leisurely and serious topics. They slow down the reader. Short sentences convey action or tenseness. Manipulating sentence length, then, helps you establish the appropriate pace for your writing. By coupling changing sentence lengths with a variety of sentence openings, a writer can avoid boring the reader. Variety is the spice of writing; proper pacing provides the spice.
The most common sentence order is subject/verb/object, but using only this order makes for monotonous writing. Read the following excerpts out loud and note the monotony of the first example versus the variety of the second.
- It was a Saturday morning. I found the gravediggers at work in a thicket. The thicket was dark and warm. The sky was overcast. Lennie had dug a hole at the foot of the apple tree. It was among the alders and young hackmatacks. It was beautiful. It was five feet long, three feet wide, three feet deep. Lennie was standing in it. He was removing the last spadefuls of earth. Fred patrolled the brink of the hole in circles. The circles were simple but impressive. They disturbed the loose earth of the mound. It trickled back into the hole. There had been no rain in weeks. The soil was dry and powdery three feet down.
- "It was a Saturday morning. The thicket in which I found the gravediggers at work was dark and warm, the sky overcast. Here, among the alders and young hackmatacks, at the foot of the apple tree, Lennie had dug a beautiful hole, five feet long, three feet wide, three feet deep. He was standing in it, removing the last spadefuls of earth while Fred patrolled the brink in simple but impressive circles, disturbing the loose earth of the mound so that it trickled back in. There had been no rain in weeks and the soil, even three feet down, was dry and powdery." E.B. White, from "Death of a Pig"
Emphasis: Devices a writer can use to achieve emphasis include story organization, story proportion, sentence ordering, parallel construction, punctuation, and repetition. In a news story, the emphasis of the message appears at the beginning of the story. In the narrative form, the essence of the message usually appears near the end. Marks of emphasis like parentheses and quotation marks around puns should be used about as often as the buzzards return to Hinkley, Ohio.
Repetition provides both pacing and emphasis. Repeating words is a way to provide transitions or emphasis. Repetition of form is also a useful technique. Parallel construction is used both to equate and contrast (for more on parallel construction, see Writing Center handout).
Dick Gregory uses repetition very effectively in the following excerpts from Nigger:
- "Pregnant people get strange tastes. I was pregnant with poverty. Pregnant with dirt and pregnant with smells that make people turn away, pregnant with cold and pregnant with shoes that were never bought for me, pregnant with five other people in my bed and no Daddy in the next room, and pregnant with hunger."
- "There was shame in going to the Worthy Boys annual Christmas Dinner for you and your kind, because everybody knew what a worthy boy was. . . . There was shame in wearing the brown and orange and white plaid mackinaw the welfare gave to three thousand boys. . . . There was shame in running over to Mister Ben's at the end of the day and asking for rotten peaches, there was shame in asking Mrs. Simmons for a spoonful of sugar, there was shame in running out to meet the relief truck."