This post is third in a series about figurative language. The first post in the series discussed simile, metaphor, and symbolism. Last week, we explored personification and zoomorphism. Today, we will drive on to the realm of some lesser-known cousins, synecdoche and metonymy. Synecdoche A subset of metaphor, synecdoche refers to a part of an... Continue Reading →
Personification and Zoomorphism: Figurative Language Bootcamp #2
The menagerie of figurative language is large, unruly, a great joy to study. Last week, we explored its three most essential forms: simile, metaphor, and symbolism. Today, we reach forward to two more specific species: personification and zoomorphism. Personification Personification refers to any simile, metaphor, or symbol that lends human qualities to something nonhuman. In... Continue Reading →
Simile, Metaphor, and Symbol: Figurative Language Bootcamp 1โ#AuthorToolboxBlogHop
This post was part of the #AuthorToolboxBlogHop event. Every month, save November and December, we posted tips for writers on our respective blogs. Although the hop is no longer running, check out these other great writing blogs here! Other posts on figurative language: Personification and Zoomorphism Synecdoche and Metonymy Figurative language: all those saying-something-we-don't-means, the... Continue Reading →
Why fiction, and why stories?โ#AuthorToolboxBlogHop
This post is part of the monthly #AuthorToolboxBlogHop. Read more great posts about writing here! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. The Great Gatsby, Chapter 5 I'm teaching The Great Gatsby this term,... Continue Reading →
Every-colored flowers
In the eastern parts of Umbria, the land lofts up from fertile valleys into rich-forested mountains. These are the Apennines, a range I'd heard mentioned before but knew nothing of, a string of low mountains stretching the full length of the Italian peninsula. Yesterday, on a recommendation from our Italian language teacher, we drove out... Continue Reading →
The Slump: how to start writing again
Today is, I think, the sixth or seventh day I haven't done significant writing work. As in, I have pulled up the Word tab languishing at the bottom of my taskbar, stared at the winding sea of paragraphs, contemplated the next, set my fingers on the keys--and then it was too much. Something I didn't... Continue Reading →
Spoons and stories: rethinking the ordinary in our writing
It's been a quiet week along the fjords. Students have been busy with a first-aid course and an immersive Model United Nations simulation. That left us teachers with a little time on our hands, and my husband and I took the opportunity for a few days' sojourn south to Bergen. We found ourselves in the... Continue Reading →
On authentic writing, bread, and Like Water for Chocolate
For those of us in Western cultures and the Middle East, there are few foods more staple than bread. We might not even notice the bread as we swim through grocery store aisles (shoutout to Hannah Whiteoak's "Earth Report"), throw a sandwich in our lunchboxes, proclaim some sensational new dip at a party... Onion focaccia.... Continue Reading →