writersctr@ewu.edu
509.359.2779
Cheney Campus
JFK Library Learning Commons
Spokane Campus
Catalyst Building C451 and C452
Imagery is a writer’s use of descriptive language that draws on the senses to create a “mental picture” that heightens the reader’s understanding of the work.
Personification is the linguistic portrayal of non-human objects or beings with distinctly human traits.
Onomatopoeia -> Bang! Crack! The lightning struck the shed.
Hyperbole -> I was so hungry I could have eaten a horse.
Alliteration -> Mei made a marvelous meal.
Cliché -> Laughter is the best medicine.
Idiom -> He has a real chip on his shoulder.
Metonymy -> The pen is mightier than the sword.
Paradox -> jumbo shrimp
Pun -> Where do you find giant snails? On the ends of giants’ fingers.
Synecdoche -> Music is my bread and butter.
For more information on figurative language, and for practice with these linguistic tools, see Purdue OWL Metaphor, Purdue OWL Creative Writing, education.com: Figurative Language.
Figurative language is a broad term that encompasses a host of ways to write creatively. Figurative use of language is the use of words or phrases that depart from literal meaning to achieve fresh, image-driven, and heightened meaning.
Metaphor is a kind of analogy that compares two unrelated subjects by asserting that in the described way, subject A is subject B.
Simile is a kind of analogy that uses a connective such as “like” or “as” to compare two unrelated subjects.