We're working through M.A. Lee's guidebook Discovering Sentence Craft.
Our focus : the special writing skills that we can learn and practice then apply in our next manuscript, using a light paintbrush.
The Enhancement series divides our practice into concepts and schema or ideas and structure or figurative language and rhetorical devices.
- Figurative :: simile/metaphor/personification plus 6 more types
- Interpretive :: allusions, archetypes, motifs, allegory
- Inversion :: including anastrophe (Yoda speech) and chiasmus (my fav!)
- Repetition :: simple and incremental, alliteration and more
- Opposition :: dichotomies / juxtapositions like antithesis and oxymoron, irony and satire
- Sequential :: ordering for intensification / auxesis, anticlimax, and parallelism like the isocolon.
Direct links to episodes become active on the day of the broadcast.
We are available from Apple to YouTube,
Spotify and Podbean (my favs), Deezer and Podcaster, the rivals iHeart and
Tune-in, and too many more to list.
Here are the 4 easiest:
My favorite podcast is Podbean.
https://eden5695.podbean.com/
YouTube direct link to the Enhancements
playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXi3M_aM-d7Iyaw3xDbgPAQrc1p8CG_Z7
Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-write-focus/id1546738740%20
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fMwknmfJhkJxQvaaLQ3Gm?si=0GFku2PbShWXiDhRp7JaDQhttps://eden5695.podbean.com/e/270-preptober-part-2-13-steps-for-dancing-part-1/?token=7b928fab89a35c042dcbfcdf2e206e4d
February 2 ~ Introduction
Apostrophes ~ no, not the mark of punctuation. It's the literary term. Know what it is? How about paradox? Sure on that? Chiasmus: my favorite, people enjoy when they see it, but do you know the term when you want to practice it? Can I stump you with these? Polysyndeton. Epistrophe. These are all Enhancements that can help your writing sing on the page. That's an implied metaphor, BTW.
Enhancements from anastrophes to zeugmas ~ the series starts with this episode.
- 02:25 Who needs word tricks?
- 05:18 Basic language information
- 07:00 The only rule to remember
- 08:25 Taste
- 10:20 Periodic vs. Cumulative (more of a grammar lesson
than helpful to writers)
- 13:40 Denotation vs. Connotation
- 16:40 Practice Connotation
- 16:53 Next Week
- 17:13 Inspiration / Charles Lamb
February 9 ~ Figurative Language, part 1
Similes: easy enough. Metaphors: also easy. Direct Metaphor:
just like a simile. Implied Metaphor: now we’re getting complex. Hyperbole:
easy again. Great for insults.
How about metonymy and Synecdoche?
“Wait, I know these,” you say. “Let me remember. I haven’t
heard them since high school. Metonymy’s when a part of something represents
the whole. Oh, that’s synecdoche. I don’t remember metonymy.
Don’t stress. This episode of The Write Focus will help.
Examples from poetry, novels and speeches.
· ·
04:10 Comparison Equations
·
07:42 Simile
·
11:35 Metaphor
·
14:05 Simile vs. Metaphor
·
16:15 Metonymy
·
17:25 Synecdoche
·
19:52 Hyperbole
·
22:49 Next Week
·
23:09 Inspiration
February 16 ~ Figurative Language, part 2
A love of words. A love of what we writers can do with
words. We can tell an engrossing story and create characters that we love and
that we love to hate. We can make our readers cry and laugh. We can persuade
and win points or write an angry tirade for our soapbox of choice. We can play
with words, language acrobatics, jumping words through fiery hoops and tumbling
and backflips.
And compelling writing at the sentence level starts with
comparisons, with figurative language.
Want to improve your sentence craft? This episode can help.
Samples from poetry, novels, and speeches with extended poem excerpts or entireties listed below. (Is that a word?)
· 1:20 Check-In
· 6:23 Extended Metaphor
o
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “First Fig”
·
8:10 Metaphysical Conceit
o
John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”
(excerpt)
o
William Shakespeare’s “All the World’s a Stage”
·
14:50 Litotes
o
Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice”
·
18:43 Personification
o
Robert Frost’s “My November Guest”
·
23:07 Anthropomorphism
·
24:20 the literary Apostrophe
o
John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 10
·
26:15 Next Episode
·
26:30 Inspiration / Tennessee Williams
What’s an easy and ingenuous way to elevate our writing to
the next level? This way works down into the words we place on the page. In
character descriptions. Setting development. Plot dynamics. It’s like a secret
language that most readers don’t know about even as their subconscious
recognizes that secret language. In many respects, this is global, recognized everywhere.
If no one spots it—which is always good—this secret gives us writers a
satisfactory glow every time we touch it onto the page.
What is this easy and ingenuous way to elevate our writing?
Symbols.
- 1:16 Symbols: Realm of the Interpretive
- 4:13 5 Clues to Interpretation
- 4:48 symbols in Toni Cade Bambera’s “Blues Ain’t
No Mockinbird”
- 5:39 bird symbols in James Hurst’s “The Scarlet
Ibis”
- 7:19 symbols and allusions unlock additional knowledge
- 8:46 :: 1, 2, & 3
- 10:38 :: 4, 5, & 6
- 16:53 :: 7, 8, & 9
- 21:52 :: 10 & 11
- 24:09 :: 12 & 13
- 26:27 Using Symbolic Numbers
- 28:08 Next Week
- 28:20 Inspiration / Honoré de Balzac
Last week was a half-hour episode on Symbolic Numbers. This
week we’re all about symbolic colors, and we have our regular length: long
enough to fix a quick dinner, drive a short commute, or take a brisk walk.
We explain the 3 primaries red, blue, yellow; the neutrals
black, white, grey; the metals silver and gold; and the vivid purple, green,
and orange. Can’t leave out brown, the color of old sacrifice.
Join us for ways to enhance your writing by changing a
single word.
It’s the Enhancement series, on The Write Focus.
- ·
1:14 Symbolic Colors (and Times)
- ·
3:19 Only 3 Colors in One Culture
- ·
4:27 Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”
- ·
6:32 red / blue /white
- ·
7:07 green / purple
- ·
7:51 black / white / grey
- ·
8:56 silver and gold
- ·
9:46 orange and brown
- ·
10:34 NC Wyeth’s painting of Arthur Receiving
Excalibur
- ·
12:12 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
- ·
12:44 Irene Hunt’s Across Five Aprils
- ·
16:42 Symbolic Colors and Times questions
- ·
17:31 Next Week
- ·
17:51 Inspiration / Alfred Kazin
Special Links
The Road
Not Taken by Robert Frost | Poetry Foundation
NC Wyeth 450px-Boyskingarthur-wyeth-excalibur-lady-of-the-lake.jpg
(450×574) (summitlighthouse.org)
It’s the 100th episode. Time to Celebrate.
And
Besides symbolic colors and numbers, how else can we add
single words and short phrases to enhance our writing? We’re delving into
simple touches that we can add to stories and poems and novels AND nonfiction
essays and blogs to enrich the text for our readers.
Key words here are simple touches. These carry a
tremendous wealth of information.
By having several tools in our writers’ toolbox, we can
layer our enhancements in with a light touch. With our previously discussed
metaphors and other figures of speech, we dab in a color symbol or three, a
number here and there. But we’ve barely explored the writer’s toolbox.
In this episode of The Write Focus, we offer another method to
touch a highlight to our writing.
- · 1:30 Celebration
- · 2:30 Imagery
- · 3:00 Chiaroscuro in The Scarlet Letter
- · 4:34 Omar Khayyim’s Rubaiyat, translated by
Edward Fitzgerald
- · 8:45 Emily
Dickinson
- · 10:39 Tone /
Mood / Atmosphere
- · 11:30 e.e.
cummings’ “i carry your heart”
- 15:43 Next Week
- 16:00 Inspiration / William Shakespeare
Last episode I had a major oopsie. Almost finished recording
three tools (imagery / archetype / allusion) for our Enhancement Writer’s
Toolbox, and I realized the recording had approached 40 minutes. Quelle
surprise!
Now I stumble over words and pause and take long breaths,
but I know—know—that I wouldn’t have enough errors to lose 20 minutes. I
can accept reaching 25 minutes. We’ve had a ½ hour episode, part 1 of Symbols
(the numbers). But multiple ½ hour and more episodes? No. NO. That defeats The
Write Focus’s stated length: time for a quick commute, brisk walk, or fast meal-prep.
The plan to cover imagery, archetype, and allusion in one episode
was because all three contain a wealth of information in one word or phrase (a
Herculean task).
Therefore, rather than run 40 minutes, I broke that planned
episode into two.
- Ø
Imagery last week
- Ø
Archetype and Allusion this week
- Ø
Finishing the Interpretive Realm with Allegory
next week
- ·
1:45 Archetype
- ·
4:26 Shapes and Colors and Situations
- ·
5:38 Allusions
- ·
9:00 In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
- ·
11:40 Classical Mythology common allusions
- ·
12:09 Old and New Testament common allusions
- ·
12:52 Bordon Deal’s “Antaeus”
- ·
15:46 Next Week
- ·
16:08Inspiration / Natalia Ginzberg
Special Links
Emily Dickinson ~ both versions of “I Never Saw a Moor” https://allpoetry.com/I-Never-Saw-a-Moor
e.e. cummings ~ “i carry your heart” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/49493/i-carry-your-heart-with-mei-carry-it-in
A Relatively Short Episode at 12 minutes
Ever heard a story, and just know, know that
something extra is also part of the story? Not hidden bits and pieces but a
whole narrative?
A top story is running along, but another story runs
underneath the surface, occasionally poking up the periscope for a look around
before re-submerging so it can run silent, run deep? (Yep, that’s an allusion
to the famous submarine movie.)
That submerged story, it’s an allegory, and the allegory
occurs more often than we would imagine.
How do we craft our allegories? This episode can help.
- ·
1:18 Allegory
- ·
3:01 Parables as Allegories
- ·
6:23 George Orwell’s Animal Farm
- ·
7:21 Jack London’s Call of the Wild
- ·
10:04 Next Week
- ·
10:31 Inspiration / Francois Mauriac
“Always in motion is the future.”
Do you recognize that quotation? You may be able to because
the words are out of natural order.
It’s Yoda!
No, we’re not going to talk about Yoda and the Star Wars
franchise or laser swords.
Our focus for this episode is Words Out of Natural Order.
That happens more often than we writers realize.
Inversion, switching up the natural order of words, is more
than Yoda and a Zen-like character device that became a gimmick.
It’s recognizable, though, isn’t it?
How can we use Inversion to create our own writing—without
becoming a gimmick? This episode of The Write Focus can help.
- · 1:18 Inversion: Simple Device or Gimmick?
- ·
1:53 William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus”
- ·
3:32 Subject Out of Position / 4 Subject Inversions
- ·
9:22 Yoda Charm and Subtle Inversion (a/k/a Anastrophe)
- ·
10:28 Emily Dickinson and Henley, again
- ·
12:27 Chiasmus
- ·
16:08 Closing / Next Week
- ·
16:16 Inspiration / C. Day Lewis
For CHIASTIC STRUCTURE, which is too involved to hear (You
have to SEE it), visit this link and look for the Chiastic Structure of the Iliad
books.
·
Homer
and the heroic tradition. (1958 edition) | Open Library
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty
pace from day to day.”
Why are we quoting the famous Macbeth speech by Shakespeare?
It has two separate types of repetition. The 1st type is simple
repetition with two instances. The 2nd type is a repetition of
opening sounds.
In this episode we’re also going to talk about a third
clever type of repetition.
Three types of repetition. Did you know repeating words is a
proliferate writing technique? Like Guppies, words clone each other. Join our presentation
of three simple ways to capture reader interest and curiosity.
- 1:32 Opening
- 2:56 Repetition has impact
- 3:12 repetition examples
- 4:03 George Gordon, Lord Byron: “We’ll Go no more A-Roving”
- 5:18 Incremental Repetition
- 5:32 Examples, including the “Lord Randall” ballad and
William Stafford’s “Fifteen”
- 9:05 Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”
- 14:01 polysyndeton and anaphora
- 15:23 Alliteration
- 16:38 French Rhyme vs. English Rhyme
- 17:28 Old English poems
- 18:40 alliteration examples
- 20:45 Wilfred Owens’ “From my Diary, July 1914”
- 22:00 Next Week
- 22:10 Inspiration / R. Waldo Emerson
Special Links
April 20 More on Repetition
Repetition. We focused on simple repetition in the previous
episode, from the riding, riding, riding of “The Highwayman” up to the old inn
door to the clever use of incremental repetition, with “I’ve looked at cloud …
and love … and life” in Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”, and to alliteration
of “streaming rain, blinding sleet, stoned by hail, freezes the frost and fall
the snow” from an Old English poem.
This time we look at the intricate types of
repetition, to and fro, fast and slow, front and back, complicated but powerful.
It’s Repetition, part 2.
- 0:58 Opening
- 1:07 Antistrophe
- 3:18 Epanalepsis
- 4:30 Amplification
- 5:23 Anadisplosis
- 6:46 Polysyndeton
- 7:53 Asyndeton
- 9:51 Anaphora
- 13:35 Epistrophe
- 17:20 Nest Week
- 17:30 Inspiration / John Hersey
April 27 Opposites, part 1
Opposites / Dichotomies are the foundation for all ideas. The
positive / negative synergy develops concepts for finance and commerce, business
and manufacturing, science and tech, fiction and nonfiction, art static and art
dramatic.
The world also has its triads and quarternaries ~ past /
present / future and earth / air / water / fire.
We have many more dichotomies than triads and quarternaries
and even symbiotic dualities (yin / yang). When the opposition is presented “for
effect”, then we have an Enhancement.
- 1:00 Opening = opposites / dichotomies / juxtaposition
- 2:12 Antithesis = explanation and examples
- 4:46 Robert Southey’s “Winter”
- 6:10 Oxymoron = explanation and examples
- 6:42 In Romeo and Juliet
- 8:13 in Hamlet
- 9:06 “Lesson of the Moth” by Don Marquis
- 13:57 Starting in Mid-May
- 14:12 Next Week
- 14:40 Inspiration / Somerset Maugham
May 4 Opposites, part 2
“I always lie.” There’s a conundrum for you. If we tell
people that we’re lying—are we lying or telling the truth? Yes? No? Difficult
to tell, isn’t it?
The opposites in this week’s episode offers 3 types that can
quickly entangle us. If you’ve ever been mixed up about paradox, irony, or
satire, this episode can help.
- 1:08 opening
- 2:09 Paradox with explanation and examples
- 5:31 paradox that fills “Counting Stars”
- 10:13 Irony with explanation and examples
- 12:13 Frost and Dickens
- 14:19 3 Forms of Irony
- 16:05 Cosmic Irony
- 17:13 Satire with explanation and examples (including
lampoon and farce)
- 19:17 Geoffrey Chaucer and Jane Austen
- 21:52 the American master Mark Twain with modern examples
- 25:03 Next Week
- 25:18 Inspiration / Roy Blount Jr.
LINK to "Counting Stars" lyrics
We're going from A to Z this week, as we discuss Sequences, the last of the
Enhancement series.
Climbing higher and higher = foothills, ridges, mountains.
Getting worse and worse = aged, ancient, decrepit.
Listen up to discover ways to sequence, progress / regress, ascend /
descend, and create clever jumps in meaning.
- 1:10 opening
- 2:45 deliberate ordering:
ranking, progressions, expansions
- 8:08 anticlimax
- 9:25 auxesis
- 12:14 zeugma
- 15:06 parallelism
- 17:26 isocolon
- 18:50 elliptical
constructions
- 22:06 closing / next week
- 22:25 inspiration / Annie
Dillard
Resources and Links
Discovering Sentence Craft by M.A. Lee
2 Online Compendium References for Rhetorical and Figurative Devices:
Productivity from WMG Publishing and Dean Wesley Smith
