Using Techniques to design your story

Literary techniques bring life to a story by awakening our senses and stimulating our imagination. They paint vivid pictures in your mind. In this topic we will show you how to use:

• Metaphors
• Hyperboles
• Adjectives
• Verbs

Using metaphors

Often ‘metaphors’ are used to give power to a story. A metaphor is a comparison showing that one situation is similar to another one. A metaphor often expresses the more unfamiliar in terms of something more familiar and concrete. For instance: ‘love is like a rose’, ‘time is a thief’, ‘her skin was as smooth as silk’.

Metaphors create impact in the minds of readers. Often, metaphors have sensory aspects to trigger our senses. Factual statements miss the target in the sea of info that we drown in (this is a metaphor). More examples of metaphors are:

He felt a roller coaster of emotions.

I could smell the stench of fear.

My heart is broken.

Using hyperboles

A hyperbole is an exaggeration. It gives life to a statement. I could say ‘I’m hungry’. Or I could say: ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.’ Which phrase paints a picture in your mind? Other examples:

He is strong.      –              He is strong as an ox.

She was light.    –              She was light as a feather.

It was hot.          –              The angry flaming sun burned like a torch on the back of our

boiling necks.

As you can see, hyperboles also trigger the senses to paint a picture.

Using adjectives

Adjectives are describing words, adding information to a noun. An adjective qualifies a noun and gives it dimensions, brings it to life.

You can say:

‘The fisherman rowed his boat up the river’.

Fisherman, boat and river are nouns. The statement is flat without adjectives. You might see a fisherman paddling a boat in your mind, but we did not paint a vivid picture here.

Let’s try again, using adjectives, adding meaning to the nouns:

The tiny, old and tired fisherman huffed and puffed while he rowed his battered squeaking boat up the giant silver river.

Or how about this one:

The weather-beaten old fisherman, sweated under the scorching sun as he heaved the oars, dragging his old wooden boat against the swift current of the river.

Can you feel that your senses are activated by using adjectives? Using adjectives makes a huge difference! Now you probably get a completely different picture in your mind, more vividly because your senses are called into action. We also added verbs: ‘huffed and puffed’, ‘sweating, heaved, dragging’ which brings even more action to the picture, pointing to the battle this old tired man is fighting with the giant silver river in his battered squeaking boat.

Our version: He entered the giant, dark silent room which smelled like a moist moldy cave.

We have added four senses: sight (dark), hearing (silent) and smell (moldy) and feeling (moist). And spatial orientation (giant).

Using verbs

Verbs are essential to give your story action. A verb is perhaps the most important part of a sentence. A verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and expresses actions and states of being (I am happy). Examples of verbs as action words: Running, fighting jumping, falling, flying, winning, destroying, creating.

Using other techniques

There are many other techniques to give power to stories. For instance Antithesis, which uses contrasts to prove a point. For instance: ‘When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb’. Or: ‘Many are called, but few are chosen’. The aim of these literary tools is to express a message forcefully.

For this course, we presented a few important techniques. We hope you feel invited to dig in deeper after this course! Because learning to create powerful stories and mastering the skill of telling them is a lifelong challenge.

Conclusion

Story techniques help you to describe images and make them come alive. By using sensory words –smelling, seeing, tasting, feeling, hearing – you engage the listener because his senses are triggered. By describing scenes vividly, using metaphors, hyperboles and adjectives, you paint pictures in the minds of your listeners. Using verbs adds action in your story. Combined with the building blocks of a hero and a conflict your target audiences can identify with, you will touch minds and hearts to move mountains. Your message will stick!