Imagine watching an artist as they create a painting. As they paint, you notice that the painting is made up of layers, each one more beautiful than the last. And the same is true of writing. Both artists and writers use different techniques and tools to create their own special brand of art; with the writer, there are several literary techniques at their disposal and there are 6 that you may not even be aware of; have a read and then have a go at using them in your writing.

Kenning

Kennings are compound expressions or phases created by the author. They reference places, people, ideas and things in a poetic manner. Kennings are used to give your literary writing a real lift and there are three examples you can start with and you will note that kennings are usually hyphenated:

Battle-sweat – blood

Word-artist – poet

Sky-water – rain

Whenever you get the chance, wherever it fits, try to use the occasional kenning in your work.

Synecdoche

A synecdoche is a literary technique for referring to a bit of something that actually represents the whole thing. Two examples are “hired hands” and “boots on the ground”. The first example references workers and the second, soldiers. In both, the hands and the boots are just part of the whole.

Anthropomorphism

You will already have seen anthropomorphism if you watch any Disney movie. This technique is when you give an object or non-human being some human qualities and emotions. It tends to be used as a way of making that object or being easier for the reader to relate to. It isn’t just about being entertaining though; one famous example of anthropomorphism is Animal Farm, the political novella written by George Orwell.

Verisimilitude

This is all about making something appear real, appear credible when it really isn’t. Your audience will recognize that there is something quite unlikely about the story but because there will always be that psychological truth, this makes the audience feel that it could just as easily be real. Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a good example as is Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaiden’s Tale. Although the audience realizes these are fictional, they also know that they could be reading something that is entirely true.

Denotation

Denotation is a technique where the literal word meaning is used. Traditionally, poetry and fiction tend to be littered with figurative speech but things don’t need to be like that. Take Robert Frost and Shakespeare, for example; both used examples of denotation in their works. It makes it far easier for a reader to understand what the writer is saying because it is so much simpler.

Litotes

A litote is a technique that uses irony. Negative descriptions that make understatements using rhetorical phrases and, with the irony in them, they tend to give an idea more emphasis. Even though they were very common in the early days of literature, we do still tend to use them quite a bit these days. An example of a litote would be “He’s not the cleverest student in class”, meaning he isn’t all that smart.

It’s one thing to sit and write a novel, quite another to give it a new life by using literary techniques; try these and see what effect they have on your work.