CREATIVE WRITING
Unit One-The 25 Common Literary Terms
Session Two
REVIEW
• Example of Alliteration
• Example of Allusion
• Example of Assonance
• Example of Anastrophe
• Example of Connotation
CONSONANCE
• Consonance-the recurrence of similar sounds, especially consonants, in close proximity
• Examples
• ‘T was later when the summer went
Than when the cricket came,
And yet we knew that gentle clock
Meant nought but going home.
‘T was sooner when the cricket went
Than when the winter came,
Yet that pathetic pendulum
Keeps esoteric time-“T was later when the summer went” by Emily Dickson
CONSONANCE
• Example• “Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile
Whether Jew or gentile, I rank top percentile
Many styles, more powerful than gamma rays
My grammar pays, like Carlos Santana plays.”
(The lines have been taken from the song ‘Zealots ‘by Fugees.)
CONSONANCE
• Example"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow. (sounds w, and h)
• Example-"A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon -As Imperceptibly as Grief' by Emily Dickinson (n sounds)
NOW YOU TRY
• Write a short poem using consonance
• Share
DENOTATION
• Denotation-the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word
suggests.
• Examples-A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
by William Wordsworth (1880)
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears-She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
DENOTATION
• “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,”—Shakespeare
• “In the spring, I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
Always knew.
• Now the fields are brown and barren,
Bitter autumn blows,
And of all the stupid asters
Not one knows.”-Sara Teasdale - “Wild Asters”
NOW YOU TRY
-Write a denotative sentence or poem that veers into
connotative meaning
Share
HYPERBOLE
• Hyperbole-exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
• Examples-I am so hungry I could eat a horse.
• I have a million things to do.
• I had to walk 15 miles to school in the snow, uphill.
• I had a ton of homework.
• If I can’t buy that new game, I will die.
• He is as skinny as a toothpick.
• This car goes faster than the speed of light.
• That new car costs a bazillion dollars.
HYPERBOLE
• Example from Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox• “Well now, one winter it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish
moved south and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all
spoken words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to
find out what folks were talking about the night before.”
HYPERBOLE
• Example-"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet ,And the river jumps over the
mountain And the salmon sing in the street, I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And
the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.-"As I Walked Out One Evening" by W.H.
Auden:"
• Other examples-
• The skin on her face was as thin and drawn as tight as the skin of onion and her eyes were gray and
sharp like the points of two picks.
• It was not a mere man he was holding, but a giant; or a block of granite. The pull was unendurable.
The pain unendurable.
• People moved slowly then. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no
money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County.
NOW YOU TRY
• Write a statement or short poem using a hyperbole
• Share
IMAGERY
• Imagery-visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work.
• Examples-It was dark and dim in the forest
• He whiffed the aroma of brewed coffee.
• The fresh and juicy orange are very cold and sweet.
• “It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my
little window… Now, I saw the damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass,…. On
every rail and gate, wet lay clammy; and the marsh-mist was so thick, that the wooden
finger on the post directing people to our village—a direction which they never accepted,
for they never came there—was invisible to me until I was quite close under it.”-Charles
Dickens
IMAGERY
• Examples-The giant tree was ablaze with the orange, red, and yellow leaves that were
beginning to make their decent to the ground.
• The word spread like leaves in a storm.
• Her face blossomed when she caught a glance of him.
• She was like a breath of fresh air infusing life back into him.
• Her blue eyes were as bright as the Sun, blue as the sky, but soft as silk.
• He fell down like an old tree falling down in a storm.
IMAGERY
• "Gio's socks, still soaked with sweat from Tuesday's P.E. class, filled the classroom
with an aroma akin to that of salty, week-old, rotting fish"
• "The clay oozed between Jeremy's fingers as he let out a squeal of pure glee.“
• "....Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box"
(From 'An Old Mans Winter Night' by Robert Frost)
NOW YOU TRY
• Write 2-3 sentences or a short poem including
imagery
• Share
INTERNAL RHYME
• Internal Rhyme-a rhyme involving a word in the middle of a line and another at the end of
the line or in the middle of the next.
• Examples-Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door…..
• Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore…
(The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe)
INTERNAL RHYME
• Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
(Macbeth by William Shakespeare)
• For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
(Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe)
NOW YOU TRY
• Write a short poem or 4 lines that include internal
rhyme
• Share
FINALE TIME
• Use all of the examples in a single work short
paragraph or poem