Onomatopoeia

Many articles about onomatopoeias cite my least favorite poem by Edgar
Allen Poe, "The Bells," as an example. Tinkling, jingling, ringing,
etc. Yes, there are many in that poem, but I’d like to use a different example than Poe’s poem. Remember the old Batman television series? (Isn’t it cool that things like this are shown on cable or even remade into movies and we can use them as examples without dating ourselves? That way no one knows that I actually watched Batman back when new episodes were being released!) When I was a little girl, my favorite part were the fight scenes when the graphics of "fighting" words popped onto the screen. "Pow!" "Bam!" "Slam!" Many of those words were onomatopoeias, which comes from a Greek word meaning "name-making." In other words, an onomatopoeia is a word that looks how it sounds.

I know you don’t need to be reminded (again!) that the writer’s job is to give the reader an emotional experience or that the best way to produce that experience is by using all the senses in our writing. Some writers limit their description to visuals. And if they incorporate sounds, most of them are the words heard through dialogue. Onomatopoeias are a great way include buzzing, clicking, and cackling to your stories and help the reader "hear" what’s happening.

In my current WIP, my readers can hear the Ding! Ding! Ding! of a bell, signaling the beginning of a wrestling match, the harrumph of an unhappy character, the loud click of a phone call being disconnected in someone’s ear, and the yowling of a cat. Who or what is sounding off in your WIP?

Today’s Exercise:

Share at least five onomatopoeias from your WIP or from one of your favorite novels.

 

NaNoWriMo Day 1 Report

NaNoWriMo–National Novel Writing Month–began yesterday. It’s been a hectic week, as usual, but I managed to add 641 words to my WIP yesterday. Those of you who are familiar with this challenge know one must average 1667 words per day to produce the 50K word goal by the end of November. I hope to do better as the month continues, although this week’s calendar is booked solid through Saturday, so I’ll have to use squish my writing in between events instead of having the luxury of a long segment of time in which to write.

How about you? Have you signed up for NaNoWriMo? Drop by the site and browse through it. It’s only November 2–you can catch up!

Personification

What made Walt Disney’s cartoons unique when they were first introduced? Personification. Disney grabbed anything within reach and gave it human qualities–feelings, abilities, speech, etc. And the tradition continues in Disney’s later films. For example, from Beauty and the Beast: Mrs. Potts, the talking teapot, the clock and the candlestick–all inanimate objects brought to "life." Even the beast himself is an example of personification.

Personification is not only used for cartoons; it is widely used in poetry. Consider Emily Dickinson: "Because I could not stop for death–he kindly stopped for me."

We even use personification in much of our conversation, probably without realizing it: creeping fog, helping hand, etc., and it can also be a powerful description tool in novel-writing.

Here are a couple of examples of personification from my own WIPs:

From Wings of the Dawn…

The group followed the Humbolt River, the watery beast that forced their wagons back and forth across its banks numerous times while it played hide and seek, ducking in and out of wide and narrow canyons. After three weeks of toying with the travelers, the tributary eventually converted into a maze of sloughs and swamps until finally, swallowed by the desert at its alkali sink, the waterway hid its miserable head in the sand.

From You Schmooze, You Lose…

I clasp my hand around the offered pen and lean over the guest book. A swag of hair sneaks down and blocks my vision.  I don’t even try to fling my hair back into place like the cute girls. For one thing, it doesn’t have a “place”; it has a mind of its own. Or perhaps my hair doesn’t have a mind of its own but is instead, possessed. That’s it–I have demon hair.

Today’s Exercise:

Look around your home/office/yard/wherever you happen to be at the time and select an object. Write a sentence or two (even a paragraph or entire scene if you’re game) and bring that object to "life." Please share your work with us!

Similes

Thanks…

First, I want to say thanks to those of you who have left comments so far! I’ve received a few e-mails from readers who said they are having fun with the exercises. Be brave–post your answers! (I guess I need to post some, too!) And remember, everyone who posts comments during this week will have their name placed in a drawing for some of my excess books, so grab a pen and paper, have a little fun, and post a comment.

Similes…

You don’t have to venture very far into a Raymond Chandler novel to find a simile. He used them frequently and well. One that comes to my mind was the description he used when the character Phillip Marlowe first encountered a woman who was attempting to seduce him. He said, "Her legs had more tone than a lyric poem."

Some people confuse metaphors and similes. Usually similes use comparison words–as, than, and like. They are fairly easy to spot. Metaphors leave off the comparison. For example: "He is a pig!" would be a metaphor. "Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower" (Charles Schwab) is a simile. (We’ll discuss metaphors in a future post.)

Many poems employ similes. Here’s a well-known poem with several examples of similes:

"As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky."

Other similes from that same poem by Clement Clark Moore include:

"He looked like a peddler, just opening his pack."

"His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!"

"He had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly."

Moore incorporates similes throughout the entire poem, which is fine for poetry. But, in writing other prose, like cayenne pepper, we must sprinkle our writing carefully with similes and other prose-perking tools. Otherwise, it will be over done.

Another consideration for similes is to keep them in character. What do I mean by that? Here’s an example:

"My heart pounded against my chest with the same insistency as a Fuller Brush salesman with an impossible sales quota banging on a door."

That line was scrapped from my WIP. Why? It describes a startled character. BUT…my character is NOT a sales rep, therefore, she wouldn’t readily identify with the anxiety and stress associated with meeting an impossible sales quota. (Not to mention that the novel is a contemporary and door-to-door salesmen are nearly obsolete these days.)

I had to re-write the description to describe my character’s emotions in a manner consistent with her life. Since she is a sports photographer, she would think along the lines of athletes, not Fuller Brush salesmen. So my final choice fits better in her setting:

"My heart pounds against my chest with the same force as a linebacker smashing into a tackle dummy."

That phrase might not work to describe some women, but since the reader knows my character is a sports photographer, it makes sense. Any phrase that doesn’t "fit" can pull the reader from "book world," which is a bad, bad thing!

Another caution with similes is to watch for cliched phrases. "White as snow." "Lips as red as a rose." Invent fresh phrases that are in character with your story.

Today’s Exercise:

Flip through the pages of a book or two–classic or contemporary or from your own work–and find at least five similes. Do they fit the character and setting? Are they cliched phrases? If they are fresh and interesting, please share them.