Creative writing - Mike Sanders 2014
Making replacements with metonymy
Energetic figures of speech
Speech, voice, and point of view
In Part 2, you delve deeper into the essentials of good writing, focusing particularly on the underpinnings of a writer’s expression and vision. Chapter 4 tackles the types of speech you can use to create different effects in your writing. Metonymy, synecdoche, personification, metaphor, and simile may collectively sound like a dizzying array of options, but you learn how each functions and where and when they’re best employed.
Strongly connected to the speech aspects of Chapter 4, Chapter 5 explores the various methods of rendering character voice. These include concepts you use in your own verbal communication, consciously or unconsciously, every day: mimicry, contrast, irony, and conflict. As with Chapter 4’s speech elements, there are times and places in which the different aspects of character voice work best, and you learn what those are.
Chapter 6 focuses on point of view. This concept will be very familiar to you because first, second, and third person are among the first terms you learn in grammar class. What’s different here, however, is the challenge of employing them in your writing and deciding when each is most appropriate. The essential question of distance sums up both Chapter 6 and Part 2. It’s a fitting concluding concept considering how close or how far away you place your writing from the reader affects how they respond to it.
CHAPTER 4 Energetic figures of speech
In this chapter
· Making substitutions with metonymy
· Substituting with synecdoche
· Bringing objects to life with personification
· Making comparisons with metaphors
· Showing simile com-parisons with like or as
Lock and load, friends!
Why did you throw her under the bus like that?
No one’s holding a gun to your head.
When read literally, these expressions are significantly violent and disturbing—especially since two of them reference firearms use. However, when interpreted as figures of speech (and fairly common ones at that), they lose their threatening aspects and assume the function of indirect avenues for commenting on a situation.
“Lock and load” becomes “let’s get ready”; throwing someone under a bus means placing a person in a tough situation; and holding a gun to one’s head refers to pressuring someone to do something, usually a disagreeable and reluctant task.
Figures of speech can be used to mean several things or even imply deeper meanings. Rather than being straightforward, they help create a different emphasis or indirect connotation. Done well, such a configuration of words makes your writing “sing” (a one-word figure of speech because words can’t literally sing). Some books are full of figures of speech and can be a joy to read … as long as the author is skilled in employing them.
DEFINITION
A figure of speech is the opposite of a literal expression: a word or phrase that means something more or something other than it seems to say and departs from conventional order or significance.
Many creative writers, especially poets, enjoy playing around with words. It’s not surprising to discover that a great number of them read various old dictionaries for fun or play Scrabble rather than spend a night out on the town. In truth, whether playful or serious in nature, creative writers are performing important word usage exercises by engaging in such pastimes. Twisting words into new meanings takes the form of a game or compulsion—or both. Indeed, I find myself doing it without thinking, often while performing a repetitive physical task such as hoeing weeds in my garden or splitting firewood deep in the forest.
In this chapter, you learn about the different kinds of figures of speech—metonymy, synecdoche, personification, and metaphor—and how you can employ each to make both your content and wordplay more lively. These terms might not sound that exciting now, but what they do to your work is among the most provocative events in all of creative writing.
WATCH OUT!
As you write, you might find yourself unconsciously using a figure of speech repeatedly. There’s nothing wrong with that if it fits your piece’s overall style, but be cautious not to overdo it. In an attempt to make their work fresh, writers tend to enjoy creating phrases with unusual meanings. Instead of clarifying themselves, though, they may end up muddying the waters. Employ figures of speech carefully, or risk confusing your readers. Too many can make a piece of writing tedious to read and difficult to decipher.
Making replacements with metonymy
The pen is mightier than the sword!
Although unfortunately erroneous much of the time (and nearly always if interpreted literally), this oft-used expression is a favorite of creative writers because it empowers the act of writing and exalts the writer. Sometimes it’s accurate, such as on those occasions when the words of a statesmen or political activist help bring about social change or conclude wars. But what does the statement mean figuratively? It posits that the ideas expressed through writing ultimately possess greater power than the visceral act of warfare. See? Sometimes accurate, sometimes not, but certainly catchy and clever.
Ultimately, it’s less important that such an expression always turns out true and more significant that its meaning is such that readers can grasp it and admire it for the freshness it affords your writing. A thing’s drab common name is colorfully replaced by its meaning or the characteristics it possesses. When creative writers perform this action, they’re employing metonymy.
DEFINITION
Metonymy is the act of substituting something’s meaning and/or attribute for its common name.
The primary word used in metonymic expressions often is referred to as a metonym. Here are some common metonyms:
“The bottle” for any alcoholic drink
“The press” for journalism and journalists
“Chopin” for music by Chopin, or “Poe” for writing by Poe
“The Oval Office” for the U.S. presidency
Metonymy enables creative writers to refer to concepts or large groups of people with a single word. Although it often comes across as hip and is always at the forefront of change in the English language, it is, in fact, a very old device. Consider, for example, this passage from the first book of the Bible: “By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread.” (Genesis 3:19) In other words, hard work (or the lack thereof) leads to sustenance (or its lack). In fact, a book of the Bible like Proverbs is in some ways a collection of metonymy at its best.
Yet metonymy also functions frequently in the most secular and nonintellectual of contemporary walks of life. A common athletic example is “That pitcher [or that quarterback] has a really good arm,” meaning the athlete in question can throw the ball both hard and accurately.
Not to be left out, modern intellectuals do care about metonymy, as witnessed by literary theorists employing it to designate the process of association by which metonymies are produced and understood. This involves establishing relationships of contiguity between two things—that is, how they rely on each other.
However, because you and I are creative writers rather than scholars, our task is to happily invent metonymies or select the preexisting ones that afford our writing energy and wit, though—as the pen and the sword demonstrate—not necessarily truth.