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Did you know?

• It’s impossible to state the exact number of words in the English language because new words are added every day. It could be as many as a million and counting…

• Words can have more than one meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word ‘run’ now has 645 possible meanings.

Writers choose words and phrases carefully when they write. Readers can look closely at texts to think about how and why the writer made these choices.

A writer may use a variety of language techniques to create a particular mood or atmosphere, to suggest deeper ideas or to make a setting or a character more memorable and interesting to imagine. Literary techniques include:

• similes
• metaphors
• personification
• pathetic fallacy
• onomatopoeia
• alliteration
• assonance
• sibilance
• juxtaposition
• oxymoron

When looking at language in fiction texts it is important to start by reading the text carefully. Think:

• What is happening and who is involved?
• How does it make you feel as you read?
• What interesting word choices has the writer made?
• What literary devices has the writer used?
• What do you think the effect of these choices might be on the reader?

Writers choose words with care and precision. For example, ‘she screamed’ is quite different to ‘she said’. And ‘Jamie stood in the alley’ creates a different feeling to ‘a figure stood in the alley’, which is more mysterious and, even, threatening. Writers choose the words and phrases that they want the readers to particularly notice and respond to.

Words can also have both literal and figurative meanings. Figurative language is when words or expressions are used to suggest a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. ‘A piece of cake’ could literally mean a slice of cake but if your friend is telling you that the test was ‘a piece of cake’, the figurative meaning is that it was easy.

Words can also suggest multiple meanings or create associations in the reader’s mind. One way is through the connotations of words: for example the colour blue is an actual colour but blue could also suggest when someone is ‘feeling blue’ or emotionally sad. When the poet AE Housman wrote about ‘those blue remembered hills’ in The Shropshire Lad he didn’t only mean that the hills looked blue, but also that his memories made him feel sad to be growing old.

Word choices affect the mood or atmosphere a writer is trying to create. Think about the following sentence:

Ryan walked out of the room.

This sentence creates no atmosphere. We cannot tell anything about Ryan, his state of mind, or what is happening. Writers can fix this by choosing a stronger verb. For example:

Ryan crept out of the room or Ryan swaggered out of the room.

In each of these sentences we have a better idea of how Ryan is feeling and what is happening. The verb choice even begins to suggest Ryan’s character.

However, changing one word won’t create a complete character or consistent atmosphere. To do this, writers choose a variety of linked words that continuously add to the atmosphere or character they want to create.

Consider the following two paragraphs both describing a similar scene. What atmosphere is created by the language in each one?

The family crowded round, happy murmurs, laughter and glowing faces - time to celebrate. An arm wrapped around her shoulder and her mother’s warm voice whispered, “I’m so proud that you’ve been chosen!”

The family crowded round, like a wall of stone, hard, pale eyes accusing and thin mouths painted with cruel smiles. Granite fingers seized her wrists and her aunt’s flinty voice whispered, “I’m so proud that you’ve been chosen!”

These two paragraphs describe two very different family situations.

When you read a fiction text it is worth investigating which words are the ones that made a difference to your understanding of what was happening.

Find the odd one out

There are lots of figurative language techniques that a writer might use to create an effect on the reader.

Some of the most commonly used are similes, metaphors and personification.

• Simile – ‘hands as cold as ice’
• Metaphor – ‘her heart is a block of ice’
• Personification – flowers ‘dancing’ and ‘smiling’

Click on the interactive graphic below to learn more.

An extended metaphor is where the idea created through a metaphor is developed over several sentences, paragraphs or even throughout the text. It allows the writer to make a more sustained comparison. Notice how the metaphor of a blanket is ‘extended’ over several sentences here:

Darkness is a thick, black blanket, covering the world. It smothers the earth, soft and enveloping. Actions are hidden in its cosy embrace.

Pathetic fallacy is a form of metaphor that gives human feelings to something non-human. Pathetic fallacy is often used to describe the environment. The weather and season can be described with human emotions to reflect the mood of a character or create a tone.

In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, for example, the Doctor tells the reader:

It was a dreary night in November… the rain pattered dismally against the panes.

The adverb ‘dismally’ could suggest that the rain itself has feelings, a form of personification. Shelley may also be reflecting on the narrator’s mood at this point in the novel. With words like ‘dreary’ and ‘dismally’, an ominous atmosphere is being created.

The sound of the words themselves is an important tool for writers. There are many literary techniques that writers can use which are based on the sound the words make. These include:

• Onomatopoeia: The word’s sound directly links to its meaning: a cat ‘hisses’; a river ‘gurgles’, rain ’pitter-patters’, an alarm ‘beeps’. It helps us imagine the scene.
• Alliteration: Repetition of the same sounds at the beginning of words that are close to each other. For example ‘burning bright’ or ‘calmly and clearly.’ It helps to link and emphasise certain words.
• Assonance: Repetition of a vowel sound that occurs in words that do not rhyme. For example, 'the daylight faded over the lake' uses the long 'a' sound to add to the feeling of the day slowly and steadily turning to night.
• Sibilance: Repetition of the ‘s’ sound in any part of the word. For example, 'small invisible fingers twisted her sleeve' uses the ‘s’ sound to help create a sinister effect.

These tools can have different impacts of the reader depending how they're used. Linking similar sounding words can be used to:

• create an atmosphere or tone
• build energy and pace
• create rhythm
• make phrases more memorable
• draw attention to particular words by focusing the reader’s attention
• evoke specific sounds, for example crashing waves or sirens

The impact will vary depending on the letters used, repetition of soft letters like 's' or 'h' creates a different tone compared to repetition of a hard letters like 'k' or 'v'.

Writers can use metaphors and similes to make a comparison and show the similarity between different things. But they can also use deliberately contrasting words and ideas to make us pay attention to the differences. Techniques include:

• Contrast: a difference between two or more people or things that you can see clearly when they are compared or put close together. For example, a character might seem even braver if contrasted to a cowardly character.
• Juxtaposition: placing two things side by side so as to highlight their differences. Writers often juxtapose rich and poor, darkness and light, good and evil.
• Oxymoron: a phrase that combines two words that seem to be the opposite of each other, for example a ‘deafening silence’ or ‘bittersweet’. These unexpected phrases make us think and help to reveal deeper meanings.

One of the most famous openings to a novel, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities uses a whole series of contrasts to get across the idea that this was a time of change:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…