Fiction Notes

Tag: trope

  • Why I LOVE Cliches and Tropes

    I confess: I love a good cliche or trope. A cliche is a phrase or expression that has been used so often that it is no longer original or interesting. A trope is a common or overused theme or device, as in the usual horror movie tropes. I’m in the middle of plotting a massive […]

  • The Art of Using Literary Devices and Techniques

    Guest Post by Melissa Donovan When I first learned about alliteration in a writing class, I couldn’t believe there was a word for it. I used it in my poetry all the time! Then I learned about anastrophe and deus ex machina and I began to discover a whole world of literary devices and techniques. […]

  • Voice Begins with Word Choices

    Voice begins with the right choice of words Each story or novel has its own diction, or the group of words that could be used for this story. For example, a historical fiction would have different word choices than a romantic comedy. Of course, there’s lots of overlap, but each story has certain words that […]

  • How to Arrange Words: 20 Literary Devices

    SCHEMES: Unusual patterns of words. Yesterday, I talked about How to Use Words, or Tropes: any literary use of a word that is other than it’s literal meaning. Today, we’ll look at how to arrange words. Schemes are the arrangement of words into patterns of some sort. Common schemes look at how words are balanced, […]