Ways With Words

Front 1

close-echo effect

Back 1

repeated word or phrase very close together where a conjunction could easily be used, but instead a key word is used to bring attention to the word and for rhythm of the text

Front 2

repeating details

Back 2

take specific details and repeat them throughout the text, not always using exactly the same words (The Relatives Came – purple grapes)

Front 3

repeating sentence structure

Back 3

Night in the Country – “There are owls. Great owls with marble eyes who swoop among the trees and are not afraid of night in the country. Night birds. There are frogs. Night frogs who sing songs for you every night: reek reek reek reek. Night songs.”

Front 4

re-say

Back 4

a stopping to say something again, in another way, right away

Front 5

striking adjectives

Back 5

unusual or unexpected in some way – sometimes crossed parts of speech

Front 6

out of place adjectives

Back 6

adjective placed after the noun (Momma Had a Dancing Heart – “drink hot tea spiced”

Front 7

striking verbs

Back 7

verbs that readers don’t expect to see with the subjects – The Whales – “the whales are thinking today”

Front 8

striking adverbs

Back 8

creating new words, using another part of speech as an adverb, putting tow adverbs unexpectedly together, or just choosing one we wouldn’t expect with a particular verb (Miz Berlin Walks – “waiting cotton-quiet)

Front 9

intentional vangueness

Back 9

manipulating pronouns and adjectives that modify nouns, making them nonspecific when we expect them to be more specific – “the relatives”

Front 10

proper nouns

Back 10

using proper nouns, names, places, brand names, conjures up sensory images for the reader

Front 11

proper nouns

Back 11

using proper nouns, names, places, brand names, conjures up sensory images for the reader

Front 12

make your own words

Back 12

often hyphenated, but not always – words that just fit the meaning perfectly (Jane Yolen – Nocturne “in the wraparound blacksurround velvet night”

Front 13

artful use of and

Back 13

very common – used to show the thought is a part of the previous thought, but deserves a sentence of its own – often the last sentence in a text used for emphasis – When I Was Young in the Mountains

Front 14

runaway sentences

Back 14

to convey a sense of franticness, of desperation, excitement, or being carried away with something – matches the meaning in some way

Front 15

artful sentence fragments

Back 15

clarify, reiterate, exclaim or list – must be a part of the rest of the text

Front 16

one sentence paragraph

Back 16

set off by themselves for emphasis – white space around them as a mark of exclamation

Front 17

direct contact sentence

Back 17

interrupt the story to speak directly to the reader

Front 18

see-saw sentences

Back 18

crafted with predictable pairs of information or detail – two-part rhythm (Whoever You Are – Mem Fox – “Joys are the same, and love is the same. Pain is the same, and blood is the same. Smiles are the same, and hearts are just the same.” )

Front 19

taffy sentences

Back 19

central idea that is pulled out and pulled out (Jane Yolen – Nocturne “In the night, in the velvet night, in the brushstroked bluecoat velvet night…”)

Front 20

short, short, long sentences

Back 20

series of three sentences in a rhythmic time (C. Rylant A Song for S. Singer “He could not have a cat. He could not have a dog. He could not even paint his walls a different color…”)

Front 21

sentences that make a long story short

Back 21

one sentence that covers a lot of time (“So they drank up all their pop and ate up all their crackers and traveled up all those miles until finally they pulled up into our yard.”)

Front 22

whispering parantheses

Back 22

These are usually asides of explanation that are more characteristic of spoken language than written language, but the form they take in texts is often parenthetical. Whispering parentheses give texts a conversational tone, making readers feel like insiders with an author.

Front 23

commentary dashes

Back 23

Writers add extra layers of commentary to a text by an extra set, ‘by-the-way’ details off with dashes. Writers do this to not just to expand an idea, but to do so with voice. They sound like an additional thing the narrator has just thought to tell you.

Front 24

items in a series

Back 24

Writers often make very deliberate decisions about how a list will be punctuated.
Some are punctuated with all commas and no conjunctions; some that use all conjunctions and no commas; some that place periods between items in the series, making each one its own sentence; and some that are punctuated following the more traditional “rule” for items in a series. This lets the writer toy with how items in a series are punctuated by playing with the rhythm and with meaning.

Front 25

super colons

Back 25

Writers use colons to do lots and lots of artful work in text. Colons can set an idea off from others, show that someone is thinking or talking, or serve as markers that something big is about to follow.

Front 26

super ellipses

Back 26

Ellipses can show that an action is continous, transition from one action to another or from one idea to another, move time or place, or show that there are just not words for something

Front 27

quotation mark-less quotations

Back 27

Quotation marks are not the only method of setting off direct quotations in text. Writers will sometimes choose to represent speech in other ways for various meaning-making reasons.

Front 28

interesting italics

Back 28

used to add layers of meaning to any text, make noise, give emphasis, distinguish present from past, match speech patters, show someone is remembering

Front 29

text shaped to match meanings

Back 29

Sometimes writers will layout text or the print of a single word on the page in a way that matches the meaning of the text in that place.