In a post on the SFWA blog, Ursula Whitcher suggests that prose writers could benefit from practicing with the tools of poetry. “Writing poetry allows for rapid experimentation with language on a fine scale,” she writes. “”But poets don’t have a monopoly on evocative language!” These techniques include:
- Line length. As in poetry, line length matters in prose. Where poetry experiments with length with line breaks, prose emphasizes rhythm using sentences and paragraphs. “You can choose a different rhythm to evoke a particular voice, mood, or character,” Whitcher says.
- Words are delicious. Poets use unique language to evoke emotion and theme, and create rhythm. They steal words from one discipline to create a unique comparison with another or create new words to fit their needs. Prose writers can do this, too. Swipe concepts from math or science to describe your characters, use foreign phrases, or create your own slang or compound words to create a unique voice for your characters and your writing.
- Metaphor is character. “It can be easy to focus on metaphor and similes as tools for communicating sensory experience, but metaphor matters just as much for characterization,” Whitcher writes. “An effective comparison packs a character’s past experience and present attitude into a single sentence.”
