30 Writing Techniques from Books for Your Texts to Blossom
Not by metaphors alone.
Creative content writers.
Sales and SEO copywriters.
Bloggers.
⚡ This is not a drill!
This article is your list of writing techniques to use in texts to surprise readers, convey meanings, express ideas, highlight core themes, and make your content stand out.
I bet you saw them in your favorite books! It’s time to implement them in writing pieces of other formats and genres, too, huh?
✨ Don’t let the number “30” in the title confuse you. This article won’t disappear from this publication, so you can save it, share it, or add it to your favorites to check it the next time you polish your draft.✨
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30 Writing Techniques from Books to Try in Content
🔥 1 — Asyndeton and Polysyndeton
Two simple yet powerful methods of writing to create rhythm in your sentences and paragraphs:
- Asyndeton is about leaving out conjunctions when writing direct statements.
- Polysyndeton is about using extra conjunctions (frequently) to create a stylistic effect.
🔥 2 — Anastrophe
Anastrophe is a figure of speech where an author reverses the traditional sentence structure. If you are a Star Wars fan, you will understand it best:
Yoda’s talking is a prime example!
“Patience you must have my young Padawan.”
“Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.”
Writers also use this literary device in their works:
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing.” — Edgar Allan Poe
🔥 3 — Chiasmus
As well as anastrophe, chiasmus is about a reversal sentence structure to create an artistic effect. But here you invert (crisscross) two or more parallel clauses for your message to sound more convincing.
Chiasmus is among the best friends of political speechwriters. Let’s take John F. Kennedy’s statements:
🔥 4 — Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger is a plot device when an author ends an episode, a chapter, or a scene in some unexpected or shocking way to hook the audience so they would keep reading or watching.
Cliffhanger endings are of two types:
- A protagonist faces a dangerous or life-threatening situation.
- A shocking revelation appears, unexpected, and able to change the whole course of the narrative.
Examples:
- Professor Dumbledore’s death in the Harry Potter series
- Darth Vader’s “Luke, I’m your father!” in Star Wars
- Jon Snow’s assassination in Game of Thrones
🔥 5 — Colloquialism
Colloquialism is the use of casual language in writing, including slang or dialects to provide context to characters or settings and make your texts more authentic.
Try it to demonstrate a character’s origins or background.
🔥 6 — Contrast
This one is among the most popular writing tricks, emphasizing the differences between two statements, people, places, or things. Contrast is a surefire way to grab readers’ attention and explain something by comparing it to other items and highlighting their differences.
Contrast attracts attention to your words, adds drama, and makes texts more enchanting and persuasive.
🔥 7 — Hypophora
Hypophora is a writing trick when an author or a character asks a question and answers it immediately. Perfect to use in web writing and explaining some concepts to the audience.
In fiction, hypophora helps when a character needs to reason something aloud.
🔥 8 — Imagery
“Show, don’t tell.”
You’ve heard this expression thousands of times, haven’t you?
Imagery is about using figurative language in writing to evoke a sensory experience in the reader. It’s about highly descriptive adjectives, sensory words, power verbs, and other language tricks playing with readers’ senses and helping them “see, hear, smell, and taste” your text.
🔥 9 — In Medias Res
“In medias res” means “in the middle of things” in Latin. It’s the practice of beginning a narrative with a conflict or crucial situation, skipping a prologue, an introduction, etc.
You launch into a scene to hook readers and then extend and explain everything through flashbacks, dialogues, and other writing techniques.
🔥 10 — Isocolon
Isocolon is a writing trick of crafting two or more words (phrases) using a similar structure, rhythm, and length. Perfect to use for slogans and catchy hooks throughout the content:
Thanks to the balanced rhythm, writings with isocolon sound memorable.
Eat Healthily. Think Better. — Britannia
Food, folks, and fun. — McDonald’s
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. — Abraham Lincoln
🔥 11 — Juxtaposition
Juxtaposition reminds contrast as it places two or more dissimilar things (concepts, themes, characters) side by side to highlight their differences that way.
🔥 12 — Oxymoron
While a juxtaposition is a figurative language contrasting two story elements, an oxymoron is about using two contradictory words to describe something.
Examples: Sweet sorrow; bittersweet; sad smile; old news; joyful sadness; negative income; and so on.
🔥 13 — Paradox
A paradox is a writing trick of using seemingly illogical yet true premises to encourage the audience to think outside the box. It’s a statement with contradictory ideas.
Other examples:
“I must be cruel to be kind.” — Hamlet
“Life is much too important to be taken seriously.” — Oscar Wilde
Using paradoxes in your writing, you can add conflict, challenge your readers and keep them in suspense, point out some inconsistencies, or add a touch of humor.
🔥 14 — Litotes
Litotes affirm something positive by making a double negative. Thus, writers express certain sentiments by saying that the opposite is not the case.
Examples:
“You won’t be sorry.” (read: You’ll be happy)
“You’re not wrong.” (read: You’re right)
“Not bad.” (read: Good)
“He’s not as young as he used to be.” (read: He’s old)
🔥 15 — Metaphors
A metaphor is among the most popular and widely-used writing techniques, and it’s about poetically comparing one thing to another:
A writer takes a characteristic of something unknown and compares it to something known for readers to understand the meaning.
🔥 16 — Similes
Unlike metaphors, similes compare two things directly, using the words “like” or “as.” This literary device is not about specifying that two things are the same but only that they are alike.
🔥 17 — Analogies
An analogy serves a similar purpose to a simile and a metaphor: to show how two things are alike. However, the point here is not only to show but also to explain this comparison. So, analogies are a more complex writing technique than metaphors.
“My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” — Forrest Gump (Without the second sentence here, the saying is a simile; with it, it becomes an analogy.)
🔥 18 — Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is about describing sounds. All those “buzz,” “snap,” “clap,” “moo,” “meow,” “tick-tock,” “ding-dong,” etc. are great examples of using this literary device in texts.
🔥 19 — Repetition
This writing method is exactly what it is: repetition of words or phrases to create a particular atmosphere or communicate a specific context to readers.
For example, in Stephen King’s The Shining, Jack Torrance types one phrase on his typewriter again and again: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” With such an obsessive repetition, the author demonstrates Jack’s unraveling mind.
Types of repetitions are many: epizeuxis, epistrophe, anaphora, anadiplosis, and polyptoton.
🔥 20 — Epizeuxis
Epizeuxis is a figurative language trick of repeating simple words or phrases to emphasize the message and get the readers’ attention. Often, there are no other words in between.
🔥 21 — Epistrophe
Epistrophe is a repetition of words or phrases at the end of sentences.
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.” — 1 Corinthians 13:11
🔥 22 — Anaphora
Anaphora is a repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of clauses or sentences. It’s among the methods of writing most often used in poetry and speeches to provoke an emotional response from the audience.
Examples:
Stay safe. Stay well. Stay happy.
You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
“Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!” — William Shakespeare, King John, II
Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech where he repeated this expression at the beginning of each new paragraph.
🔥 23 — Anadiplosis
Anadiplosis is the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning AND end of a sentence. This writing trick creates a flow and makes paragraphs sound original and memorable.
Examples:
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Yoda, Star Wars (Yes, again!)
“The frog was a prince / The prince was a brick / The brick was an egg / The egg was a bird.” Genesis, Supper’s Ready
🔥 24 — Polyptoton
Polyptoton is a repetition of the root word in sentences and paragraphs. For example, a writer uses words like “strength” and “strong” instead of repeating the same word again and again.
Examples:
- “To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.” — A. Bronson Alcott
- “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” — Lord Acton
- “Not as a call to battle, though embattled we are.” — John F. Kennedy
🔥 25 — Personification
Personification is a writing technique of using human traits to describe non-human things but in figurative language only.
“The land, released from its cycle of drudgery, seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief. And as the land relaxed, so did we.” — Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm by Isabelle Tree. (The land relaxes and breathes; it’s human traits.)
🔥 26 — Symbolism
Symbolism is about representing abstract concepts and ideas through objects or non-humans.
Thus, we all know that a dove represents peace while a raven might represent death. In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Doctor T.J. Eckleburg symbolizes God judging the Jazz Age.
Other examples of symbolism include an apple as a temptation, red roses as love, a rainbow as hope, etc.
Metonymy and motif are two other literary devices sharing the same meaning as symbolism but with slight differences.
🔥 27 — Metonymy
Metonymy is about a single object representing entire institutions. The word comes from the Greek metōnymía, meaning “a change of name.”
Examples:
- “The Crown” = monarchy
- “Washington” = “the U.S. government”
- “Hollywood” = the world of cinematography
- “Silicon Valley” = tech and innovative
🔥 28 — Motif
A motif is about writing techniques in literature: It can be a symbol, an image, or a concept — anything helping to develop your narrative’s theme.
In other words, it’s a narrative element with symbolic significance.
For example, in the Harry Potter series, the motifs are a scar (destiny) and muggles vs. purebloods (racism and tolerance). In Lord of the Flies by W. Golding, motifs are fire (technology and civilization) and religion (moral truth).
🔥 29 — Tautology
A tautology is about repeating oneself, expressing the same idea with different words or phrases within a sentence or a paragraph. While it often means revising your writing and removing redundancy, sometimes tautology works as a poetic emphasis.
Examples of poor use of tautology: frozen ice, added bonus, me personally, come together to unite.
Examples of good use:
🔥 30 — The Rule of Three
The rule of three is a popular writing trick among content creators: It’s the idea that groups of three words, phrases, or ideas are more engaging, effective, and memorable.
The Three Musketeers, The Three Little Pigs, “Faster, Higher, Stronger,” the Three Wise Men, “Lights, Camera, Action,” the Three Blind Mice, and tons of other examples like these.
Given the human brain reacts to three best, everything you need to persuade readers and make them remember your writing is to put your message in a sequence of three.
Trios create a sense of poetry and rhythm, make content more compelling to read, and add stress to your statement.
Final Thoughts
So, here they go, the top 30 writing techniques from literature to use in your texts for more engaging and persuasive content. They work for various content types:
Whether you craft blog articles, marketing texts, poetry, short stories, or novels — these literary devices help your texts blossom.
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