Spice Up Your Drafts with Three Simple Literary Strategies

We have all been there: whether you're helping a friend to edit an assignment they may be working on, or surfing the web hoping to find that entertaining read to feel alive inside again (college lit majors will definitely relate with me here), sometimes, you just get bored. I said it.

Even worse, sometimes the prose we write is what makes us contemplate jumping out of a window for any small amount of stimulation (Scary right? But the goal is to become a better writer, so try to keep yourself in the building, or at least pick an exit close to the ground). Do you struggle with writing prose so dry you need eye-drops? Are you looking for imaginative ways to make your readers' hearts palpitate with anticipation and excitement? Read on to discover three simple tools you can use to make your text stand out!

Ideally, you'd would want to know every strategy ever conceived and discussed within every musty old tome in order to create interesting texts. Well, I didn't pay enough money for my education, so for now, you'll have to put up with only three.

But, I assure you, they do kick ass.

1. Absolutely Abuse Alliteration

One of the quickest ways to make writing extremely fun for readers is to occasionally alliterate your language. Ironically, its eerily similar doppelgänger "illiterate,"offers the quickest route for your writing to become a raging dumpster fire (at least, that's how my Regional Lit professor described my final midterm). But all misplaced vowels cast aside, alliteration can provide readers with a stimulating salve to supplant stale slogs through sentence-slurries (See what I did there?).

The trick, you'll see, lies in your ability as a writer to make the words musical. Not many people would enjoy navigating a sentence beginning with the same letter, because there is no contrast. The best alliterations will turn phrases like this:

He sat on the motorcycle, and revved the engine. He enjoyed the sound.

Into word-smith beasts like this:

He hammered the Harley's throttle hard—reveling in the hefty, radical rumbling.

This strategy is certainly no substitute for good writing practices, but if you drop it in sparingly, you can help break up long, monotonous passages, and better retain the attentions of your audience. Even better, you'll create soothing melodies and intonations to turn your words into music, and when was the last time you hated listening to your favorite album? My point stands.

2. Craft a Chiasmus

The cleverest writers can not only create stunning, attractive word-entrees to lure in readers, but almost appear to do so effortlessly. Many times, they may even dive into the way they present their written arguments themselves, and attempt to use the presentation of words to create catchy content. One fun way to do this is to practice using chiasmus, the statement, and then restatement, of literary ideas to essentially compare and contrast an argument. While this might not immediately make sense, chances are you have probably done this before yourself: let's take a look!

We can start by looking at a phrase like this:

When I ate my three-day-old hamburger, it ruined my tastebuds.

And stating the main idea, then reversing it like so:

The three-day-old hamburger tortured my tongue, and my appetite was soured.

Incorporating this trick from time to time provides a refreshing oasis of literary delight to your audience, and can go miles to help you craft fascinating, compelling work! Never doubt the power of a few altered, repetitive clauses!

3. Write Musical Prose

If we consider the fact that anyone who encounters a piece of writing will most likely have the attention span of a lobotomized goldfish, it becomes pretty apparent that the construction of written content should appeal to short attention spans. This means you too! I know you love writing long-winded prose that might pass for encyclopedia entries, but stop it. That's no good. Instead, use short sentences. Maybe try a medium one every now and then. And, be sure to shake it up: your text should always provoke readers, appear improvised, and catch their eye!

In order to write for the easily bored, punctuation is your friend! Try a colon: they form a pause in the reader's mind as they scan through a document. If you are looking for a smoother, faster way to catch readers up to speed, the em dash—similar to a colon—flows very nice as well. Finally, commas are a great way to structure lists that break up sentence rhythm, partition separate ideas, and keep readers on the hook.

And that's all I have for you today! I could probably have given you a couple more ideas than this, but where's the fun in that? You really have enough to start creating beautiful, engaging writing—I promise. So go forth! Wield your pens and keyboard, and create the masterpiece I know is worthy of your time and effort. You will only become better the more you practice, so there's no reason not to start right now!

Like what you've read? Be sure to check out my entire poetry collection at https://allpoetry.com/Chris_Dyrland-Marquis, or my newest love poetry book, Bitter Blossom Thunderclouds on the Apple iBook store! You can also see all of my available texts here on the site's "Available Books" section.

Yours,

Christopher Dyrland-Marquis