Part I: Personification

What's personification? An easy tool to make your setting really POP! Read on to find out how to use it!

Have you ever written a paragraph of a story you were working on, read it back, and grumbled at how plain, uninspiring, or boring it was? Well, we all have. Even if you’ve got ideas in your head, as great as they might sound inside, sometimes you’ll put them on the screen and completely disappoint yourself. What sounded like an exciting, action packed scene in your mind now looks like a trudging block of exposition. It’s boring.

Don't let your exposition stay looking like this!

    Well don’t let it get you down. It’s just something that’s going to happen when you’re pounding your thoughts into material. Quite often, even if what you just wrote looks terrible to you, it’s still a vital step in the creative process. It’s extremely important to put your thoughts down in written form. So many “writers” have the story all in their heads! It might be amazing and inspiring and wonderful, but no one can see it. That’s why actually filtering the ideas out of your mind into visible form is so important, but it’s of course only the first step.

    Let’s go back to that boring block of exposition. Odds are that you’re going to have to dissect it, chop it up, sew it back together, and send a bolt of lightning into it before “It’s alive!” Silly, but truer than you think. Quite often you will have to remove entire sections of writing, even if your productive ego tells you “What are you doing!?” It just feel unnatural and wrong to delete something you put in your story, but trust me, don’t be afraid of it. Often less is far more, and there’s only one way to find out when that’s true.

    But that still doesn’t say much for energizing that dead chunk of text. If you chop up paragraph cadavers and splice them back together, you’re still using dead word-meat. What do you need next? A bolt of lightning! But where do you find that? Well, there are many viable alternatives to a lightning rod affixed to your roof. Writing is an art, and just as there are a myriad different ways to bring a painting to life, the same can be said when it comes to writing. I’m going to bring out one that I personally like to employ in my work.

    Personification. What’s that? Well, basically it’s when you take an lifeless, inanimate object, and give it active, even human traits. If you cut eyes and a mouth into your sandwich and make it talk, I suppose that’s personification. Thankfully we can be much more subtle when it comes to writing. How can we do this? Well the best way to explain is with an example.

The wind moved the curtains.

This sentence of exposition is to the point, but it’s also pretty boring. I think I just yawned.

The blackened night exhaled a heavy breath against the curtains as they fluttered in a ghostly dance.

Alright, I’ll admit I went a little overboard there, but this looks a lot better, doesn’t it?

    Looking at those two sentences, why is the second one funner to read? It’s hardly because of the dramatic descriptive adjectives. Don’t believe me? Then let’s strip it bare, leaving only the personifications.

The night exhaled a breath against the curtains as they fluttered and danced.

    It still sounds pretty darn good, doesn’t it? Some would even prefer this version to the last. Why? Well that’s a key point when it comes to personification. A writer can pile on all the fancy adjectives he wants onto his work, but when you overuse adjectives, you’re telling the reader what something is like, you’re not showing them what it’s like. That’s probably the most widely preached mantra of writing: Show, don’t tell.

Maybe this is a bit too literal of a visual aid, but I kind of want middle one's number and to have a brewski with the one on the left.

    When you utilize a personification as opposed to a handful of adjectives, you’re giving your setting human characteristics. Obviously, any human is going to more fully connect with human characteristics. It hits home harder, and it wraps us up in the scene. You see? That’s a personification right there “It wraps us into to the scene”. Obviously a sentence or paragraph cannot physically wrap around your body, but through use of a personification, your mind immediately grasps the idea behind that phrase and interprets it in a very literal, visceral way. That’s why personifications are so powerful when read. You might not even see them as you read, but they’re there, and they make you keep reading.

    So now that you understand exactly what personification is, why don’t you try it out? I guarantee that you already use it in your writing, even if you never thought about it before, but now that we are thinking about it, let’s practice and evolve this particular skill.

    Below is a list of random, lifeless objects. They’re lifeless because they’re not breathing and thinking, but you personally can breathe life into them through personification, and they will repay the favor by breathing life into your story.

Wind
Marble/s
Camera
Dress
Xylophone

    So take each of these boring, inanimate objects, and use personification to place them each in a sentence that imbues them with life and human characteristics. Remember to make good use of active verbs, not passive ones (like were, had, and was), and for a twist, try to use little to no adjectives in each sentence. Don’t be afraid of using emotion! Just because a mansion can not feel literal sorrow, it can look very sad and alone as it sits atop a dark, cloudy mountaintop, right?

    Post your practice results in the comments section and let me know how personification works for you!

Comments

Megan Doeden

Posted 10 Years Ago As the wind shuffles with my feet, I whisper your name to the trees as they sway gracefully. The marbles spin as if time was moving with them. They gradually stop as if time was on their side. The camera screams as it captures the moment in time that will no longer forget. The Dress glides and sways as if it never wants you to forget how to move. The Xylophone hums feelings beautifully.

Chloe Yeoman

Posted 10 Years Ago The wind echoed across the small room making a few marbles roll carelessly across the floor. Me sitting behind the camera, with it's large un-blinking eye ready to take a picture of the dress from a bygone era. In the background I could hear a xylophone tinkling with its haunting tune.

Zachary Esher

Posted 10 Years Ago The wind drug the leaves behind it, like cans behind an old Cadillac. They danced along in strings of light that pierced through drifting clouds. God, a master puppeteer. The hiss of film winding, as his magic camera painted the scene. I tuned out the subtle distractions, and flicked my stiff thumb. The marble leaped from my finger tip. Rolling.. rolling proudly.. rolling fast. Right past all the others. Her snobby snickers, that sinister pink dress taunting me. Humiliating me. "keepsy weepsies" She plucked my favorite cat eye from the circle, and stuffed it into her pocket. Just then the toy xylophone sung out to me from the sidewalk. Yes.. that's it! The xylophone whaled before sinking it's teeth into those dreadful curls. I turned back to her with a devious grin stretched from ear to ear, marble safely tucked away in my fanny pack. "keepsy weepsies... b***h" I really enjoyed personification... Thank you!

BThomvanWart

Posted 10 Years Ago Life used to be here. This once happy space used to be a festival of lights every year. But, now, it's cold. Wind blows harshly against a broken windowpane. A dress, once vibrant and new, hangs on the back of the bedroom door, faded with old age. Marbles lay on the floor before a small, twin bed. The marbles paint soft splashes of color against the floorboards. Photographs, discolored and peeling, set upon a lopsided dresser - the camera they were shot with now sets on the floor, its cracked lens aimed towards a crumbling, yellowed wall. Life used to be here, but time moves ever so slow, yet forever moving.

Gilley

Posted 10 Years Ago Camera clicks count the years. A new dress is the future. The xylophone tinkles like a baby's laugh.

Gilley

Posted 10 Years Ago The wind danced me down the hill. Marbles roll as randomly as my mind.

Kalen Luciano

Posted 10 Years Ago The wind screeched as it tore the mailbox out of the ground. In her hands, the marbles hit each other with aggression. In the darkness, the camera shined its light. The dress danced into the girl's knees. The xylophone sung after each strike.

Gypsy Nation

Posted 10 Years Ago As the wind whirled and came thrusting upon her, she held her ground aganist a force so strong. In her hand she grasped a colorful cold marble, as she dropped it she looked upon colorful shattered pieces. Upon the table stood what would soon withhold the essence of her beauty, shot after shot, sustaining every moment. She soon fell in love with such a wonder, she new camera. Melodies that triggered the heart, wooden styling that caught the eye, it almost seemed like the xylophone would be the cure of the broken heart.

Rosemary

Posted 10 Years Ago The wind howled and screamed, making Kira shudder in spite of herself. One by one the marbles on her dress fell and rolled, their voices echoing in the empty room. The camera sat in the corner, looking forlorn and just begging to be discovered. It almost seemed as if the xylophone was smiling as it churned out a merry tune at the hands of the boy.

Alex

Posted 10 Years Ago The wind raged outside, smashing and destroying what it came into contact with. Warning of us the storm to come. Marbles rolling, twirling, glistening in the light as a ballerina on a stage. The camera laid there in the corner forgotten like yesterdays dreams. A child reached for it curious and its vision and use was restored. For the moment as often our dreams seep back into our realities. A single dress sat in the corner of the store. It called out to her with its uniqueness. There were many other dresses prettier in comparison but this dress in it simplicity was perfect. He picked up the xylophone and played on its keys, the sharp sound from it broke the silence of the room and everyone turned to stare

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