1. Smiley Face Tricks
Tricks of the writing trade to help you meet and exceed writing expectations.
Ideas developed by Mary Ellen Ledbetter
Powerpoint created by Gwen S. Thibadeau

2. Why use Smiley Face Tricks???
These writing techniques are common tools that ALL authors use.
They are proven to add personality, voice, style, and reader interest.

3. A technique writers use to list items-the items must follow
Magic 3
A technique writers use to list items-the items must follow
the same pattern.  Technically referred to as Parallel Structure.

4. M3--Example
Most people think I’m weird because I love reading more than parties, sleeping more than going out, and working with kids more than adults.

5. Hyphenated Modifier
A technique writers use to creatively describe or rename someone or something rather than using plain one word adjectives. A boring, one-word adjective is replaced by a phrase or clause that might come to mind when the person is in that particular situation.

6. --Jodi Picoult The Tenth Circle
HM--Example
“ Trixie slipped into the bathroom, where she splashed water on her face and tried to take deep, even social-disaster-avoidance breaths, the way she’d done in science class when they were dissecting a frog and she was sure she would throw up on her lab partner.”
--Jodi Picoult The Tenth Circle

7. Specific Details
Also known as imagery, this technique appeals to the senses and includes enough detail to allow the reader to identify with the description.

8. SD--Example
Her car reeked of stale cigarette smoke.  The back seat was speckled with charred black holes where the cigarette ashes had burned what used to be the pale gray plush fabric.

9. Repetition for Effect
While repetition without careful consideration can be tedious and ineffective, a carefully selected word or phrase repeated can add incredible emphasis!

10. RE--Example
When all of my friends made fun of me for falling down the stairs, you didn’t. When everyone else had left me out of the game, you didn’t. When the team made me sit on the bench, you didn’t. When all of the soldiers came home from the war, you didn’t.

11. Figurative Language
This technique finds new and creative ways to describe people, places, things, and ideas.
Similes—metaphors—hyperbole—personification
It incorporates fresh and creative similes and metaphors, not cliches.

12. FL- Example
There were girls standing in the lobby, fixing their lipstick in the reflection of the plate-glass windows and toddlers weaving through the denim forest of grown-up legs. --Jodi Picoult The Tenth Circle

13. Expanded Moment
This technique involves the writer leaving the main story line to go into the character’s mind and explain a related experience or idea.

14. EM Example
After the car accident, I held my father’s head cradled in my lap.  I talked to him and tried to keep him conscious for as long as possible.  I reminded him of the time we went fishing, and as we tried to load the boat onto the trailer, he slipped and fell, scattering fish all in the mud on the edge of the lake.  I stood by the truck and laughed as he struggled to stand up.  Suddenly, I heard the police sirens, and I told my father as he struggled to keep his eyes open that help was almost here.  He died before the police arrived.

15. Humor
Writers use humor for many reasons... not only to create a connection with the reader and cause him/her to laugh, but also to lighten the mood in a tense or serious situation.

16. H—Example
Sitting at the funeral home waiting for the services to begin, the old man knew what he would miss most about his wife of sixty years: her lying in bed waving the covers up and down, giggling as she vented her toot.

17. Full Circle Ending
Writers will often begin a piece of writing with a key word or phrase, develop the piece, and will bring the reader back to the key word or phrase at the ending.

18. FCE--Example
She was fat and happy.  The day she gave birth to her first child was amazing.  Everything was perfect.  The child had a beautiful head of hair, all ten fingers and toes, and slept rather than crying like most babies do.  Now, as an old woman sitting in her favorite chair visiting with three of her great grandchildren, again she was fat and happy.

19. THE END