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The element of surprise

The element of surprise. Keeping your reader on the edge of their seat through unique descriptions. Why does surprise work?. Stimulates the reader Possible connection to our survival mechanisms Brains get stimulated by an unexpected twist of language. Show no mercy in editing.

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The element of surprise

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Presentation Transcript

  1. The element of surprise Keeping your reader on the edge of their seat through unique descriptions

  2. Why does surprise work? • Stimulates the reader • Possible connection to our survival mechanisms • Brains get stimulated by an unexpected twist of language

  3. Show no mercy in editing • Let your usual phrases and word choice appear in the first draft • Kill, beat, burn out everything that smells predictable in the editing process • Get rid of cliches, formulaic, lazy writing • Fill the gaps with language that creates interest

  4. Use familiar words in a new way • Compare the two sentences: • He crosses the consulting room’s red carpeting, his grotesquely ugly face like a big toads. No real surprises (tired cliché in grotesquely ugly and an overused metaphor (an ugly face and a big toad) • He crosses the room’s endometrial carpeting, his marvellously ugly face like a clenched fist in a glove puppet. Surprise comes from the connection to an endometrial carpet and the unusual choice of a glove puppet

  5. Rhetorical Choices • Tools that will create added emphasis include: • Indirection (fake one way and then reverse the meaning) • “If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question” • Oxymoron (pairs incongruous or contradictory terms) • “engagingly demented” or “deep inconsequence”

  6. Rhetorical Choices • Enallage (using one part of speech for another) • “Grammar? I’ll grammar you” • Neologisms (invented word formations) • “schmooseoisie” from the talk show host “schmooze” and the disinterested wealthy class of the “bourgeoisie”

  7. Practice sentences • Fill in the hint words (words in parenthesis) with something surprising • “At Ozzfest, a pile of bands (played) through their inner children.” • “His smile beamed everywhere in the large room, as if his teeth were (unbelievably shiny).” • “He was older than (the hills) now and (likely) to make 100 years”

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