1. Smiley Face Tricks for Writing

2. REPETITION FOR EFFECT ☺Repeat a symbol, sentence starter, important word, etc. ☺Repeat specially chosen words/phrases to make a point/to stress certain ideas ☺Decide purpose before you begin writing

3. BEFORE I hate writer’s block! AFTER I hate writer’s block! I can’t think of anything to write. I can’t come up with words for this crazy assignment. I can’t create anything new. I can’t, and I won’t!

4. Before I love my cell phone.

5. After Your turn! I love my cell phone…

6. HYPHENATED MODIFIERS ☺Connect two or more adjectives or adverbs together with a hyphen ☺Lends an air of originality and sophistication to writing

7. Before She rolled her eyes at her mother and turned her nose up with a sniff. After She rolled her eyes at her mother and turned her nose up with an I-can't-believe-you- actually-said-that sniff.

8. Before I will be a college freshman next year.

9. Your Turn I will be a __-__-__-__-__ freshman next year.

10. SPECIFIC DETAILS / IMAGERY ☺Helps your readers visualize the person, place, thing, or idea you’re writing about ☺Appeal to at least 3 of the 5 senses

11. Before: My grandma’s house is nice.

12. Your Turn My grandma’s house is …

13. After: I sit on the porch of my grandma’s beautiful Victorian-style house. I gaze at the endless green fields filled with corn and barley and wheat. Crows swoop right in front of me, searching for a bit of nourishment. I can smell the bite of fall in the air; I can hear the soft dropping of red and yellow and orange leaves; I can almost taste Grandma’s pumpkin cookies as they bake. On this porch, in this moment, I am at peace with the world.

14. Your Turn Write your own description of this. Be creative; be humorous; have fun.

15. MAGIC 3 ☺Three items in a series ☺Separated by commas ☺Creates a poetic rhythm ☺Adds support for a point

16. Examples I was so excited that I jumped, cried, and smiled. I was so excited that I jumped up and down, cried huge tears of joy, and plastered a huge smile on my face. BEFORE AFTER

17. Before: Cooking requires chopping, seasoning, and sautéing.

18. Your Turn Cooking requires chopping, seasoning, and sautéing.

19. After: Chopping vegetables into bite- sized pieces, adding herbs and spices to “kick it up a notch”, and sautéing until the tidbits are juicy, make cooking an enjoyable pastime for me.

20. Your Turn – pick one

21. Alliteration Before: Thunderstorms hit central Indiana yesterday. After: Storms socked the state’s middle on Saturday. V for Vendetta

22. Alliteration YOUR TURN Write about your favorite place to eat – include an example of alliteration

23. Simile –a comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as” Before: It’s a simple plan. After: The plan is simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. Similes in songs

24. Simile YOUR TURN -- Write a simile -- same topic – your favorite restaurant

25. Metaphor ☺ States a comparison between two unlike things without using any special words. She is a walking dictionary. My husband is a couch potato.

26. Before: The ghost might lead you astray! After: “What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff?” Blake Shelton Taylor Swift

27. Metaphor YOUR TURN -- Write a metaphor-- same topic – your favorite restaurant

28. Personification ☺Gives a non-human thing, human characteristics or human actions. Look at my car. Isn’t she a beauty? The wind whispered through the dry grass. The flowers danced in the gentle breeze. The fire swallowed the entire forest.

29. Before: I scratched my arm on the twig. After: Your turn…

30. After: Racing toward the house as the storm approached, I was delayed as the trees reached for me. They began to wrap their twisted arms and gnarled hands around me. I fought back, but they didn’t lessen their grip; instead, they began to screech at me as they pulled me into their grove. Personification

31. Onomatopoeia Words whose SOUND imitates the sound of the thing being named Batman

32. Your turn

33. HYPERBOLE ☺ hyperbole

34. HUMOR ☺ When possible ☺ When appropriate ☺ Inject a little humor to keep your reader awake

35. Humorous Before: Chinese food seems to last forever in the refrigerator. After: I believe the only food that should be kept around is take-out Chinese, which contains a powerful preservative chemical called “kung-pao” that enables it to remain edible for several football seasons.

36. PUN ☺A joke that comes from a play on words ☺It can make use of a word’s multiple meanings a word’s homonym a word’s rhymes

37. Before: Sir Lancelot told us the bad dream he had about his horse. After: Sir Lancelot told us the bad dream he had about his horse; it was a real knight mare. Puns in the grocery store