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January 2025
It’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Most people love the season’s beauty. Some even like its sub-zero temperatures. The season inspires painters, poets, photographers and storytellers of all kinds to try and describe its challenging mixture of beauty and danger.
One of the most effective ways of capturing the essence of winter is through writing beautifully simple haiku.
Haiku is a three line Japanese verse form with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line and 5 syllables in the third line, making a total of 17 syllables.
In case you don’t remember, syllables are the separate parts of the sounds of a word. “Snow” is a 1 syllable word. “Frosty” is a 2 syllable word. “Icicle” is a 3 syllable word. The two words “nighttime snowfall” together have 4 syllables.
Looking at images of winter can be an enjoyable and effective way to get started writing a haiku, or any other poem. Have a look at this example of a winter themed haiku based on an 1857 woodblock print by Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige.

For a selection of copyright free images by Japanese artists that could inspire your haiku, click on this link from the Library of Congress:
Free to Use and Reuse: Japanese Fine Prints

Winter Sonnets
If you want to take a longer look at winter, try writing a winter sonnet. Sonnets provide a means of pushing your ability to explore ideas within a prescribed form. The lesson linked in the button below includes information about sonnets and how to write them, with explanations of rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter.

January 24, 2025
Consider using prolepsis for essay writing and generally winning arguments.
This rhetorical technique is a simple way of partly or completely reducing the effectiveness of objections to any point you use to support your thesis. It works by raising objections to your ideas before any critic has a chance to criticize them. You then proceed to explain why the criticism is wrong, and thereby potentially deflate any attempt to devalue your argument.
This is a strategy many people use naturally in their daily interactions. Think of a child who knows what their parent will say when they ask for a new game. The child will make a mental list of these familiar objections and be prepared with their own counterarguments. This is prolepsis.

For more discussion of how to use this technique in an essay, please go to the essays page:

If you would like to buy a copy of a lesson on the topic, here is link to a full lesson in writing an essay using prolepsis with step by step instructions and an organizing template.

February 24, 2025
What’s the difference between symbol, motif and theme?
The simplest and most accurate answer is to say that symbols represent ideas which can be repeated to create a motif which can then reinforce the theme, or big idea, of a work.

The word “symbol” comes from the Greek word “sumballo” (σῠμβάλλω), which means “I throw together”. This meaning makes use of the sense that ideas are combined, or thrown together, to show another meaning.

Symbols can be non-linguistic. The emojis used in all aspects of online life are good examples of symbols and proof of how easily and naturally people associate ideas. A laughing face emoji, 😆, can mean something is funny, or embarrassing, or ridiculous or any other characteristic that suits the context of the intended message.

In literature, words act as symbols by suggesting connected meanings. The word “heart” is linked to ideas of love, romance, devotion, affection, faith etc. and could be used to maintain a motif on any of these related ideas in order to emphasize a theme.

Motifs make use of repeated symbols to reinforce ideas related to the theme, or main idea of a work.

Here are two examples of how symbols and motifs work together to make a theme obvious:

Theme: energy

Symbol: a river current

How this symbol could work in a motif: the energy of a river current could be seen carrying boats, floating logs, creating whirlpools, eroding riverbanks.


Theme: joy

Symbol: a balloon

How this symbol could work in a motif: a colourful balloon dancing on the wind as it rises above the ground.


Theme: human potential

Symbol: a seed

How this symbol could work in a motif: a seed contains the possibility for a plant to grow and develop.

If you would like to buy a lesson on the relationship between symbol, motif and theme, here is link to a full lesson including definitions, examples and practice exercises.

A collection of ten literary device lessons is also available:

April 1, 2025

Using Dialogue To Show Setting
Imagine you’re writing radio play. The audience has no stage to look at and see actors in a kitchen or on a plane or in a restaurant or at a beach. There is no visual input. You’re writing a play, so you don’t have a narrator. Unless you’re using soliloquies, you need a way to fill in details of the setting.
In this situation, the only way to show setting is to build it into characters’ speeches. If the drama is on a sail boat, include talk about salt water spray blowing in people’s faces and sails cracking in the wind. If the setting is a factory floor, the characters talk about foremen, conveyor belts and have to yell to be heard over the noise.


Using Speech to Show Setting :

A restaurant setting:

— What are you having? I’m thinking the grilled cheese.

— I don’t know. It’s all the same old, same old menu.


Walking down a country road late at night:

— Get out of the middle of the road! 

— What? I’m gonna be hit by all the 3 am traffic to nowhere?


On a train:

— Where were you?

— Hiding from the boss. He’s in the dining car.


In a laundromat:

— Look at you staring at the dryers. You’re mesmerized.

— Quiet. Get more quarters for the next load.

Here is a link to buy a lesson in using dialogue to show setting: