The Glossary, A-D

Week of January 22, 2012—Picture Book Writer’s Glossary

Monday, January 23, 2012—The Glossary, A-D

PICTURE BOOK WRITER’S GLOSSARY

-A-

Alliteration—repetition of sounds in two or more stressed syllables (see also: Assonance and Consonance.) See: http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/03/alliteration-and-assonancefabulous-fun.html.

Anthropomorphism—giving human characteristics to non-human things, usually animals. See: http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/06/anthropomorphic-main-characters.html.

Assonance—repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming in phrases and/or sentences. For instance: “Do you like blue?” Also called vowel rhyme. See: http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/03/alliteration-and-assonancefabulous-fun.html.

Attributes—describing the qualities and/or characteristics of people, places, things, ideas, objects. Attributes could include size, color, shape, movement/action, symmetry, texture, number, composition, smell, taste, function, location, habitat, direction, orientation, temperature, weight, age, and so on. (Attributes are more than adjectives. Attributes seek to describe with details, and adjectives are usually used to merely list characteristics. See: http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/02/forget-adjectives-think-attributes.html.

-B-

-C-

Circular ending—ending the story in the same way that you began it or ending where you began. For instance with the same onomatopoeia, same phrase, same details, and so on. See: http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/02/effective-endings.html.

Consonance—repetition of consonant sounds in phrases and/or sentences. For instance: The silver snow slid down from the sky.

Conventions—commonly accepted rules of edited American English (e.g., spelling, usage, capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure).

-D-

Defining terms in context—defining a word within the context of writing. For instance: The Smack Down, an exciting wrestling event, occurs once a month at the arena. OR That yellow flowering shrub is a forsythia.

Defining terms in parentheses—this technique can add sentence variety while also providing a definition. For instance: The in-the-park homerun (a homerun where the ball never leaves the playing field) won the game.

Denouement—the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot. The ah-h-h-h moment at the end of a story. See: http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/07/heart-gravitas-denouement.html.

Dialogue (purposeful)—purposeful dialogue is dialogue that moves the action of the writing along, adds details, gives insight into characters, and so on. Writers should avoid chit-chat or he-said-she-said writing with long sections of dialogue. A good rule of thumb is to insert action or details between each exchange of dialogue. See: http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/05/dialogue-vs-voice.html and http://robsanderswrites.blogspot.com/2011/05/dialogue-tags.html.

Draft—preliminary version of a piece of writing that may need editing and revision of details, organization, and conventions