Tag: Literary Devices

The Visionary and The Writer

~ Jamal H. Goodwin Jr. ~ 2 Comments

The Visionary. To me, a Visionary is someone who sees the entire picture at once and can intuit numerous, distinct ways of presenting it. As a writing professor in college put it, before you begin writing draft two of a story, you should reflect on the story within the story.

Is such-and-such really a short fiction about a home invader, or is it actually a story about a negligent father who suffers for not paying attention?

Also, consider the scenes we don’t get to see in a character’s life. There is the story the reader has privilege to experience, and then there are events that characters experience (for them in turtle-paced real time) but we don’t see or sometimes even hear about.

An example would be a story that chooses to show a character’s morning routine, their commute to work or school, a scene while their at work, and then it’ll skip to the next day, without showing their commute home or what they did that night.

And even if we got scenes in a character’s home, their commute, work/school, their commute back home, and dinner, those scenes take place within a few pages, not several hours like for us in the real world.

AI-Created with Microsoft Copilot

A Visionary looks at these reader-hidden details and can add them to a story to enhance it. A Visionary can alter or cut scenes. A Visionary is an excellent developmental editor. Essentially, a Visionary is one who practices the art of plotting, outlining, character creation, and theme.

Visionaries are necessary for earth-shattering storytelling. A favorite example of mine is season 3 of the Marvel show Daredevil. Not only did each episode leave me hooked, but also the conclusion was unpredictable. I also felt this in the prison story arc in the novel “Live By Night” by Dennis Lehane.

AI-Created with Microsoft Copilot

The Visionary paints the most excellent blueprint. Elegant. Immaculate. But it is the Writer who assembles the conception. Brick by brick. Word by word. And while the Writer must scoot up close and only see pieces of the blueprint at a time, only the Writer can put the house together, can add the style. The literary devices. The sentence length.

An example would be the short stories and microfiction of Lydia Davis. They often have simple plots, but it’s her masterful sentences that makes readers chuckle or awe at her work.

To be a fiction writer, one must balance visionary thinking and granular thinking. Be sure to find joy in both.

Literary Devices: Hypotaxis

~ Jamal H. Goodwin Jr. ~ Leave a comment

Definition: “Hypotaxis also called subordinating style, is a grammatical and rhetorical term used to describe an arrangement of phrases or clauses in a dependent or subordinate relationship — that is, phrases or clauses ordered one under another. In hypotactic constructions, subordinating conjunctions and relative pronouns serve to connect the dependent elements to the main clause.” – ThoughtCo.

Dependent clauses contain subordinating conjunctions, like “when,” “because,” and “though,” as in, “though he liked ice cream.” The clause is dependent because it cannot stand alone as a sentence; it requires a main clause to make it make sense: “though he liked ice cream, he wasn’t hungry.“

Hypotaxis is stacking multiple dependent clauses before the main clause: “though he liked ice cream because it tasted delicious, especially when it had sprinkles, he wasn’t hungry.“

Why It’s Useful: Stacking dependent clauses in the beginning of a sentence is like the wind-up of a punch–done correctly, the main clause will hit with immense force.

Five Examples of Hypotaxis in Action

(1.

Although Mary sounds heavenly when she sings on-stage, her pre-teen voice gets just as screechy and crooked as all the other kids in her grade.

(2.

To K. Levin, who was a comic I used to open for when I was a beginner—though back then he was a beginner, too, just a damn funny one—it seemed obvious where to insert a punchline.

(3.

Where you were born when the war was taking place said a lot about your future.

(4.

That I remembered where my keys were when my roommate asked me surprised him.

(5.

When Devon found out his wallet was stolen by the same guy he gave directions to, the guy who had the gray, muck-splotched jean jacket with holes in it, the guy who had an optimism in his voice, like his hope would thrust him toward his university aspirations like a clown from a cannon—although the guy didn’t seem reckless like a clown: his clasped palms as he spoke hinted he was a cautious man—the guy who wiped his temples while Devon spoke, wiped them, Devon, assumed, to keep the tears out of his eyes as Devon loaned him $30 to catch a cab, Devon himself almost teary-eyed after hearing his story—when Devon found out his wallet that had a rare photo of his daughter and his last two credit cards was stolen, he forgot where he was and collapsed on the ground as he let out his scream.