Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [symbolism]

This tag should be used for questions that deal with symbolism in your writing, such as techniques that help you present it to your reader.

This tag should be used for questions that deal with symbolism in your writing, such as s that help you present it to your reader.

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Sometimes a banana is just a banana

Often reading analyses of books and films, I find that the analytics derive conclusions from the specific food or beverage that a character consumes. The food appears to always be symbolic of something. Now, I'm not completely oblivious to what food…
Galastel supports GoFundMonica
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Monsters of psychological horror

According to Wikipedia, psychological horror is Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror and psychological fiction that relies on mental, emotional and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle readers, [...] and it often uses…
Liquid
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Symbolism of number of crows?

After having read a few books with themes of witchcraft in them (ie. Terry Pratchett's Carpe Jugulum), I have come to want to use some of the symbolism found in those books in my own writing. What I really would like to use is the symbolism behind a…
user38728
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How do we create our own symbolisms?

In the Bible, the apple is a symbol for knowledge, immortality, temptation, the fall of man and sin. The book itself gave the apple a symbolic meaning. How can you as an author give an object like the apple your own meaning? And how do you make sure…
user36239
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How can I add more depth to my poem?

I used to write poems. I was in 4th grade, so I just wrote for fun. They didn't have any figurative language or symbols. My only goal was to make them rhyme. Here is an example of one of mine: The topic was risky The judge wasn’t blank, but…
Marvin
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Why is having too many symbols a bad idea?

I'm writing a speech on using symbols, and I've just made the statement that you should generally stick with one, maybe two, symbols that span the story (smaller symbols that arise and fade quickly don't apply to this limit so much). I now have to…
Thomas Reinstate Monica Myron
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Symbolism of 18 Journeyers

In my story, 12 year old Ruth has visions from another place and time which lead her to gather a group of kids for a quest. She is told there will be 18 kids, but she can only find 17 with the specific requirement. They travel together and, upon…
Cyn
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How do you tell your reader that a number is a numerologically important number?

How do you tell your reader that a number is a numerologically important number? Some people use numerology in their books and attach secret meanings to some numbers, but there are a lot of times where you would use numbers without wanting to attach…
user36239
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How to avoid getting confused while adding symbols within symbols (novel writing)?

For instance, I'm writing a novel where the main character is wandering in a city which represents his wife (symbol number one), but then the places he visits within the city also represent the bad relationship he is having with his wife (e.g. a…
wyc
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How can an allegory be made less overt?

Animal Farm is, famously, an allegory of the 1917 Russian Revolution and its aftermath. If you didn't know that -- much as I didn't, when I read it as a teenager -- it nonetheless stands up on its own. While the symbolism, from what I recall, is…
Xophmeister
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How do we write a movie script with a view towards establishing all of the visual symbolisms and how they should be interpreted?

How do we write a movie script with a view towards establishing all of the visual symbolisms and how they should be interpreted? Often, movie scripts often only have dialogues and some very brief descriptions, but they don't describe how the camera…
user36239
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What kind of effect can the name of a place or character have on a reader?

My question is rather simple. In fact, it's in the title and requires almost no explanation. We can see throughout literature the use of names and title. For example in Of Mice and Men we can observe that in the duration of the novel Curly's Wife is…
Featherball
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How to create a scene for a dialogue?

Everybody knows how an important part of writing is the ability to compose proper dialogue. I've even heard that publishers tend to jump to the first conversation in a received draft and see if it works. This makes sense to me as nothing sets a…
Rico
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How to prevent other elements from an allegorical film from being misinterpreted?

How to prevent other elements from an allegorical film from being misinterpreted? Let's say you make a film where the character is in a dark world and runs after a light. The light is the end of the tunnel, where the end is death. The dark world is…
user36239
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How to cue in our readers that we are using an uncommon symbolism?

We all know some common symbolism: For instance, red stands for anger, blood, and violence. The cross stands for martyrdom and sacrifice. Common symbols are easy to notice, but what if you decided to use uncommon symbolism, how do you cue in your…
user36239
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