How to use language devices in your own writing: a seven-step process

Most of the time, you study language devices by analysing someone else’s writing. In Paper 2, the job is reversed: you use them yourself. That applies to Section A, Questions 1(a) and 1(b), and to Section B, extended writing. Wherever a task asks you to write imaginatively, descriptively or persuasively, devices are the tools that let you control how your writing feels to a reader.

The secret is to choose a device for a reason. A device dropped in at random rarely impresses. A device chosen to create a specific effect does real work.

Five devices, five effects

Personification for suspense. Personification gives human qualities or intent to something that is not human. Take this line: “The door handle turned itself before she reached it, as if it had been waiting.” There are two moments of personification here. “Turned itself” gives the handle its own will. “Had been waiting” goes further, giving it patience and intent, something close to a mind. An object acting with intent removes the usual explanation for what is happening and replaces it with threat, because the reader cannot dismiss it as an accident.

Try it: give one ordinary object in your scene a small, deliberate action, and let the reader wonder why.

Imagery for anticipation. Imagery appeals to the senses. In a travel piece: “Even from the ferry, I could smell woodsmoke drifting from a village I hadn’t seen yet.” The word “smell” only tells us which sense is involved; the imagery itself is “woodsmoke drifting”, a detail rich enough that the reader can almost catch the scent. Because the sensory detail arrives before the place does, the destination feels earned rather than simply reached.

Try it: let one sense, smell, sound or touch, reach your narrator before the sight does.

Symbolism for drama. Symbolism uses an object, colour or image to represent something deeper than its literal meaning. In “She placed the ring on the table between them and said nothing else”, the symbol is simply the ring. The placing, the table and the silence stage it, but the ring alone carries the unspoken meaning: a decision has just been made. One object carrying a decision raises the stakes without any explanation, so the drama lands in the silence.

Try it: choose one small object to stand in for a decision your character has made, and let it speak instead of your narrator.

Alliteration for excitement. Alliteration repeats the same consonant sound at the start of nearby words. In “Boots pounded, breath burned. The bell rang before he reached it”, the clearest example is “breath burned”, two neighbouring words with the same hard “b” sound. “Boots”, “bell” and “before” repeat it further apart, so the sound keeps returning through the line. The repeated hard sound speeds the sentence up in the reader’s ear, mirroring the urgency of the moment.

Try it: pick one short, punchy consonant sound and repeat it across a fast-moving sentence at your story’s most active point.

Euphemism for tension. Euphemism replaces a harsh or blunt phrase with something milder. In “The doctor said we should discuss next steps, and nobody in the room asked what that meant”, the euphemism is “discuss next steps”. Softening the hard truth makes the reader feel what is being avoided rather than what is said, and that avoidance is where the tension lives.

Try it: let a character soften one hard truth with a gentler phrase, and let the silence around it do the rest.

The seven-step process

You will not have model sentences in the exam, so you need a process you can run for any device and any effect.

1. Text purpose. What is the writing trying to do: entertain, inform, persuade or reflect?
2. Audience. Who is reading, and what tone do they expect from you?
3. Know the effect. In a writing question, the effect you need is usually given in the task. You are not inventing it; you are recognising it and building towards it.
4. Imagine the scene. Before you write a word, see it, hear it and feel it. What is actually happening in this moment?
5. Choose words. Pick the device and the exact words that will create the effect, deliberately rather than by accident.
6. Write it into context. Draft the sentence in the real voice of the text type. A blog post does not sound like a formal letter, and your writing should not either.
7. Read it back. Does it deliver the effect you were asked for? If not, adjust it.

A worked example

Here are the seven steps applied to alliteration for excitement.

Purpose: to entertain. Audience: young adult readers. Effect: excitement, because the task asks for it. Scene: a music concert the writer recently went to. Words: a repeated hard consonant sound, timed to the beat of the music.

Written into context, for a blog post: “The bass boomed, bodies bounced, and by the encore, my hands were pretty much done clapping for the night.”

The repeated “b” sound gives the sentence its own rhythm, so the reader hears the beat of the concert in the words rather than just reading about it. Read back, it does what a blog post for young adults needs: it entertains and puts the reader in the crowd.

Your turn

Run the same seven steps for personification, imagery, symbolism and euphemism. Choose your own text type and audience for each, and see what you can build. Start small: one device, one effect, in your next piece of writing.