Literary Devices You Should Be Using (But Probably Aren’t)

There are two kinds of writers who talk about literary devices: those who treat them like SAT flashcards, and those who treat them like forbidden arcane knowledge. Both are annoying. Both miss the point.

Because literary devices aren’t tricks. They’re not academic jargon. They’re not things you memorize to pass an MFA workshop. They are the architecture of good writing. The fingerprint of your voice. The hidden gears under sentences that make them sing—or burn—or bruise.

Literary devices are how writers shape feeling into form. They’re rhythm and resonance. They’re precision. They’re the reason some sentences stick in your throat like grief, while others vanish like a whisper you almost didn’t hear.

You’re probably already using a few of them. But chances are, you’re underusing the good ones. Or worse, using them on accident without understanding why they’re working when they do.

Not with a glossary. With tools. With muscle. With sentences that bleed a little.

If you’re looking for writing companions that can help you brainstorm, organize, and polish your stories while you practice these techniques, give Sudowrite a try →. It’s built for writers who want their words to carry weight.

First, What Counts as a Literary Device?

Basically: anything that bends language in service of meaning.
They’re not just “fancy” techniques. They’re strategies for controlling rhythm, tension, tone, pacing, resonance.

That means everything from alliteration and assonance (sound devices) to metaphor, irony, personification, parallel structure, repetition, contrast, omission, surprise. You already know simile and metaphor. You might be familiar with foreshadowing and irony. Great. Let’s go deeper.

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Here are some of the best ones you should be wielding with intention—not just tripping over like a puppy in a Shakespeare costume.

1. Anadiplosis (The Spiral)

This one’s for echoing a word at the end of one clause and beginning the next. Done right, it feels hypnotic. Done wrong, it’s melodrama. Proceed with flair.

“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” —Yoda, perfectly summarizing intergenerational trauma in twelve words.

Use it when a character is spiraling. Use it when emotion repeats, loops, tightens like a noose.

2. Polysyndeton (And And And)

This is the overthinker’s syntax. It’s what happens when you use too many conjunctions. And it builds, and it builds, and it doesn’t stop, and that’s the point.

“He ran and ran and ran and didn’t stop until the trees thinned and the sky bled orange.”

It mimics overwhelm. Breathlessness. Flood. Use it for panic, obsession, momentum. But use it sparingly, or it just gets muddy.

3. Asyndeton (The Ice Bath of Prose)

This device removes conjunctions (the opposite of the above). It’s jarring. Disconnected. Urgent.

“She came. She saw. She left.”

It’s cold. It’s controlled. Use it to convey panic or brutal precision. Great for numbness, clarity, or punchline.

4. Anaphora (Ritual Repetition)

Repeating the beginning of a sentence or clause to build rhythm and emphasis. It creates inevitability.

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds...” —Winston Churchill

Use it when a character is trying to convince themselves. Or when you want a scene to feel incantatory. Great in emotional spirals or moments of grim resolve.

5. Chiasmus (The Mirror Flip)

When you reverse the structure of a sentence for rhetorical or poetic effect. Think reversal. A ↔ B becomes B ↔ A.

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

Great for revelations, character arcs, moral twists. You can use it in big philosophical moments or even small interpersonal ones:

“He loved her because she left. She left because he loved her.”

That kind of symmetry hits hard.

6. Zeugma (The Show-Off)

Zeugma links two elements with a single verb that applies differently to each.

“She broke his heart and the window.”
“He stole her wallet and her dignity.”

It works best when it surprises—when the emotional punch comes second, buried in the syntax. Don’t overuse it. But when it lands? It sticks.

7. Personification That Actually Hurts

No, not “the moon winked.” That’s not what we’re here for.

We’re talking personification with teeth. Where emotion becomes physical.

“The silence pressed against her like hands.”
“Grief curled in her chest like a sleeping animal.”

Good personification doesn’t just decorate. It reveals. It shapes abstract feelings into sensory truths. Most writers use personification like it’s just poetic fluff. But when it’s emotionally anchored, it becomes devastating.

Ready to polish your prose? Learn the five types of editing to know exactly when it’s time to reshape sentences — and when it’s time to let them breathe.

8. Foreshadowing (aka: Narrative Trust)

This one deserves a full article (and you’ve written one), but in short: foreshadowing is the subtle art of planting emotional or narrative clues that blossom later. It’s a promise to the reader that this story is going somewhere—and that the moment they feel drop like a gut-punch at the end? You earned it.

Need help weaving emotional clues through your narrative? Sudowrite’s guide to unforgettable inciting incidents shows you how to plant seeds that bloom later—without shouting at your reader.

Bad foreshadowing screams. Great foreshadowing whispers.

“He always hated the sound of train whistles.”
And two chapters later, that’s what he hears before he dies.

(Need help weaving better emotional clues through your narrative? Tools like Sudowrite → make subtle foreshadowing easier than ever.)

9. Dramatic Irony (Let the Reader Scream)

The reader knows something the character doesn’t. It creates tension. It creates dread. It creates catharsis.

Juliet’s still alive. Romeo doesn’t know. You do.
That ache you feel? That’s irony working perfectly.

You can also use it for humor, for tragedy, or to give your story a slow-burning fuse.

10. Repetition with Variation (Not Just “Repetition”)

This is where you repeat a phrase or image, but each time, it changes meaning.

Chapter 1: “He always left the porch light on.”
Chapter 5: “The porch light flickered.”
Chapter 9: “The porch was dark.”

Suddenly that tiny image carries an emotional arc. That’s how you make readers feel something with a lamp.

11. Assonance, Alliteration, Euphony, Dissonance

These are sound-level devices, and they matter more than writers think.

• Alliteration: repetition of consonants → “silver smoke spiraled”
• Assonance: repetition of vowels → “slow moan of the road”
• Euphony: soft, harmonious sounds → good for dreamy or reflective scenes
• Dissonance: jarring, ugly sounds → great for horror, violence, heartbreak

If a sentence feels good in the mouth, it lands deeper in the brain. Read aloud. Trust your ear.

12. Apostrophe (No, Not That One)

The literary apostrophe is when a character talks to something that can’t talk back: death, time, God, a memory.

“O Death, be not proud…”
“Where are you, you bastard?”

Use it for grief. For longing. For isolation. It makes a monologue feel like prayer.

13. Synecdoche & Metonymy (The Compression Tools)

These are about substitution: They compress meaning, create intimacy, and avoid repetition without sounding generic.

• Synecdoche: a part represents the whole → “All hands on deck”
• Metonymy: something closely related stands in → “The crown issued a statement”

They reduce language. Tighten prose. Make your writing feel deliberate. You don’t have to use them constantly—but knowing when to swap “the government” for “the Capitol” can help your prose breathe.

Wait—Aren’t Literary Devices the Same as Rhetorical Devices?

Short answer: no. Longer answer: they overlap, but they’re not the same.

Literary devices are used primarily in fiction and poetry to deepen meaning, evoke emotion, shape narrative, and give your prose texture. They’re concerned with how a story feels—how it resonates, how it lives in the reader’s body.

Think: metaphor, foreshadowing, personification, irony. These are tools of storytelling. They build theme, character, and emotional rhythm.

Rhetorical devices, on the other hand, come from persuasion. They’re used to convince, argue, or move an audience to action—more often seen in essays, speeches, and nonfiction. They’re concerned with how an argument lands—how it sounds, how it persuades, how it controls attention.

Think: ethos, pathos, logos. Think rhetorical questions. Think parallelism. Chiasmus straddles the line. So does repetition. The context determines whether it’s working for tone or for logic.

A good writer knows both. A great writer blends them.

If you want to brainstorm rhetorical and literary shifts while you write, check out Sudowrite → — it’s like having a creative sounding board at your fingertips.

Want your protagonist to deliver a devastating monologue? That’s rhetorical firepower. Want your prose to ache with subtext and voice? That’s literary muscle.

The best fiction often leans on both—without calling either by name.

Because this isn’t about labels.

It’s about knowing what you’re doing—and why it works.

Why These Devices Actually Matter

Because rhythm matters. Because syntax matters. Because the way something is said is as powerful as what is said.

Because literary devices:

• Control breath
• Control pacing
• Control mood
• Shape emotional weight

Because a sentence that lands like a spell is more memorable than one that just reports what happened.

“He died.” ← Tells you a fact.
“The world stilled when his name vanished from her breath.” ← Makes you feel it.

That’s the difference.

Should you be worried?

Honestly... no. Because cleverly crafting your sentences to be pretty, is not the best use of your time. Pretty writing doesn't matter, UNLESS you have a great story. And it can even be distracting and annoying.

Study story structure first. Make sure you have great characters and a thrilling plot. Make sure you're showing, not telling. There are a whole bunch of common weak writing and amateur mistakes you'll need to identify and purge, just to get your story into a readable rough draft.

Then, selectively, when you're in final edits and trying to make each dramatic turning point as emotional as possible... that's the perfect time to vary the writing and add some intentional literary or rhetorical devices - soundbites that will resonate and linger.

Don’t Name Them. Use Them.

You don’t need to memorize every term. You don’t have to impress your critique group with your knowledge of zeugma and parataxis. Your readers don’t care what it’s called.

They care about how it feels.

They care about how the sentence moved.
They care about how the words landed.
They care that it left a bruise.

So next time a sentence feels flat—don’t just rewrite it. Reshape it. Twist it. Let the rhythm break and reform. Let the sound carry meaning. Let your sentences ache a little.

Use them when your story needs rhythm. Use them when a simple sentence feels hollow. Use them when you want a line to linger.

And maybe, just maybe, write something that sounds like truth filtered through poetry, and pain filtered through form.

Because that’s when the language stops sounding like writing. And starts sounding like something we needed to hear.

Ready to sharpen your sentences and let your prose sing? Try Sudowrite → — your future readers will feel the difference.

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