Can You Make It Even Bigger?

Here's a creative writing exercise: Exaggerate. A lot. Experiment with hyperbole.

 Here’s a definition of hyperbole taken from dictionary.com: 1.obvious and intentional exaggeration. 2.an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

Here are some examples used in everyday speech:

"He is older than the hills"
“I have told you a million times ....”
"You could have knocked me over with a feather"

Here’s an example of hyperbole used effectively in a description.

"The skin on her face was as thin and drawn as tight as the skin of onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like the points of two picks ."  —Flannery O’Connor, "Parker’s Back"

Creative Writing Exercise: 

Take a paragraph from the newspaper, a textbook, or your own writing.


Select a key word and using a thesaurus,  select the most extreme of the possible choices. For example, “upset” might be replaced with “enraged.” The exercise shakes up habitual word choices and demonstrates how different shades of meaning in a word can create a different emotional tone.

 (Examples of hyperbole taken from: http://www.dowlingcentral.com/MrsD/area/literature/Terms/hyperbole.html)