This weekend, a friend of mine invited me to brunch at her house with her roommates and some other folks. We had crepes, and they were delicious (I would recommend everyone make them at their own brunches). We ended up spending a good chunk of the afternoon discussing cards from this Table Topics deck. Most of the questions were terrible conversation starters (“How would you go about ending homelessness?” Really?). But we found one that dealt with movies, and someone mentioned the Toy Story trilogy, which immediately sent all of us into the nostalgia zone. This also brings me to today's writing tool: anthropomorphism.
Anthropomorphism is when an animal or object is given human traits. These can range from the oft-cited “whispering wind” to the talking toys in the aforementioned Toy Story trilogy. Classical mythology and folktales utilize anthropomorphism frequently, as seen in Aesop's fables, which frequently include animals or elements of nature that exhibit human tendencies.
Anthropomorphism can be either an additional method of description in your narrative when elaborating on the story's surroundings, or it can be a key point in the actual storytelling, as in the case of classics like Animal Farm, or Charlotte's Web. It opens up new avenues for your storytelling.
PRACTICE
Well, you can tell where this is going, right? Write for fifteen minutes, and use anthropomorphism liberally. It can be either in your description of the setting, or maybe you're telling the story of a pair of skis that somehow end up in a garage sale in Texas. However you choose to direct your practice, post it in the comments when you're done, and be sure to check out the work of your fellow writers.
So, Liz, what’s the difference between anthropomorphism and personification?
I think personification is when you attribute something human to an animal or inanimate object, as when you use figurative speech (I could feel the windows staring down at me…) as opposed to having the windows come alive, as in: The window drank in the sun. It felt so good, the window stretched and decided to take a walk to visit the door to see if it wanted to join him on a trip to the beach. The door shuddered, and considered it an open and shut case…. etc.
Which of course makes me thing of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast with Lumiere, and Spout and all the dishes and wardrobes etc. that simply came to life…
Thanks for that clarification… I had the same question.
Hey Katie
I tried to look that up and the first two sites I opened said two different things.
One said that anthropomorphism used to refer to animals and personification to inanimate objects, but they are often considered interchangeable now.
The other one said that anthropomorphism referred to giving either animals or objects human qualities and personification is when abstract ideas are given substance such as justice being shown as a blind figure holding a scale. That site said that personification also can be when a public figure is said to be the embodiment of a quality, like maybe saying “as honest as Abraham Lincoln” although they used Winston Churchill and I can’t remember what he embodied.
Well now that I’ve procrastinated for a while, I’ll sign off.
I’ll just echo everyone else and say that there are a lot of opinions on this one. I was taught that personification was giving human traits to an abstraction (Mother Nature, Death as the Grim Reaper, etc.). However, it is true that a lot of writers use the terms interchangeably.
This is pretty hooky but I’ve been reading Poe again, getting ready for poetry recitations during the holidays.
The men splash ecru paint on the walls that have been painted hundreds of times. They walls once felt clean, really clean, after a new coat of paint, but now that their building, The Broadmoor Apartments, on Little Creek Road and Hampton Blvd, is a hundred years old they have seen too much to ever really feel new again, too many fights, too many lonely people, too many abused children.
The wait, resting in their new paint. for several weeks before the new people come and jolt them out of an ennui that has seeped down into their plaster beneath their fresh new paint, and into the skeletal slats of wood that support the plaster.
These tenants are a young couple who come in and instantly start to argue about where to put the furniture, where to hang the paintings, where to park the car, and how many sets of keys to make. The voices bounce off of the walls day and night for several weeks. The walls soak up the sounds, realign their molecules to make memories of the words, the gestures, the pounding of nails and fists against their fresh ecru paint. They adjust their perspective.
Then the walls absorb a series of things that create an imprint the likes of which they have never been exposed to before; a horrible scream in an unprecedented pitch, a gurgling sound, and then the ooze of a liquid that is dark and metallic, and that they’ve taken in before but not in such copious amounts.
Then the footsteps of uniformed men, the smell of freshly oiled guns, a clicking metallic sound, the shuffling away of tired and guilty feet.
The walls in Apartment 4A at the Broadmoor are painted again, this time with a cream colored paint. They wait. What will they witness next?
Wow I was thinking of doing a story about a wall (as you pointed out in your story, imagine what stories the walls of an older home could tell!) but I’m glad I didn’t – yours was totally creepy and unsettling! The way your story reads makes me think of Old Time Radio – perfect for Halloween 😉 My favorite part was the fact that you could tell what the tenants were doing, even though you didn’t directly witness it. Sometimes it’s creepier to just get enough information to barely know what’s going on.
Thanks Kimberly. I agree that a little info can be better than the full description.
From the far side of the amphitheater, two malevolent oaks stared
down at me. One had lost its fall leaves, but the other was holding
out until spring. A bald old man and his fading old woman. I
crossed the expanse of grass between the heartless stone seats and
the inscrutable cement stage. The sunless sky glowered. Beyond the
oaks, a brick walkway wound into the campus gardens. I quickened
my step beneath the shoulders of the hostile trees. The walkway
welcomed me, a guide directing me though the garden, pointing out the
last of the fall blooms, safely delivering me to the street beyond.
This day means to destroy me, I thought. The chemistry exam, the
meeting with Dean Cooper, and my date tonight with Anna. It had to
be tonight, Anna had said. Our relationship had become a vicious
thing, a sinister villain, the sort than grins a crooked grin, shows
you a bouquet with one hand while looking to stab you with the other.
Maybe it would be best to let the knife find its target. Get this
thing over with.
Great stuff. This kind of writing will go a long way, in my humble opinion.
What a frightening landscape. It reminds me of the woods in old Disney cartoons. I like how you intertwine the behavior of the landscape and the thoughts and actions of the narrator. I really like the two oaks being a “bald old man and his fading old woman”. Thanks.
This is great writing. Very visual and visceral.
Loved it!
Jte3rd, you have some incredible imagery in here–feels like you have a background in poetry. I felt like I was right there with your main character. I could see the trees and the garden so larger than life. I could feel his fears and anxiety getting the better of him. Very nice work.
What a fun exercise! It reminds me of a movie called Stranger Than Fiction, which I liked a lot. What I’m noticing with these exercises is I run out of time (so my stories end pretty abruptly); I think what I need to learn is how to organize my ideas so when I’m up against a timer/deadline/etc. I can concisely write what I want instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off. : -)
**
The mug had lived his entire life in the cubicle of B-12. That was not hyperbole, he had literally been at this desk since the day he had come from the factory, and expected he would stay here until he became too chipped, discolored or otherwise unnecessary. He knew his lot in life, and was neither frightened nor ashamed of his simplistic duty. He was here to serve coffee, and sometimes other beverages. Mostly coffee. He did not mind.
The receptionist that had freed him had slammed him down on the desk next to the keyboard, cursing. She had chipped a nail trying to loosen the tape across the box he had come sealed in, and blamed the mug for this. He did not care, as he simply felt it was nice to be out of the suffocating box and Styrofoam packing. Even if it was technically just a transfer into a bigger box, at least now he had light and air.
She had left him facing the wall, and that was now what he studied. Silver-grey fabric interwoven with sliver-thin strands of red, yellow and blue. The mug supposed this was some corporation’s way of injecting color into the lives of their employees, but the end result was muddied and ugly at best.
What does a mug think of when left to its own devices? This particular mug thought of kites, birds taking flight and airline travel. There was the occasional niggle of doubt, that perhaps he was too old fashioned for this new generation that liked their coffee with french vanilla syrup and extra whipped cream and extra cinnamon sprinkles in environmentally friendly reusable plastic travel mugs. Mostly those thoughts came when everyone had left for the night or long weekend, and the mug was left to sit alone in the dark.
He tried to remain positive.
Slowly, the surrounding cubicles began to fill. The sounds of laughter and gossip and even sometimes, hard work. One day, footsteps came down the hall. The mug held his breath. Two sets of footsteps stopped at B-12. The mug wished someone had thought to dust, but it was too late for that now.
“…We’ll let you settle in, then come join us in the conference room down the hall to the left once you unpack. There’s coffee and doughnuts, and Mary Ann’s birthday was yesterday so there’s also cake…” one voice, a familiar one, receded, and the mug was left alone with the second. A moment passed then footsteps approached the desk and long, thin fingers wrapped around his body, sweeping him off away from the wall. They were cold. He was turned round, and momentarily blinded by bright lights. Things slowly crept back into view, and the mug took in a tall, lanky woman. Disheveled. Mousy brown hair over freckled skin. Glasses that give her more of a nervous look than an educated one.
The name tag that hung crookedly on her blue button-down dress read “Jamie”.
With her other hand, Jamie clutched a small cardboard box of personal effects, some of which the mug could see peeking over the top – the square edge of a photo frame, a bobble head of some obscure television character; a cup of pens and pencils that rattled as he walked. Carefully, Jamie set down her box and handled the mug with both hands. She turned the mug this way and that as though studying him, though the mug knew she didn’t really see him.
“Let’s go get that coffee,” Jamie broke into a smile, tossed the mug lightly in the air and caught it with nimble fingers. The mug tingled in its handle. This could be love.
That is great Kimberly. I can see it as a picture book, or a cartoon. I seem to identify more with that mug than with some human characters. Great job!!! I love the details of the crooked name tag and the fabric on the wall.
Hi Kimberly! I especially liked your short sentences, very powerful technique. The one at the end of the first paragraph, the one that formed its own paragraph, and the final one were especially wonderful. You actually made me want to go downstairs and grab my coffee cup from the cabinet and see which direction its cartoon was facing. 🙂 Great work!
Love it! I’m looking at my mugs in a whole new light! The one that “fell” of the bench last week – did it jump? Or was it pushed?
Wonderful. Lonely heart mug falls in love. You evoked both the “left on the shelf” feeling and then the anticipation of love so well. I liked that little detail about “the bobble head of some obscure television character.”
My imagination is going crazy, would never have thought of writing about a mug!
LOVE this Kimberly!! What a great little character!
Weird. This was going to be something else. When I set the timer I was thinking about an animal, but when I started typing this is what came out…
The hairless creatures came again. They came walking through the forest,
trampling leaves and twigs beneath their feet, crushing flowers and mushrooms
and other things. Soon winter will come
again. Once again I see my leaves
drifting down, leaving my branches bare to shiver in the cold winds and freeze
stiff in sparkling layers of ice. Yes,
days of wind and frost and ice are before me, but I know that they too shall
pass. And as the earth begins to thaw,
once again I will feel new vigor coursing through me, and the joy I feel will
send out shoots of green throughout my being.
And as the sun begins to warm the
earth, those shoots of green will reach out to embrace the warmth and grow into
leaves to adorn my empty branches. Once
again, I will revel in all my glory as birds seek me out to build their homes,
and butterflies dance around me. But
their days are numbered, and as I see the baby birds burst out of their eggs,
then stretch their wings, then fly away, so too the butterflies will leave, and
once again, my leaves will begin to fall as well. Once again, the whole cycle will
repeat itself. Only the hairless
creatures come throughout the seasons.
When I am clothed in all my glory, they come to me bare and
spindly. And as I lose my foliage, they
seem to gain theirs, as they appear with more and more of themselves
covered. But I recognize them through
their many disguises. I watch for them and their heedless ways. I can sense them coming when I see the
four-legged creatures bounding away, startled.
Unlike the many animals that share these woods, the hairless creatures make many different sounds for me to listen to.Sometimes I can smell them as they appear with smoke curling from the
white sticks in their openings
What a great story, first person, from a tree. I like the way the tree (I started to say she) feels rejuvenated in the spring. I was afraid the humans were cutting wood though and were going to cut her down. It’s really weird that I keep feeling for these things that aren’t human or animals, a tree and a mug.
Thanks! I guess we’re just “mugs” for the inanimate 😉
Wow Mirelba!!! I really felt as though that tree was talking to me in this wonderful nature tale, full of good and bad, sadness and happiness. The narrator is marvelous. The hairless creatures seemed to repulse him and fascinate him at the same time.
Thanks!
Nice Mirelba. These humans… they are so weird. You are such a great tree!
My branches are rustling their appreciation 🙂
But your kind comment reminded me of Deuteronomy, where man is likened to a tree of the field…
love, love 🙂
🙂
Awesome! I love this!
Thank you, I’m flattered.
“Pick me pick me!” Geraldine is shouting in my ear. “I
have so much to offer. I will be funny and surprising and current and
contemporary. People will want to read about ME!” She is very insistent, quite
shrill in fact. She is not doing her cause any good at all.
Tim drifts by and begins to murmur quietly, that is the
problem with Tom he is a bit hazy, I am not even sure of his name. He is very
seductive though – a man of action, a passionate man. He is a sailor, an
adventurer, he lives in the 1800s and while I know a lot about him he is
contradictory and I just can’t nail him down. That does not stop him from
intruding into stories that do not have anything to do with him.
And then there is Joe – he is angry and sad and demanding,
so demanding. But his story has been told before and so much better than my
meager talent can portray – that doesn’t stop him from intruding his thoughts
into my thoughts.
Are these muses? Personifications? Or am I just going mad? I think I’ll just go and make myself some crepes!
Hi Juliana!!! I don’t know what they are, but they haunt my mind, too!!! This is a wonderful take on the exercise.
Hi! This is my very first time posting my work here, but I have tried many of the exercises. I write flash fiction so my first instinct is to turn every exercise into a little story. That’s what I did this time, too. I wrote for 15 minutes, forming the story. Then I edited it–I hope editing it was okay. I wasn’t sure if it was against the rules or not. Thanks for reading! (My tenses are off, but I didn’t have time to figure out what was why.)
At the bottom of a filthy cedar box I found it. The
ring. Its fat ruby queen glared at me from
the center of the golden throne. Her
eight diamonds protecting her, encircling her, their eyes cold and nasty,
reminding me of the woman who had worn the ring as a weapon.
Why, after twenty years of non-existence, should it appear now
in a box of dirty junk, most of which I can’t even remember? Anger began to swell in me like a balloon
filled with too much air, pressure building to the point of implosion.
I drew a deep breath.
There would be no implosion; no one else controlled my world now.
During the first five years after she died I had looked for
the ring, planning to crush it beneath a sledgehammer, to revel in the
destruction of the icy little gems, to bathe in their dust.
But the ring had hidden herself, biding her time until she
felt safe, until I felt safe, until I barely noticed in the mirror, the long
thin scar that streaked from my forehead to my chin. Or felt the deep thick scar that sat on my
spine, the one that had felt, at inception, like the splitting of every nerve
in my body.
The scars created by that little bitch of a ring that had
glinted with madness throughout my childhood, that had sat like Her Majesty in
the middle of those bony sharp fingers, threatening me each time I was forced
to walk near.
Not anymore. I
squinted down at the ring, its evil eyes trying to burn holes into my pupils. How could it have the same power? After all these years, after its mistress’s
death, how could it still survive? How
could it still blink up at me with those frigid malicious eyes?
My scars were burning—blazing–and I knew what I had to do.
I lifted the sledgehammer from its velvet-lined box that
rested inside the library safe. I pulled
it back over my head and brought it down.
Again! And again! Until scared twisted metal lay in its own red
dusty blood, no longer winking, no longer proud and haughty.
Minutes later, as I swept it all together, preparing it for
its final cremation, I thought back to twenty
years ago. There had been more blood
then, more swinging, more sweating. But
the result had been just as satisfying. Twisted metal, broken bones, powdered blood,
streaming blood—every victim should feel such victory.
I love the description of the ring – “fat ruby queen” with her diamond protectors!
Thanks, Juliana! I felt myself growing angrier and angrier as I wrote. I started to believe that ring was truly evil. LOL!
Great job! You did an excellent job of making the ring a character without getting to literal with it.
Wonderful practice.
Thanks so much, Jeff!! This was a really great prompt. I know I’ll come back to it over and over again. I never thought to try something like this before.
I love the fact that you brought life to the ring without making the story from it’s own point of view! Great practice!
Jon picks me up off his nightstand and opens me for the first time in weeks. I swear he doesn’t care anymore. As if girls and sports and television have taken him away from me forever. I have to wonder if this is the end. The last time he’ll lick a finger and flip idly through my pages.
Aren’t I good enough? Don’t I always share my stories with him? I kept him company when no one else would. While he lay weak and broken in that hospital bed and not even his own mother would stay with him, where was I? Nestled in his lap, happy to serve. Ever the dutiful, loving, provider.
He scratches at the fuzz along his jawline. Going rugged, kid? What a joke. You’re just a baby! You’ve spent the past ten years cuddling the same 101 Dalmatians pillow every night and now that you’ve hit puberty you suddenly think you’re a lumberjack? Ugh. I hate this. What are you becoming, Jon?
It’s as I expected. He sets me down after only ten minutes and yawns. Fuck you, kid. I’m not boring! I’m a vast collection of worlds and heroes! I’m everything you want to be and more! How dare you yawn at me like this!
Jon has the nerve to set me on the shelf with the rest of the has-beens. Adventure books. Fantasy novels. A few other anthologies, but none of them as varied or interesting as me. Just a bunch of losers and now I’m supposed to act like everything’s okay. Sure, Jon, I’ll just hang with these guys until you come back.
What is this? Oh, God. I don’t believe this. He takes a thin black slip of plastic out of his backpack and smiles. She’s got a glowing screen and more stories than Aesop. Harlot. This just isn’t happening. It’s not. He’s…oh no, he’s plugging her into the computer. Do you even get what you’re doing, kid!? You’re plugging in your book! You’ve given your book a battery life! Ahhhh!
It’s months before Jon reads me again, and this time it’s for a few hours, but the pigeon has already flown the coop. I’m over it. Over him. Over his new vixen. Read me if you want, kid. The honey moon is over, as they say.
Selfish ass.
Oh my gosh, Jeff, this was amazing!!! I love the first person POV for this–you really nailed your book character. I even felt guilty, cringing as I glanced at my KIndle plugged into my computer. Making Jon a teenager was really great because you show growth and change on so many different levels. Very cool. I am loving this exercise.
Thanks so much for all your kind words! I’m glad it had the desired effect 🙂
Very funny, and very well done, Jeff.
Thanks Mirelba, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I love this. The sleek plastic vixen, and the poor old normal book. That was both a good story (very inventive) and well written. What more could one want. Maybe a Kindle or Nook where we could have more, more, more.
Thanks for the kind words Marianne, I’m glad you liked it 🙂
Awww, i feel sorry for that poor book…great practice Jeff!
Thanks Kate! Glad you liked it 🙂
Thanks for the inspiring prompt. Need the practice for NaNoWriMo:
Something’s up, I can smell it. All those square things she
puts her stuff in are all over the place again. This place, the third place in
two years which was also the second place. As long as I don’t get stuck in the
screen thing with crazy female Lola again sitting in the back of the rumbling
machine from sun up until sun down.
The first time she did that was kinda ok because we ended up
in a wild playground with tons of trees, furry creatures, and little shiny,
slithery things that were delicious. It was also a place where some wiggly
thing crawled inside my shoulder and she had to take me to that other place
that smelled like death. Another of her kind shoved a long, mushy stick into
the hole in my shoulder. The reason for such horrific treatment was due to a “wolf
worm,” whatever that is.
That same place saw the arrival of a fur ball that chased me
and crazy Lola around and over and under everything in the house. Lola just
cried all the time. I slapped the shit out of it and it stayed away from me –
still does, even though now it is fifteen times the size it was. Mello, she
calls it, Mello the dog. He gets to go outside all the time while I have to beg
and sneak into the wind.
Anyway, you would think after 64 years, I’d get used to
these creatures called humans, but not so. Then again, Lola, who belongs to my species,
is a nut case who curls up on anyone of them that will let her. I stay away and
just watch. Hopefully, this time I won’t have to jump out of a 2nd
floor window while she moves all those square things full of her stuff. Maybe
this time, the place will be quiet and just me, but I’m sure that stupid Mello
dog will be along. He’s everywhere, even in her bed. It’ll be okay if at least
this time there’s some mice or more of those shiny, slithery things for treats.
Way better tasting than the crispy things in that crackly bag.
Yay! You’ve picked my fave thing to write about. This I can do, because I wrote new material just last night. This is for the second book in my series, Records of Aden, titled, Aden Weaver & the Sasori Empire…
A servant boy, stood just inside the boardroom doors,
head bent, waiting for orders.
“Tokugawa,” said Wako to the boy, “Tell Commander
Umi-Bozu to meet me down at the stables. The taxes won’t collect themselves,
now will they?”
Wako noticed the black-haired boy flinch. The chief
studied the boy, of Dragonfly-kind. A slight movement drew Wako’s eyes; he saw
the boy clench and unclench his fists. This
boy, Tokugawa has rebel tendencies; I will need to make an example of him. I’ll
need to think about this, to come up with a suitable solution.
A wave of his hand and the servant boy backed out of the
room. Wako stood and yawned, stretching his long red limbs. “Time to wreak a
little havoc,” he declared to the line of shrunken heads staring at him from
their display case, and he strode out through the double doors.
That’s a great set up Yvette. Now I wonder what’s going to happen. I like the line of shrunken heads. I wrote a short story about shrunken heads once. They are pretty gross, and it’s very sad to think about how they got “resized”. Well I’m digressing again. This is good writing, clear, spare and full of very natural dialogue and movement. Thanks.
Ooohhh… How I miss the good ol’days when I was used to make
Jane smile, to make her feel really special and to tell her that life without
her is black and white. I remember… there was a time when I was up all night
working overtime just to convince her to say “Yes!” Fortunately Jane did say “Yes!”
Now every 5th of the month I tell her how much Joseph loves her and
longs for her. I tell her that Joseph can’t sleep, can’t eat, all because he is
thinking about her. I work a lot when they go out on a date and Joseph uses his
credit card, which is almost I mind you – all the time. I sometimes wonder if
Joseph is still not in any debt? Hahahaha.
Now things have changed, somehow the
feelings have faded away. I’m barely used, and from time to time when I’m used its
only for a short period of time and the things I tell Jane doesn’t seem to have
any soul in it. The love is gone, maybe because it was based on feelings and not
on choices. Choices to love – no matter what.
Well… that’s just the way it goes…
I just tell what Joseph thinks. Nothing more, nothing less.
– Joseph’s pen