Hyperbole is a lot of fun to read and to write.
But what is it?
Hyperbole (hi PER bo lee) is exaggeration, as in “He was as hefty as a whale” or “Her whining voice so electrified the air that it knocked migrating geese off their course.” To read examples of this figure of speech, click here.
Just so you know, this figure of speech is also called a writer’s device and a literary device. And, just so you also know, “writer’s device” and “literary device” mean the same thing. The first is from the writer’s perspective; the latter is from the perspective of a student studying literature.
Here’s an example of hyperbole from Lee Child’s Personal in which he describes one of the bad guys:
He was huge. His arms were longer than most people’s legs, and his hands were bigger than shovels, and his torso was the size of an oil drum . . . . His feet were the size of river barges, and his neck was a foot wide, and his shoulders were a yard wide, and his head was bigger than a basketball. . . . He moved with a kind of loose-limbed rawboned ranginess, four or five feet with a single enormous stride, his huge shoulders rolling, his immense hands swinging free. . . . [He] flapped his hand toward [the van], a gesture like a big white swan taking off . . . .
You almost don’t need “He was huge” because of the rest of the description!
Now it’s your turn: Describe someone or something real or a character from a book or movie. Use hyperbole. Let the reader see your person or character in motion, as in the example above—super slow, super fast, super big, tiny, and so on.
If you would like to figure out when, where, and how you are most comfortable writing, use this form here.
