You want your readers to feel what you feel, see what you see, hear what you hear. Right? How do you make this happen? Well, you have to use intensive language that packs verbal punch using a minimum of words. One of the methods of getting maximum meaning into just a few words is to use figures of speech and sound. No, we're not talking about diet pills and anorexia. Hold off on swigging the Diet Pepsi. Figures of speech appeal to the senses and help the reader have more intense mental pictures of what the writer is saying. Here are some of the ones that are most often used.

Simile: a comparison between two similar objects, ideas or symbols, using the words "like" or "as". The cat slipped into the room like a shadow.

Metaphor: a stated comparison not using "like" or "as". The fog
 slipped around the house on little cat feet.

Hyperbole: exaggeration for effect. Upon seeing his steak, a cowboy yelled at the waitress, "You call this 'well done'? I've seen critters hurt worse than this that get well!"

Litotes: understatement for effect Odie, the dog in the Garfield comic strip, is not the smartest dog in the world.

Metonomy: a type of metaphor in which something associated with the subject is substituted for it. The White House had no comment about President Bush's remarks. The building isn't talking either, which is probably just as well.

Personification: human characteristics are attributed to non-human things The car limped to the gas station and barely made it to the pumps.

Onomatopoeia: the use of words which imitate their meaning. The bacon sizzled in the pan, and the rain drummed on the tin roof.

Alliteration: repetition of sounds; divided into assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds--for example, it was a far star in the dark sky--and consonance, the repetition of consonant sounds--for example, She sells seashells by the seashore.

Oxymoron: the use of contradictory words to describe a person, thing or idea. It was a sad joy to reach the end of our senior year in high school and know that we would graduate and leave our friends and activities which we loved.