Writing Techniques In Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

Authors use writing techniques to capture the attention of a reader, help the reader connect to the story, and understand a story better. In the book Night, the author uses writing techniques to help the reader understand the story better. In my story, I used the writing techniques: “In medias res”, dialogue, sensory details/imagery, figurative language, and varied sentences. Using those techniques helped the reader better understand my story and kept them engaged in reading it. I used “In media res” to quickly engage my reader in my story. An example of “in medias res” in my story is, “I had heard my parents say that once I earn my own money, I won’t want to give it away because it is different when you acquire something yourself.” Adding this to my story at the beginning caught the reader's interest and made the want to continue reading to know how I got up to that point in the story.

An example of dialogue in my story was when I asked my mom, “why doesn’t he have a house?” The dialogue was coming from a confused child who didn’t understand why a man didn’t have a house. My mom responded in the story “he can’t afford one because he is poor.” By adding these to the story, the reader can picture a mother and child having a conversation about a serious topic instead of being told: “they were having a serious conversation.”

I used sensory details and imagery to help my reader picture what was being seen, heard, felt, smelled and tasted. An example of sensory details and imagery in my story was, “the corners were stained and squished.” I was describing to the reader how the man’s sign looked. Adding that allowed the reader to picture in their mind what the sign looked like rather than saying, “the sign was messy.” The reader would feel like they were present while the story was taking place because the image in their mind would be more detailed and