flashback to english class. or perhaps, flash forward if youre like twelve and not in high school yet.

symbolism, despite being hard as all heck, are an important part of literature. they add a whole new level of depth and make you look really darn smart to your readers

symbols can be very specific to your character or your story: for example, a character's hair can be representative of her beauty and pride. since your symbols are proxies of this aspect, you can do something as simple as cut the characters hair and have it mean so much more than that- when the hair is cut, so is her pride, and shes destroyed. something subtle like this can add so much more meaning and depth to a simple scene. you dont even have to kill or injure the character. maiming the symbol is enough.

symbols can also be more broad. let's talk weather in your story. weather is the perfect subtle symbol and is great for setting a tone.

-rain can set a dreary tone. however, rain is also representative of rebirth: a sort of natural baptism. finally having the clouds/drought break and rain pours down on your hero as he realizes he was wrong is a breathtaking scene.

-snow can be a symbol for purity, but also for death. your pure female character in a snowy landscape is rather fitting, but you can also have her bleeding out in the snow. it really depends on what tone youre going for.

-the sun popping out of the clouds when the plot is starting to look up is also a good symbol

entire characters can also be symbols! this is handy if you really wanna tell a very allegorical story: characters can represent abstract concepts such as faith or prejudice, but they can also represent other people or groups, like the animals in Animal Farm.

You can also combine foreshadowing (something that is also v v v crucial for a book) and symbolism- maybe the characters dogs are representative of her children. itd be a shame if one of those puppies died. also predictive for the next character death.

straying kinda away from symbolism brings us into another topic: allegories and parallelism. allegory is pretty much when you're entire book is a symbol. take animal farm for instance. these are common with more political based stories.

you can also draw on the bank of common knowledge plots: things such as mythology, the bible, etc for your symbols and allegories.

if you want your character to be a christ symbol, having him be killed and resurrected three days later is a good start.

a good example was madoka magica: it was an allegory for Faust. aka, seal your soul for a demon and suffer the consequences. homura was supposed to be faust, i believe.

adding depth to your story is a good way for your okay book to be great. explore symbolism and allegories! symbols are endless and can be for anything.

sorry if this chapter was messy!!! this kinda stuff is hard to explain and is pretty abstract (as with all literature tho)