From 101 Inventive Writing Workouts: Alliteration and Assonance.
At this time I’d wish to share an excerpt from 101 Inventive Writing Workouts, a e-book that encourages you to experiment with totally different varieties and genres of writing whereas offering inspiration for publishable initiatives and imparting helpful writing strategies that make your writing extra strong.
This train is from “Chapter 8: Free Verse.” It’s titled “Alliteration and Assonance.” It explores two literary gadgets that can make your writing extra rhythmic and memorable. Get pleasure from!
Alliteration and Assonance
Creating a vocabulary of poetry phrases and literary gadgets will show you how to higher perceive the writing strategies and instruments which might be at your disposal. It could not happen to you you could construct rhythm by repeating consonant sounds. When you understand the that means of alliteration, then this concept is extra prone to affect your work.
Poetry phrases, corresponding to alliteration and assonance, present us how intelligent, inventive phrase preparations add musicality to any piece of writing, making it extra compelling and memorable. These phrases and the ideas they signify apply to all kinds of writing, not simply poetry.
Alliteration is the repetition of the preliminary consonant sounds of phrases in shut proximity to at least one one other. Examples of alliteration embrace black and blue, we stroll, and time after time.
In some circumstances, alliteration is used to discuss with any repeated consonant sounds, even when they don’t happen firstly of phrases. An instance of this could be “blue pocket book,” the place the b sound is repeated firstly of blue and in the midst of pocket book.
Alliteration may also be used to explain the repetition of a consonant sound nestled within the center and even on the finish of phrases. Blueberry, for instance, incorporates alliteration inside a single phrase.
Assonance is just like alliteration, besides it offers completely with vowel sounds. Assonance happens when accented vowel sounds are repeated in proximity:
Assonance allows literary writers to create enjoyable phrases.
Within the instance phrase above, there are a number of runs of assonance. The opening a sounds within the phrases assonance and allows exhibit one run of assonance. This run is marked with underlining. A second run is marked with daring lettering and happens with the a sounds in create and phrases. Are you able to discover a third run of assonance within the sentence?
Assonance typically evokes a way of rhyme with out serving up a direct or technical rhyme. The phrase “fancy pants” is an instance of this.
So, how are alliteration and assonance used for impact? Effectively, take into consideration repetition on the whole. While you repeat one thing time and again, it turns into embedded in reminiscence. Alliteration and assonance work the identical means. If used appropriately, these gadgets improve the rhythm of a chunk, making it extra memorable.
The Train
Undergo an editorial (your individual or another person’s) and search for cases of assonance and alliteration.
The fabric you’re employed with could be poetry, fiction, a journal entry, or a weblog submit. Any type of writing will do.
Mark the runs of assonance and alliteration with daring, underlining, italics, or highlighting. While you’re executed, learn the piece aloud to get the total impact.
Suggestions: Double-check the runs you’ve recognized for assonance to ensure they mark pressured (or accented) syllables. Be careful for sounds which might be totally different however use the identical letter (such because the a sounds in cat and cape).
Variations: As an alternative choice to figuring out alliteration and assonance in an editorial, strive writing a brief piece with a number of runs in it. Or revise a web page from an current writing challenge to inject alliteration and assonance into it.
Functions: Musicality and repetition enrich any piece of writing. Too typically, writers concentrate on content material and never language. The research of poetry, poetry phrases, and literary gadgets like alliteration and assonance reminds us to work on our language, phrase selection, and sentence construction.
