Writers use techniques called literary devices to create imagery and mood with words. Some literary devices subtly affect the subconscious while others hammer ideas and descriptions into the reader’s brain. Because there are so many devices, we will examine them in groups. In this article, we review literary devices which create sound and rhythm.
Read beautiful prose, song lyrics, and poetry aloud, and it sounds like music. Shakespeare’s plays were known for having a specific rhythm that sounds like elevated human speech. While you probably aren’t writing epic poems, any form of fiction becomes more moving and memorable when it flows like music in subtle ways.
Rhyme
Rhyme is a regular recurrence of corresponding sounds. Rarely would a fiction writer set up sentences in a formal pattern like a poem throughout a short story or novel, but in moderation, rhyme grabs the reader’s attention.
- It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
- I was the shadow of the waxwing slain, by the false azure in the windowpane (Vladimir Nabokov)
The kinds of repeated sounds, or rhymes, depend on the sound being repeated and where it occurs in the sentence.
Assonance
Assonance is repeating vowel sounds to set a mood. Songwriters tend to place vowel sounds at the end of lines in a lyric because vowels can be sung. In fiction, repeated vowel sounds can be inside the sentence, fall at the end, or carry over from sentence to sentence.
- Through the storm, we reach the shore, you gave it all, but I want more. (Bono)
- Round and round, the hound ran.
- The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plai (My Fair Lady)
Consonance
Consonance is repeating consonant sounds anywhere in a sentence or paragraph.
- What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore, meant in croaking “Nevermore.” (Edgar Allan Poe)
- The towers of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods. (Sinclair Lewis)
- Many years have passed since those summer days (Sting)
Alliteration
Alliteration is repeating a consonant sound, usually at the beginning of words in a sentence. Many tongue twisters are alliterative. Soft-sounding consonants can soothe like a lullaby or set a creepy mood. Letters J (as in June) and G (as in gentle) can sound soft or hard. The repetition of a consonant sound draws attention to itself, so use it sparingly.
- Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary (Edgar Allan Poe)
- I slit a s A sheet I slit. Upon a slitted sheet, I sit.
- If “manners maketh man,” as someone said, then he’s the hero of the day. It takes a man to suffer ignorance and s Be yourself no matter what they say. (Sting)
- Lolita, light of my life, fire of my l (Vladimir Nabokov)
Hard consonants bite for a harsh, staccato, or humorous effect.
- With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, agape they heard me call. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
- Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled p
Main characters in stories often have alliterative names: Peter Parker, Bilbo Baggins, Peter Pan, Sansa Stark, Salazar Slytherin, and Willy Wonka.
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is creating words to match sounds. These sound words are often shown in italics.
- Thunk, plink, whoosh, ka-chunk, clickety, bang, beep, ping, pop-pop-pop, bing, ting, zoom, splat, whup-whup-whup, pew-pew, clang.
Anaphora
Anaphora is repeating the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. It focuses the reader’s attention for dramatic effect.
- Robert paced the floor, going over exactly what he would say. He walked himself through all her possible reactions. He walked through his own inevitable stammerings. He walked and walked and walked straight through his nervousness.
- It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. (Charles Dickens)
Rhythm
Poetry and songs rely on patterns of stressed and unstressed sounds strung together to create rhythms. The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables evokes a sing-song effect.
- Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream.
- Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your count (John F. Kennedy)
When you read your work aloud, does it sound like a regular drum beat, or does the pattern change with the content to amplify the mood? Record yourself reading aloud and listen for the music of your prose. Listen to best-selling fiction on audio for its musical quality. Often a passage of long sentences will end with a three or four-word sentence for impact. May your prose flow like music!
Niki Kantzios
A great take on the “music” of speech and a reminder that literature is meant to be read aloud.
Joni M Fisher
Thank you, Niki! Happy writing.