Improving Style Through Diction, Part 10: Consonance

As with assonance, consonance is the repetition of sounds within the same phrase or sentence, the difference being that assonance uses vowel sounds and consonance consonant sounds. Notice the repetition of w and wh sounds in this example from one of my poems, "Do You See These Buildings?":

They wondered whether this was what

they signed up for, if all the awful waiting

through the waste was worth their while.

In this next example, the r sound repeats:

The rabbits running across garden wreaked destruction, tearing through the mesh barrier and devouring the carrots, parsnip, and radish.

Consonance brings simple pleasures to the reading experience. 

  

Improving Style Through Diction, Part 9: Assonance

By repeating the same vowel sounds within words in the same phrase or sentence, assonance creates musicality to a passage. Here are some examples:

• When the fans deem the Dream Team has run out of steam, it seems they scream louder.
• All of us were awed by Paula's thoughtful offer.
• The man who owns the apple stand on Samson Way passed away yesterday, I'm sad to say.

Using assonance at strategic points of a story or essay adds a dash of poetry. 

Improving Style Through Diction, Part 8: Alliteration

Alliteration, the use of identical initial consonant sounds on a string of words, can realize a desired mood. Alliteration is usually taught as a poetic device, but it also works well in prose. Here are four examples:

She pressed her palms together in prayer promising piety to Providence.

The water felt like waves of sweat as I swam swiftly in the sweltering swamp.

He thunderously thrust his way through the thorny thicket.  

Woe to those wastrels for their wanton ways! 

Exaggerations? I suppose. When using alliteration, the idea is not to hatch a tongue twister but to create an effect that complements your point. Used sparingly and strategically, it can enliven your story line.

Improving Style Through Diction, Part 7: Neologism

Another rhetorical device for adding color to writing is the neologism, which is a relatively new word (e.g., frenemy, a friend with whom one frequently quarrels) or a standard word that has taken a new meaning (e.g., friend, now used as a verb meaning to add someone to a personal social media platform). As you might imagine, technological and cultural changes are the source of most neologisms. 

We do not have a set time for when a neologism stops being one. Some people would still consider vaping (2014) and staycation (2005) neologisms but not selfie (2006) and photobomb (2008). I think this is mostly dependent on the beholder's age and the word's pervasiveness.

Some of us might create a neologism of our own among our select circles. For instance, if one of a group of your friends, Terry, is perpetually late for get-togethers, you might say to everyone in that group, "Show up on time. Don't Terry it." 

I was surprised and, to say the least, deeply disappointed, to find online suckbomb defined as a word coined in 2009 to describe weak opponents in fantasy leagues. Absolutely not true! I coined it 43 years earlier, in 1966, in the James Monroe Housing Projects of the Bronx, to mean someone who is truly, indisputably, and unalterably useless or annoying. Don't tell me people don't rewrite history! If I could get my hands on the suckbomb who took credit for suckbomb.