It’s not easy, this writing well stuff.
But there’s tricks and resources to turn better phrases and make your writing more memorable.
I recently read The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth, which is about Rhetorical Figures. Forsyth talks about 39 different figures, and does so with a unique and witty humor. It’s a great book to read and I highly recommend it.
I’ll explain some of the ones I found more interesting.
Alliteration
Alliteration acts in adjacent words all appearing with similar starts. That was me trying to use alliteration to explain alliteration.
To be more clear, it’s when the same-sounding letter is used to start adjacent words. This gives the combination of words an extra edge, making it memorable. Captain Haddock saying “Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!” makes for a way better line that “A lot of spiteful, blue and forceful crustaceans”.
In the Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald writes “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past“, which is a great line. In comparison, “So we went on, like ships against the current, carried back to the past non-stop…” doesn’t convince.
But you don’t have a writer to use alliteration. Coca Cola, Dunking Donuts, PayPal sound good in part because they start the same (of course, they also have the same lengths, and similar letters).
“Curiosity killed the cat” was originally “Care killed the cat“, and it might evolve into something else in the future: but the odds are high that whatever killed the cat in 2123, it will still start with “C” or “K”. Maybe Cocaine or Ketamine.
Diacope
Words. Repeating words.
A. B A.
Draw attention. The author wants to draw attention.
Examples. Plenty examples.
Bond. James Bond.
To be, or not to be.
Run, Forest, Run.
Useful. Beautifully useful.
Extended Diacope. Extended Diacope. You can also use an extended Diacope.
A. A. B A.
Love me. Love me. Say that you love me.
Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.
Easy. Easy. Very easy.
Effective. Effective. Very effective.
Anaphora
You have heard that you should not repeat words when writing.
You have heard that using the same words is boring.
You have heard that repeating words shows little vocabulary.
You have heard that it’s a sign of bad writing.
You have heard wrong.
Anaphora is the repetition of the same words at the beginning of a sentence. Forsyth calls it the king of rhetorical figures, and he has a point. They are everywhere, and they always give more power to the phrase. Either because it links concepts together more clearly, emphasizes a strong feeling or thought, creates rhythm, or gives structure to a list. Or all of them together.
There’s example in every form of language. Look at political speeches:
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality”
– Martin Luther King, I have a dream
“…we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”
– Winston Churchill, We shall fight on the beaches
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom
– J. F. Kennedy, Speech after King’s death
Literature has many examples too.
“It rained on his lousy tombstone, and it rained on the grass on his stomach. It rained all over the place”.
– J.D. Salinger, The catcher in the ryhe
“The apartment was on the top floor—a small living-room, a small dining-room, a small bedroom, and a bath”.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
The crown might well go to Charles Dickens:
“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, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Poetry uses it too:
“In every cry of every Man, In every infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, In every ban”
– William Blake, London
“From the torrent, or the fountain—
– Edgar Allan Poe, Alone
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d”
Point is, it’s a good resource to have, and it can be applied to a lot of situations.
I would recommend not to overuse it, but then again, who am I to tell you not to do something?
Epistrophe
If it looks like an Anaphora, but at the end of the sentence, it’s an Epistrophe. If you repeat the same clause at the end of following sentences, it’s an Epistrophe. If Mark Forsyth says that death is ultimate human one, it’s an Epistrophe.
Epistrophs are easy to understand, easy to use, and give a clear message. It’s what is often used to show obsessive love in songs, political certainty in discourse and other unhealthy ideas. Epistrophe doesn’t let you consider the alternatives, because it’s the author telling you ‘no, you can’t’.
“If you hold back anything, I’ll kill ya. If you bend the truth or I think your bending the truth, I’ll kill ya. If you forget anything I’ll kill ya. In fact, you’re gonna have to work very hard to stay alive, Nick. Now do you understand everything I’ve said? Because if you don’t, I’ll kill ya”.
The message is quite clear, you don’t get to think about alternatives.
Anadiplosis
Introspection will lead you to thought. Thought will lead you to thought patterns. Thought patterns will lead you to logical progression. Logical progression will lead you to Anadiplosis. Anadiplosis is repeating the last word of one clause as the first word of the following clause.
Anadiplosis, apart from pleasing our ear by sounding better than a usual sequence of clauses, has power because it presents logical progression. Two examples should be enough to illustrate how it works:
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
—Yoda, Star Wars
“Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your attitude. Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action.”
—Malcolm X
Easy to understand, easy to use. The only complicated part is getting to the clear thoughts in the first place.
Parataxis
I love Parataxis. Parataxis is simple. You forget about conjunctions. You say a phrase. And you say another phrase. It’s direct. It’s clear. No unnecessary details. Just statements. Strong statements.
It’s when independent phrases are placed side by side, without a conjunction. The secret is that it adds equal weight to phrases, and provides rhythm. You decide how the reader reads.
Parataxis can be separated by a period. They could also be separated by a comma, or a semicolons; there is a bit of debate about semicolons. I like to use dashes – it’s probably not always right.
“Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
– Walt Whitman, Continuities
No birth, identity, form—no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space—ample the fields of Nature.”
“Live and invent. I have tried. I must have tried. Invent. It is not the word. Neither is it live. No matter. I have tried.”
– Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies
Pleonasm
Pleaonasm is a rhetorical figure, device, tool by which you use, utilize, employ more words, expressions, terms than necessary, needed.
It can be very annoying, like in the definition I used. Just say: it’s using more words than necessary.
Expressions like “I’ve seen it with my own two eyes“, “It’s a true fact” or “The ATM Machine” are good examples. You can only see with your own eyes, a fact ceases to be a fact if it isn’t true, and the M in ATM already stands for Machine. It’s looks harmless, but it’s wrong and unnecessary.
Specially business and marketing gibberish has become full of it: free gift, personal friends, added bonuses. People with the need to sound professional can’t help but use them, especially to hide bullshit. And marketers have found a way to use them to increase the apparent value of their product or service.
But they can also be a good literary device if you want to emphasize a certain idea. There’s a difference between saying that you will get a free gift (a gift is always free) and saying that something is free, gratis, and with no cost. The last one has authority, it’s reassuring.
So generally they should be avoided, but they are a good device to use to give a statement more force, power, strength.
Prolepsis
Prolepsis is Greek for Anticipation, so there are 5 types of rhetoric elements that it can refer to. The one I like most is the following:
If before using it‘s noun, you use the pronoun, you have made a Prolepsis. It is an interesting device, this Prolepsis.
Usually, you would first have to introduce a certain noun, in order to refer to it with pronouns (like it). For example, “The apple that you gave me, it was rotten”. The It makes sense because we know it refers to The Apple when you read it.
Prolepsis throws that principle out of the window.
Prolepsis is mysterious and gives you a great first line.
“Your parents fuck you up” sounds like a cynic and resentful teenager, but somehow “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” has become one of the most famous first-century poetry lines. Or:
“Nobody heard him, the dead man,
– Stevie Smith, Not Waving but Drowning.
But still he lay moaning”
It makes for a great trick for a first line.
Merism
Ladies and gentleman, young and old, citizens and non-citizens… That’s a merism for people.
Basically, you break down a reference to something by its polar extremes. So, life becomes “sickness and health”, searching everywhere becomes “search every nook and cranny” and anytime “night and day”.
It’s a nice resource to use to emphasize a concept.
Antithesis
Those that are witty use Antithesis, those that aren’t are used by them.
Antithesis is the contrast of two idea. One clause makes a statement, the other makes the opposite. It’s very effective to show differences between two ideas.
Go big or go home.
Easy come, easy go.
That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
But the real genius of Antithesis was showed by Oscar Wilde. He had a very clever way of using them, giving the second clause an unexpected turn:
“No civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is.”
“If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.”
“The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.”
All in all, the educated will not overuse Antithesis, and the uneducated will please our desire to hear them.
There’s many more rhetorical figures, and many good ones. We have just looked at a few, and very breifly.
I know I’m repeating myself, but I do recommend the book to everyone. It’s easy, fun to read, and full of interesting insights and little tricks.
leo burghaus 
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