So, I missed the November and very nearly the December blog posts. Once a month posting doesn’t seem that ambitious until you’re reaching desperately for your pen through a pile of shitty nappies and the phone starts ringing somewhere far away on the other start of the flat. But I’m still here. I’m doing shed loads of writing. And I promise this isn’t the last post. Let me tell you why.
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This is part two of my beginner’s guide to writing musical dialogue.
How can we use sound and rhythm to create beautiful writing? In part one I introduced the idea of music as a predictable pattern of sounds and beats, and showed how in English we can organise the stressed syllables in words to produce rhythm. In this part I will expand the idea to include the sound of words, through alliteration, assonance and repetition. I will talk about how this impacts rhythm, tempo and pace, before finishing with the concept of cacophony and noting that you can indeed have too much of a good thing.
(more…)
How can we use sound and rhythm to create beautiful writing? In part one I introduced the idea of music as a predictable pattern of sounds and beats, and showed how in English we can organise the stressed syllables in words to produce rhythm. In this part I will expand the idea to include the sound of words, through alliteration, assonance and repetition. I will talk about how this impacts rhythm, tempo and pace, before finishing with the concept of cacophony and noting that you can indeed have too much of a good thing.
