: Re: Is alliteration distracting and not very valuable/interesting for the reader? I tend to use alliteration a lot. This is an example from a story I'm writing: "Let me get this straight," Aru

I am a great fan of alliteration in prose. But it absolutely must be well done and used sparingly. I use it to strengthen an idea and very rarely on more than two words in a row. Never through an entire sentence.

I do write mostly in Portuguese, though, which has slightly different reactions to certain figures of speech, but I also use this technique in English.

For instance "the morning sun rose mournfully" has two words that alliterate and are not too close together, but what idea or feeling is it really strengthening?

"The sea breeze brought the memories of long forgotten summers." The vocalic sounds of 'sea breeze' and the consonantic 'br' of 'breeze brought' show that if you repeat different sounds just twice you can create pleasant alliterations that don't jar. The 'ee' sound can intensify the feel of the 'sea', while the 'br' sounds can unite the breeze and its function of bringing memories.

Nevertheless, you cannot fall back onto alliterations relentlessly, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph.

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: Re: Is alliteration distracting and not very valuable/interesting for the reader? I tend to use alliteration a lot. This is an example from a story I'm writing: "Let me get this straight," Aru

More posts by @Rivera824

: Historical Fiction: using you and thou Generally speaking, English once used 'you' as the second person plural (equivalent to 'vous' and 'vÃ³s') and 'thou' as the second person singular (equivalent

: Is starting a story with dialogue bad? (Apologies if this question has already been asked. I've looked around but can't find this specific question, only related ones.) The general advice seems

: What would be a good way of electronically organizing my aphorisms? I have been writing aphorisms for the most part of my life. Up to now, I noted them down in (real-life, paper) notebooks.

: You should develop those long-lived characters as you would any other. Think about people that come to be in their 80s or 90s. Some are wiser and more patient than younger ones. Some are

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