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Accidental Alliteration

Laurence

Inkling
In Writing Excuses S12E11: Diction, Mary mentions that most alliteration, particularly accidental, is seriously distracting.

What do you think makes alliteration use in fantasy work or not work? Any sweet examples?

Do you edit out all/accidental alliteration in your first draft?
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I would ask her to define distracting. Where the author is aiming at a poetic passage, alliteration is not so much a distraction as the point.

I have a problem with much writing advice in that it presumes all readers have the same reaction, be it to alliteration or to any other rhetorical device. It doesn't even have to be that most readers react a certain way (which is demonstrably impossible to determine), so long as there are enough readers who like it to generate sales and reviews in sufficient numbers to please the author. If ten thousand people liked my literary flourishes, I'd be delirious with joy, even if ten million disliked them.

*harrumph*

I do edit them out, insofar as I can spot them. I try to make sure nothing in my prose is accidental. I miss some, of course.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
What's intentional and what's not? Who the hell is to say except the author? I am distracted as a reader by a pile of different things (starting too many sentences with adverbial phrases or clauses, for instance)... but, alliteration is not one of them. Not even friggin' close. I seriously can't remember a single instance of noting it negatively in writing. So, I've heard advice against alliteration infinitely more time than I've actually had an issue with it... hmmm.

So, I will flat out disagree with Mary on this one. If alliteration is the biggest problem in your writing, you're way ahead of the game, LOL.
 
I actually think the opposite unless we’re talking tongue-twisters. Alliteration in moderate amounts rolls off the tongue well. In slip knox’s post he used the words ‘poetic passage’ and it felt really satifying and smooth to say. Doesn’t particularly matter to me if I did it by accident, if I see it and it doesn’t feel inappropriate I’m totally keeping it.

And by inappropriate I mean this; alliteration, to me, tends to somehow be a way to lighten the mood and is often used as humor (Bojack Horseman anybody?), so if the mood seems too serious for it, it will stand out as odd. The more words are used in this alliteration, the more outrageous and comical it becomes, thus requires a much less serious scene to include it in.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
I like alliteration also, but I would add that it can add "punch" to a dramatic situation also. I wouldn't say it's just for humor. Start stringing 4+ words together it will tend to do this, but what I think alliteration does (as well as rhyming) is join words over time and space to create a cohesion. Now, if those words don't seem to fit together, I could see an issue, but otherwise it should be all good.

I would also question the concept of "accidental" alliteration. Once a writer has a voice, even before, how often do you accidentally write a word?

Damn that Alien Hand Syndrome!
(Okay, it happens, but those get edited out... we hope)

Whether conscious or not, our brains are drawn to things like alliteration, making connections. It's not an accident we put them in.

I actually think the opposite unless we’re talking tongue-twisters. Alliteration in moderate amounts rolls off the tongue well. In slip knox’s post he used the words ‘poetic passage’ and it felt really satifying and smooth to say. Doesn’t particularly matter to me if I did it by accident, if I see it and it doesn’t feel inappropriate I’m totally keeping it.

And by inappropriate I mean this; alliteration, to me, tends to somehow be a way to lighten the mood and is often used as humor (Bojack Horseman anybody?), so if the mood seems too serious for it, it will stand out as odd. The more words are used in this alliteration, the more outrageous and comical it becomes, thus requires a much less serious scene to include it in.
 
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