A field guide to the devices that make writing land — from alliteration to the whole
rhetorical-question family — each with a plain definition and a vivid example.
As you folks can imagine, generating new features, fixing broken ones, build and deploy,
CI/CD, writing my own science fiction, exercising (biking, lifting, running), being a good
husband, father, working in the woodshop, etc. … leaves little time for a good sit-down with
just me and my keyboard, writing about writing. Where you see natural language, like this,
these are my own words (unless Claude was a bad boy and “helped me”…). I have, in fact, sat
down and hammered out and learned about all the different things listed here, and most of
this writing is, in fact, my own. However, this has been a work in progress for a couple of
years and has gone through multiple AI prompt-engineering iterations, as my initial attempts
were to simply get Claude or ChatGPT to do this analysis for me. Ultimately, it led me to a
goal — leave less to chance, and more to rigorous, testable code.
All of what you read here has been, or will be, rigorously defined in procedures and
functions that will analyze your writing as you type.
A note on how to read this page: the warm serif cards, like the
one above, are the inventor's own writing. Everything in the field guide that follows is
reference material — a plain definition and an example for each device. Where an example is
the author's own invention rather than a classic textbook line, it carries a small
“the author's own” tag.
Alliteration family
Sound repeated near the front of words — the oldest music in English prose.
Alliteration
The same consonant sound repeated at the start of closely connected words.
She sells seashells by the seashore.
Consonance
Repeated consonant sounds — at the start, middle, or end of nearby words.
Mike likes his new bike.
Assonance
Repeated vowel sounds in nearby words.
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
Symmetrical alliteration
A sequence of sounds mirrored around a central point.
He who sees sees who he.
Word alliteration (full-word alliteration)
Entire words repeated for emphasis and rhythm — “fair is fair,” “man to man,” “word for word.”
Would that the wood were seemingly seamless.
the author's own
Compound alliteration
Consonant sounds repeated across two or more sets of compound or multi-syllable words.
Wild and woolly, willfully in the woods.
Paroemion
Alliteration pushed to excess — on purpose, for the sheer effect of it.
We watched as westerly winds wickedly whipped the wilting weeping willows.
the author's own
Structural repetition
Devices that repeat words in a pattern to build rhythm and momentum.
Anaphora
Repeating a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses.
I have a dream that… I have a dream that…
Anadiplosis
The last word of one clause becomes the first word of the next, chaining the thought forward.
…tribulation worketh patience, and patience, experience, and experience, hope…
Aposiopesis
Trailing off mid-sentence — cat-got-your-tongue — usually marked with an ellipsis.
Why, if I ever get my hands on him, I'll…
Polyptoton
Repeating a root word in a different grammatical form — adjective to noun, and so on.
The impossibility of possible possibilities, bordered by boards.
the author's own
Diacope
Repeating a word or phrase with a few words in between — often to answer your own question.
How did this happen? Ignorance, my dear friend, pure, unbridled ignorance.
the author's own
Balance & contrast
Setting ideas side by side so the shape of the sentence carries the argument.
Antithesis
Two contrasting ideas set against each other in balanced form.
A tide rising raises all boats. Everyone forgets that every tide has two sides.
the author's own
Merism
Referring to a whole by naming its parts or its extremes.
He searched high and low. Young and old. You are either with me, or against me.
Wit & compression
Saying the most in the fewest words — the pleasure of the well-turned line.
Epigram
A pithy, clever, memorable saying.
You will never remember to reload; far better to master it and be so fast it doesn't
matter you forgot.
the author's own
Tautology
Restating the same idea (“free gift,” “I saw it with my own eyes”), or a statement true
by its own logical form (“A or not A”).
If you begin to alphabetically sort something, the last word will always be the last word.
the author's own
Sensory & figurative
Reaching across the senses to make an image land in the body, not just the mind.
Blazon
Cataloguing a subject's parts in praise.
Roses are red, violets are blue, your lips are like flower petals and your words like
sweet wine…
the author's own
Synaesthesia
Describing one sense in the language of another.
Music that stings like a bee.
She voiced her concern as pleasantly as fingernails dragged across a chalkboard.
the author's own
Syntax texture
Not which words, but how they're wired together — the length, the joins, the order.
Parataxis (paratactic)
Short sentences, set side by side, with little subordination.
Writing should be a blend of things. Parataxis can be nice. It allows you to be understood.
Hypotaxis (hypotactic)
Long sentences layered with subordinate clauses — the opposite of parataxis.
Because the thread, which he had tied at the entrance so that he might find his way back
through the passages that turned and doubled and turned again, still held, he followed it.
Polysyndeton
Deliberately many conjunctions, piling clause on clause.
Time and time and time again.
Asyndeton
Deliberately no conjunctions — the clauses run bare.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
Hyperbaton
Arranging words in an unfamiliar order to draw the ear.
This is the kind of English up with which I will not put.
Question figures
The great rhetorical-question family — asking not to learn, but to persuade, rebuke,
anticipate, or steer.
Anacoenosis
A question whose aligned, obvious answer builds consensus with the audience.
Who makes the best Cogs? We do!
Anthypophora (antiphora)
Posing a question and immediately answering it yourself.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? …he hath brought many captives home to Rome.
Apocrisis
Posing and answering a question in a formal, authoritative voice.
And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth. Was it so? It was.
Aporia
Expressing doubt or perplexity, often framed as a question.
To be, or not to be — that is the question.
Erotesis (erotema)
A rhetorical question whose answer is implied and obvious.
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
Epiplexis
A question asked to rebuke or shame, not to be answered.
What's the point? Why would you even want that?
Epitemesis
Epiplexis followed by an accusation or judgement.
How could you? After everything — you knew, and you did it anyway.
Hypophora
Raising a question and immediately answering it to steer the audience.
What have you done for me lately? NOTHING.
Interrogatio
A question posed for effect, its answer already obvious.
Is the sky blue? Then you already know my answer.
Percontatio
A probing inquiry that presses for a real answer.
And what, exactly, did you expect would happen?
Procatalepsis
Anticipating an objection and answering it before it is raised — the prebuttal.
You'll say we can't afford it. We can't afford not to.
Pysma
A rapid-fire volley of questions.
Who did this? When? Why? And who let them?
Rogatio
A formal, ceremonial asking.
Shall we, then, put the matter to a vote?
Ratiocinatio
A question answered by working through the reasoning aloud.
Why refuse? Because refusing costs us nothing and buys us time.
Subjectio
A question answered with a single, pointed assertion.
What do they want? Everything. That is what they want.
The climax arc & the Ten Measures
The devices above are the notes; this is the shape of the whole song — and the lens the
inventor uses to judge it.
The climax arc — the golden mean
A story's rise toward its climax has a proportion. When the build feels almost
mathematically inevitable — reminiscent of the golden mean and the Fibonacci
progression — the arc lands the way a well-composed piece of music resolves. Come in too
early and it deflates; too late and it lurches. The right proportion feels earned.
In the inventor's own words — a scoring lens
When I read — my own drafts most of all — I score for ten things, one to ten each. It is
a personal lens, not a verdict on anyone. These are the ten:
Golden Mean / arc of climax — does the rise feel proportional, almost inevitable?
Pacing — the right speed, sentences varied; at its best, orchestral.
Continuity & causality — earned outcomes, no broken rules.
Eloquence — intentional rhetorical construction, not habit. Every phrase carved, cliché-free.
Risk-taking — does it dare something new?
Suspense & compulsion — the forward pull that won't let you set it down.
Character development — meaningful, believable change.
Character depth — internal logic, wounds, contradictions, a voice.
Believability — does the emotion, and the world's logic, hold?
Originality — is it unmistakably its own?
On eloquence I lose points for the tells of a first draft: pet phrases I reach for too
often, tropisms (“shards of light,” “eyes like stars”), borrowed clichés (“heart skipped a
beat”), dead metaphors (“grasp an idea”), and rhythmic monotony. Because here is the whole
point: eloquence is not beauty — it is intentionality. Rhetoric is a choice; cliché is an
accident.
This is the first of the Inventor Essays — mostly my own words. There are more.