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As someone who worries a lot about rhythm in my own writing, I would say that rhythm is more often achieved by changing word order than by by changing words. Prose rhythm does not depend on exact s...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:56Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32948 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T07:50:01Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32948 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T07:50:01Z (about 5 years ago)
As someone who worries a lot about rhythm in my own writing, I would say that rhythm is more often achieved by changing word order than by by changing words. Prose rhythm does not depend on exact scansion anyway, so choosing a word with a different stress pattern doesn't do that much for you. Prose rhythm allows for unlimited unstressed syllables. The effect of rhythm is achieved far more by making the key words fall in the stressed positions of a sentence. In the preceding sentence, for example, I positions the key phrases "effect of rhythm" and "stressed position" at two ends of the sentence. I also use the words "far more" in the middle of the sentence to slow the reader by a suggestion of contrast, thus creating a kind of see saw that further emphasises the key phrases at either end. This is a very common rhetorical device in prose.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-02-01T19:01:24Z (almost 7 years ago)
Original score: 3