Consonance: The repetition of consonants in words stressed in the same place (but whose vowels differ). Also, a kind of inverted alliteration, in which final consonants, rather than initial or medial ones, repeat in nearby words. Consonance is more properly a term associated with modern poetics than with historical rhetorical terminology.
Dog. Hog. Log. Blog. Fog. Bog. Jog. Duck. Deli. Drawing. Dolphin. Dread. Dare. Drop. Dodge. Ah! The beauty of random words collected together solely for their sound. Somehow, they may provide a platform for creative writing or thought, which of course can be combined, not to mentioned being said out loud.
The dog and hog held a party by the log, lugged up from the beach. I entered this observation in my blog, bowled over by their cooperation. I wondered if they could communicate with each other clearing the fog floating between them there on the bog, beautiful in its own right. I knew there would be something in this to jog joy and circulate happiness around my brain. I picked up my duck David and headed to the deli, defamed and cursed by the vegetarians, who had spray painted a drawing, driven by their anger, of a submarine sandwich holding a dolphin drowning in mayonnaise on a split baguette, with tears in its eyes. I was feeling dread driven by the vandalism, but I had to dare, driven by my hunger, to enter the deli. I was ready to drop down and thank Mr. Mangle for keeping “Meat Masters” open in the face of the protests. Then, I asked if he could make a Dolphin on white with mayo. I was joking. He didn’t get it. He threw a handful of pickles at me. I never had to dodge dill pickles before!
I apologized profusely and paid for the pickles. He made me a Reuben that tasted like it had fallen from heaven. All was well.
There you have it. A really meaningful little story, driven by identical consonants generated before the story’s writing. It helps me a lot to write this way. I have no very good ideas of my own, so the words write me, after I’ve generated them. I read somewhere that James Joyce used this technique when he wrote “Moby Dick”—the story about the giant ape living on an island who was captured and taken to New York City and got involved in the extortion rackets with James Cagney. The ape would punch holes in buildings to force tenants to give him and Cagney all their money. I remember reading it back in ‘68 when I was totally stoned, before I became a medical doctor. I lost my license for gross malpractice, transplanting a mouse’s kidney by mistake. The size of the kidney should’ve been a tip off, but I had lost my glasses and could hardly see. When I dropped the mouse kidney on the floor, it came into focus and I realized what I had done, it was all about my daughter’s school science project, but I shouldn’t have brought the kidney to work where I mixed it up with a human kidney. I told this to my staff and they laughed like it was the funniest thing they ever heard. Luckily, the patient survived. Now, as I said, I’m a writer and part-time laundromat monitor (which I didn’t mention).
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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