#polysyndeton

Another good line, which Forsyth applies specifically to epizeuxis but can be said of many techniques: "It's like a nuclear bomb: immensely effective, but a bit weird if you use it every few minutes."

It's the book that taught me "polysyndeton," a term I've used at least twice since I've learned it (though not, perhaps, to anyone's benefit, since I immediately clarify it with "the deliberate repetition of 'and'," as I might have just said in the first place).

Which is to say, you don't need to know the precise names of literary techniques to use them well. And as Forsyth himself points out, the exact names of techniques are...inexact, to say the least (what I know and love as zeugma - applying a word in two different ways, as in "He took his hat and his leave" - he calls syllepsis, and zeugma is something else in his book: omission of a verb). Still, if you enjoy learning about words, and have a certain sense of humor, you'll probably have fun.

I also appreciate Forsyth's analysis of why a technique can work: for instance, I'm not unfond of litotes because it makes use of irony that is not unflattering to the reader: as Forsyth points out, irony draws on shared knowledge. (Litotes, as you may have guessed, is "affirming something by denying its opposite." Along with the amusing irony and flattering appeal to shared knowledge, I enjoy it for its "have your cake and eat it to" element. When I say "I'm not unfond of this," I'm at once saying I'm fond of it, but also raising the idea that one might dislike it. Here, I say that to wryly acknowledge that the wordy and roundabout litotes is an acquired taste. In fiction, when a romance protagonist admits "I'm not unfond of them" about their enemy, it's part of an enemies-to-lovers or lovers-to-enemies arc that blends fondness and unfondness in a delicious swirl.)

A- ALLUSION- Her ability to look past appearances and recognize inner beauty was a really Belle-like trait.

N- ANASTROPHE- Her unconditional love for her family can't be compared to anything.

G- ASYNDETON- As she sees the beast, she screams, she curses, she runs, she hides because of what she saw.

E- ANASTROPHE- Backwards, upon her slowly walking, she tripped and fell, which caught his attention.

Before I even knew what polysyndeton was, this technique was one of my favourites, and since you’re on tumblr there’s a good chance it’s one of yours too.

Polysyndeton is a way of creating pacing in a sentence by repeating the same conjunction as you add on more words/phrases/clauses - most commonly ‘and’, although you can also try with others (but, or, nor, so, for, yet).

Consider political speeches, where the politician may want to create catchphrases, so they need short, snappy soundbites that the media will love, and that will catch in voters’ ears:

“We have served and slaved and broken ourselves for too long on the whims of the opposition.”

Or, imagine someone asks their lovesick friend what colour their crush’s eyes are, and the lovesick fool doesn’t know:

“They’re blue, and they’re green, and brown, and red, and the colour of the sun when you stare at it too long, and they’re the night sky when the clouds cover a full moon and you wait and wait and wait and wonder when you’ll see that glimpse of the heavens again behind the clouds and behind the beauty of the moon and you can’t - you just can’t - and, oh, what does it even matter what colour her eyes are when she won’t ever look at me?”

As the "and"s flow, you can feel the pace of the sentence pick up, tumbling over itself, then when the “and”s get further apart the rest of the dialogue stretches out with the weight of this particular item on the list which, for some reason, is worth more space than the others.

Used this way, it’s really easy to show someone gushing about something, where they have a lot of emotion in what they say - perfect for fanblogs or stories about weird things that happened to you.

Was it my hair or the face,

or my eyes or the smile?

 Was it my belly, or its roundness,

or my legs, or their tallness?

 Was it the way I talked, or the  pitch,

or the way I walked, or because I was a

little bitch?

 You took your aim and fired your fists

and beat out all other thoughts and left me with one.

Why?

It was my hair and my face and my eyes and my smile.

It was my belly and its roundness and my legs and their tallness.

It was the way I walked and the way I talked and its pitch.

The boy looked on in terror as he saw two pig-men drag his parents down the metal grate stairs towards the black, red, and yellow glow of the unknown depths. Another pig-man held the boy’s hand and assured him that everything would be just fine now. The boy looked up at the pig-man. He didn’t really look like a pig, but the mask and breather he wore over his face certainly made him look like a pig.

The boy stared down at the abyss. He no longer heard the screams of his parents. He wasn’t scared anymore. He just stared.

After some time, the pig-man escorted the boy up the stairs and into a small, brightly lit room. The pig-man instructed the boy to sleep. And so the boy did.

Eyes open.

The boy awoke back in his room. Cold. He peered into the darkness of his shabbily furnished room. He saw that it was still dark outside from his curtain-less windows. He lifted himself off of the mattress and quietly entered the hallway. It was cold. He walked carefully through the darkness to the main room of the house to find reprieve from the bitter chill near the fireplace. To no avail.

When the boy entered the room, the fire had already gone out. The black metal of the stove containing the fire still glowed red from the intense heat from before, so the boy sat down next to the black and red box. He felt wetness at his eyes. He didn’t know if it was because of the heat or because of what he saw, but he continued to sit there. Unmoving.

Eyes open.

The boy stared down at the abyss. He saw the pig-men dragging his mother down the metal stairs towards the darkness. She screamed in pain and struggled to free herself from their large, leather-bound hands, but the pig-men continued their march. Going down each step with a heavy clung, the pig-men yanked on her hair. Sometimes ripping large swaths of it from her skull. The blood flowed. The screaming faded.

Eyes open.

It was so cold. He felt his hands and feet and nose and ears grow numb and heavy. That electric feeling as the peripheral limbs go to sleep. The room was dark. There were no noises. No people. No animals. No furniture. Just him and the stove, which had grown cold.

He thought he should move. He wanted to escape from that place, but he couldn’t. His body frozen. His thoughts paralyzed. His fear dissipating.

Eyes open.

The boy stared down at the abyss. He saw the pig-men dragging his father down the rusted metal stairs towards the red, yellow, black crepuscule below. His father screamed and kicked and clawed at the pig-men, but he was too weak, too frail, to resist their might. The pig-men continued their descent. Each step echoed above and below. The light flickered against the rough walls of the cylindrical Gehenna. The cracking and snapping of his father’s body resonated throughout the metal and stone. Then silence. The screaming faded.

Eyes open.

His icicle body hardly moved. The stove provided no solace. He couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing. He just sat there naked and cold.

Eyes open.

I looked down at the boy. He appeared relaxed, calm, free. I thought to myself, “Good. He’s grown a lot from this experience. I guess it was worth it after all.”

“Shall we leave, son?”