Ever wondered what is the thing that makes certain passages within a story flow in a way that make us lose our connection with reality and instead draw us in their made-up world? Why the cadence of some sentences resonate with us in a way that makes us fall in love with a writer and their craft?

Aside from a reader’s preference to a specific setting or type of characters or plot or genre, I think a great deal should be attributed to something called “Rhetorical Devices.” Some of us use them, knowing fully well which one is needed, where to use them, and why (lucky you). Others, like myself, have no idea what they are called, or when or where one should be used, but use them none the less because something at the back of our heads insists it’s the right place to add them, that it adds a little something to our craft.

I think it’s best to be able to identify some of them, even if you don’t want to use them.

Margie Lawson, a guest blogger on Writer’s in the Storm, posted a few of them and gave some nice examples from published works in this post.

Then there’s Robert A. Harris’s, A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices, that provides an even greater list with 60 of these devices.

Happy studying and I hope they help you improve your writing 🙂