Episode 45: Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp

Memoir Snob

Heres’s what I learned from Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp

AND

The Elements Of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth.

• Anaphora is when you start each phrase, sentence, or paragraph with the same word or words. But be careful: readers always remember the opening words but often forget the rest. So when using anaphora, be intentional about what you want to emphasize. Also, only using one word for the anaphora—as opposed to a phrase—is slightly less powerful but beautifully hypnotic.

• Epistrophe is when you end each phrase, sentence, or paragraph with the same word.

• Diacope is when a word or phrase is repeated after a brief interruption.

• Parataxis is short, clear, matter-of-fact sentences, often subject-verb, without conjunctions (think Hemingway). Knapp was selective with parataxis, using it when she wrote about the moment she found out her father died and again at the moment her mother died. In both instances, it was a shocking, cringey admission because she was drunk both times.

• Pleonasm is the use of unneeded words, sometimes repeating the exact same word, other times saying the same thing in a slightly different way. This can annoy readers, but when utilized for intentional redundancy can be quite effective and powerful.