[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

When I write a speech I use brief sentences, sentences beginning with 'and', alliteration, repetition. Have I been taught to write words which are intended to sound 'biblical'?

Well, these are common techniques for effective speech-writing. Starting sentences with conjunctions and using short sentences mirror the way that we speak naturally, and so help make a speech sound more natural (rather than pre-prepared). Alliteration and repetition help emphasise the points that the speaker wishes to convey to the audience. I use these techniques a lot when I am writing talks for seminars.

I would not start sentences with conjunctions in my written work. Whether this is appropriate in a work of literature depends, I suppose, on the tone that the author wants to convey. Alliteration and repetition are useful in written work (including literature) for the same reasons that they are used in speeches, although they are perhaps more necessary in oral presentations as audiences generally only take in a proportion of what they are hearing and need to have the key points rammed home to them, whereas readers can always go back and re-read a passage that they didn't fully take in first time round (being an easily distracted reader, I do this all the time ).