Thursday, March 22, 2007

Mellifluous spells

flamingrain.jpgFor each letter of the alphabet (or as far as you can get in 10-15 minutes!) come up with a spell (like light) and then play around with the sounds that make up that word to create another word or words that sound good with it to complete the name of the spell. *Avoid* starting your other words with the same letter as your initial word. If you want, tell what the spell does if it's not obvious.

Here's an example: If the word you begin with is "flame", the sounds in that word are: "f", "l", "ay", "m". You don't need to use all the sounds. You can substitute or add related sounds so "v" instead of "f", "r" instead of "l" and "n" or "ng" or "nk" instead of "m". So Flame of Morphelius and Flaming Rain would work.

Here's a list of related sounds that I posted last year for the By the sound of things prompt:
Dentals (means teeth): t, d, th
Labials (means lips): b, p
Gutturals (back of the throat): g, k, ng
Labiodentals: f, v
Sibilants (they hiss!): s, z, sh, ch, zh, j
Nasals (nose): m, n, ng, nk
Liquids: l, r
The repetition of sound is what helps give Avada Kedavra a chilling sound. (Including rhythm and that "d"s and "k" tend to have a dangerous sound to them.) Expecto Petronum, Locomotor Mortis also have repeated sounds. In a story I'm writing I came up with Lufail's Flay.

If you want to spend time playing around with sounds rather than coming up with the initial word, here's some possibilities. Feel free to ignore or play around (change the tense, add plurals, etc.) with them.
anvil, angel, ancient
blade, blood, bubble
curse, crypt, candle
dragon, demon, dagger
elephant, enforcer, enigma
flame, fortress, feather
ghost, grave, glass
hex, hook, haze
interrogation, ice, itch
jinx, jewel, joy
kitten, kiss, killer
lance, lady, loom
mirror, mandible, moon
night, knock, nag
oil, oppression, ooze
puzzle, putrification, pumpkin
quill, quest, quiescence
reveal, riot, rogue
surge, seer, sword
torrent, tracker, thief
urge, ugly, ulimate
vine, vision, vitality
wing, wasteland, wisdom
xenophobia, complex, anxiety
yearn, yielding, youth
zoo, zombie, zero

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