Both assonance and consonance are commonly used in poetry and prose. This method involves using either similar vowel sounds (assonance) or similar consonant sounds (consonance). For example, in the Sylvia Plath poem "Bee Meeting," the lines, "Strips of tinfoil winking like people" has a repeating "i" sound, which is an example of assonance. This method can be used subtly, such as choosing two or three instances of assonance or consonance in a sentence or line, or can be more overt, such as consistently using the same sound throughout a sentence, paragraph, or line, depending on genre and type of text.
A common sound method, most commonly used in poetry, is rhyme. Rhyme involves words with the same ending sounds used in patterns. For example, the words "love" and "dove" or "win" and "thin" are full rhymes. Although this method is familiar to poetry readers, prose and nonfiction writers also use common sounds to emphasize certain words and phrases.
Alliteration involves beginning several words in a row within a line or sentence with the same letter or sound, such as the phrase, "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers." This effect is very obvious, so it is often used sparingly in literature and poetry.
Onomatopoeia refers to words that sound like what they refer to, such as "sizzle" or "clang." This method is used throughout all kinds of literature.