5 Tips About Writing with Rhythm Think of all the things you do each day, including cooking meals, going to office, having breakfast, crossing road and speaking to other people. They all involve patterns or random sequences of ebb and flow: rhythm. Writing is like that, too. Just as any other activity, rhythm in writing can occur automatically, but it’s improved by conscious attention. Here are five tips for enhancing your writing by attending to rhythm. 1. Alternate Sentence Length Vary the word count for your sentences — not mathematically, not analytically, but naturally, organically. For inspiration, listen to a musical composition, noting the variety of measures. 2. Relocate Words and Phrases Read your writing aloud. Shift words and phrases around until the parts of a sentence seem to fall into their preordained places. 3. Embrace Sentence Fragments People speak in sentence fragments and incomplete sentences all the time, and although writing, except for the most informal prose, should reflect a more carefully constructed communication, in all but the most formal writing, judiciously employ truncated statements. 4. Match Rhythm to Mood Let the length and rhythm of a sentence match the mood you wish to impart. A description of a beautiful landscape or an account of a rapturous experience should cascade like a rippling waterfall or undulate with the peaks of valleys of sensual imagery. Longer sentences punctuated with alliteration and assonance and laced with metaphors evoking physical sensations will help readers immerse themselves in the places and events you describe. 5. Apply Tension and Release Many musical compositions are paced on the principle of building up to peaks of stress or emotion and a counterpointing relief from that ascent. Writing benefits from the same approach to carrying the reader along on waves of tension and release.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 06:09:21 +0000
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