Write with Rhyme

 

Writing can stutter and stumble. Writing can flow so softly, it almost sends you to sleep. Writing can hop and skip, putting a smile on your face. Rhythm is one of the most underrated aspects of writing. Just like the music during your workout, your readers can sense the rhythm in your writing. Even when they aren’t reading your copy aloud, they can hear its rhythm because they listen to their inner speech. Inner speech mimics “outer” speech, using similar brain areas and even producing tiny movements in the muscles of your larynx. Yucky rhythm can make your readers click away, while carefully composed rhythm can keep your readers engaged.

What defines the rhythm of your content?

In writing, rhythm is defined by punctuation and the stress patterns of words in a sentence. Long sentences sound smoother, while short sentences make your content snappier.

When each sentence follows the same structure and rhythm, your writing becomes boring. For instance:

She went to the shop. She bought ingredients. She prepared Beef Rendang. She let it simmer for 5 hours. The house filled with exotic smells. She cooked rice. She waited for her husband. They ate a delicious dinner. She thought life was good.

By varying sentence length and structure, you can find a rhythm that suits your voice. Here’s an alternative version:

She went to the shop to buy ingredients. And when she prepared the Beef Rendang in the afternoon, exotic smells wafted through the house. After dinner, she whispered to her husband: “Life is good.”

Examples of rhythm in writing

Rhythm is easiest to spot in poetry, where the same cadence is repeated line after line. Here’s an example of Dr. Seuss:

I’m Yertle the Turtle!

Oh, marvelous me!

For I am the ruler

of all that I see!

Rhythm creates a mood. Rhythm can make you rush ahead, or slow you down to quietly enjoy reading. In the paragraph below from All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the pace ebbs and flows:

When she opens the bedroom window, the noise of the airplanes becomes louder. Otherwise, the night is dreadfully silent: no engines, no voices, no clatter. No sirens. No footfalls on the cobbles. Not even gulls. Just a high tide, one block away and six stories below, lapping at the base of the city walls.

And something else.

Something rattling softly, very close. She eases open the left-hand shutter and runs her fingers up the slats of the right. A sheet of paper has lodged there.

The pace of this paragraph from FiftyThree is quite similar:

We make stuff.

Beautiful, practical, meaningful stuff.
We make what we love.
We love what we do.

But over the years, we noticed that somehow, along the way, software designed to help us be creative actually made us less creative. We believe the best ideas often emerge from the simplest tools: pencil and paper.

Make your content swing and swirl

Next time you read a novel, pay attention to its rhythm. Where does the author let you pause? How does the author vary long and short sentences? How does the writing ebb and flow?

Do you notice a similar rhythm in the writing of your favorite authors?

After studying the rhythm of a few writers, go on and play with the rhythm of your own content. Experiment by varying sentence length. Try different sentence structures. Play with different words.

Read your content aloud.

And learn how to influence your reader’s mood.

Make your words dance.