Last week, my post came to an abrupt halt thanks to my intermittent internet. We seem all right today, so I mean to continue on as originally planned.

As you may recall, last week I wrote about rhythm of writing or, more accurately, the rhythms of a writer’s life. This week, I want to focus on how writing, good writing, has rhythms of its own. If you’ve never noticed this or thought about it, that’s all right. Most people don’t unless they are struggling to write themselves and cannot figure out why their writing seems flat.

While novels are not poetry or music, they should still have a rhythm. To see what I mean, try this exercise: write a piece of about 8-10 sentences. Each sentence should run about the same length and take the same form. For instance, “I woke up. I got dressed. I went to work…” You can imagine how a whole paragraph like this would make your brain go numb and your eyes feel like they are bleeding.

An even better example is the character Uncle Colm (played by Kevin McAleer) in Derry Girls. You will find clips on YouTube, if you haven’t already encountered this show. Uncle Colm is the most boring man who ever lived. Listen to him speak. His delivery is a monotone. The stories he relates are meandering inanities. In the hands of the actor, however, the monotony becomes hilarious.

Of course, if you were to read such ramblings on the page, you would either fall asleep or toss the book into the bin. There is no rhythm in a straight line.

Rhythm is about making your sentences rise and fall, like the undulating Irish countryside. Understand, I’m talking about the structure of the sentences and the paragraphs, not the content. The rhythm of a narrative should contain sentences of different length, and these sentences should vary in how they are structured. The same is true of paragraphs. It’s fine to follow a longish paragraph with a short one.

Like this.

Or to use repetition.

Like this.

Not only should the rhythm flow through the sentences, but the sentences should create a visual pattern. No one willingly reads an entire page of prose that is essentially one l-o-n-g paragraph. As an example, look at this blog post through narrowed eyes after you have finished reading it. Look at the way the text is jagged with very brief passages and longer ones. See what I mean?

As an example of true musicality, here is a passage from one of my favourite books, To Kill a Mockingbird. (If you haven’t read it — and why not? — this is something of a spoiler.)

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.
– Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird

Look at that long first sentence, it contains 13 words. The second sentence, in contrast, contains just 4 words. This is followed by another long, then another short sentence. You can see the rhythm as clearly as if it were being played on a drum by Phil Collins.

To understand rhythm, read how it is handled by wonderful writers. Look at your own favourite books and see where the rhythm is.

Here’s another of my favourite writers, Aharon Appelfeld, in his magnum opus about the Holocaust, Badenheim 1939:

“An engine, an engine coupled to four filthy freight cars, emerged from the hills and stopped at the station… ‘Get in!’ yelled invisible voices. And the people were sucked in”.

See how, here, Appelfeld find rhythm inside the sentences. The repetition of the word ‘engine’. Then the ‘get in’ is followed by ‘sucked in’. The sentences seem to rumble, like a train engine on a discouraging track. Look where the verbs are and how the content combined with the rhythm creates a sense of foreboding.

Another element that creates rhythm is the pause, or caesura. Generally speaking, it’s most commonly used in poetry, but you can find it in music too. A great example is the song, I’ve Got You Under My Skin by the fabulous Cole Porter (that man could write!). Can you guess where the caesura comes in this verse? It’s pretty obvious:

“Don’t you know little fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality”
But each time that I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
‘Cause I’ve got you under my skin”

Did you figure it out? Yes, it’s right after the ‘stop’.

This is also used in the song, Love will Keep us Together in the line, ‘Stop! Cause I really love you. Stop!’ If you’ve ever seen the film ‘Get Over It’, the opening credits use this song to great affect, with star Ben Foster pausing every time the word ‘STOP!’ is said. Uh, sung.

In the Harper Lee quote above, it would come right after, ‘and our lives.’

In prose it can be harder to detect, but if you try reading passages out loud, your voice will pause automatically when you reach those moments. Alternatively, listen to some audio books. Hearing a great actor finding the music in prose is a joy to behold.

The caesura will add to the rhythm of your writing, but it also allows the reader to some strong statement you just made. Think of the famous Hamlet speech, To Be or Not To Be. The pause comes right after, ‘that is the question.’ It allows Hamlet and the audience to consider what he has just said, if only for a moment.

Get used to reading your work out loud. Pay attention to the way it sounds. While all the elements of fiction remain important: characterisation, plot, and so on, it’s easy to focus on the twists and turns of the story, but don’t forget the hills and valleys of your narrative.

[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." data-large-file="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." width="1880" height="1251" src="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con..." alt="" class="wp-image-18763" srcset="https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 1880w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 150w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 300w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 768w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 1024w, https://rycardus.wordpress.com/wp-con... 1440w" sizes="(max-width: 1880px) 100vw, 1880px" />The Mamore Gap, County Donegal, Ireland Photo by Adrien Olichon on Pexels.com