More Rhythm, But This Time It's Personal....

While I was thinking about rhythm in speech, I was reminded of something a friend told me about rhythm, and thought I'd share it with you.

Certain rhythms crop up again, and again. There's the famous iambic pentameters of the opening line of Rebecca - Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. And you can put certain poets to other rhythms...

Try Emily Dickinson. Poor, frail Emily...

Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me

The carriage held but just ourselves/And Immortality

or

My life closed twice before its close;/It yet remains to see

If Immortality unveil/A third event to me

Now try singing the lines to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas.

Sorry, Emily Dickinson fans. You're going to have The Yellow Rose of Texas winging through your brain for the rest of the day. See where thinking about rhythm gets you.

(All together now...

Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me

The carriage held but just ourselves/And Immortaliteeeee!)

Rhythm in Prose

I always advise people to read their work aloud. It does several things:

1. Makes you realise if there are any grammatical errors.

2. Shows where there are clumsy sentences (where you stumble reading, you can be sure the reader will also stumble).

3. Gives you a sense of the rhythm of your writing, particularly when it comes to the dialogue.

Rhythm is something we don't often talk about, but it's there in everything we write. I write with a different rhythm to you, and you write with a different rhythm to your friend and so on. Our rhythm is as individual as our fingerprints - it's one of the aspects that makes up our 'voice' as a writer.

People speak with different rhythms, and this is one of the hardest things to get across in dialogue. You have to hear how your characters speak, and then transfer their different speech patterns to the page. If you've got a good ear you'll do it naturally, but other people have to practice - a good starting point is learning to listen.

Try saying both these phrases aloud: "That's enough" and "Enough already"

I bet you said them with a different intonation. They mean the same, but the different words give a different rhythm, which show a different accent, which suggests a different background. Read a Roddy Doyle novel, for example, and the Irish accent rings out clearly through the rhythm of the sentences. Listening and reading out are key in developing this for yourself.