I think that rhythm is a lot like description, in that the reader will not necessarily read it as you conceived it and intended it to be read. That's a big part of the reason that sometimes you look at something you wrote long ago, and it seems awful and clunky. That's because you are now approaching it as a reader would, as a fresh set of eyes without your earlier conceptions of how it ought to be read.
Well, maybe, but I think old writing sounds clunky because it usually is clunky. It's more a matter of gained skill, I think.
Rhythm is real, not perceived, and I think most reader break down words in the same way. They can't help but read a one syllable word in a certain way, and a for the great majority, they will read a four sllable word as a four syllable word. They pause slightly for commas, and they stop when they reach a period. They read a four word sentence one way, and a thirty word sentence another way.
It works just like meter in poetry. Some few may read a poem without sticking to the meter, but most will read it as it's meant to be read. The same technique works in prose, if you've trained your ear to hear it.
I don't think I've ever read anything, including my own work, as anything other than a reader. I see no other way of writing well without reading what you write as a reader would.
We may agree on this, but if so it's because writers do not write well, do not write good rhythm and flow, until they learn to read their own writing as a reader would. This happens very, very fast with some writers, and never with others.
