How important is rhythm to you?

Hi Nicole - My opinion, rhythm is important in poetry, not in prose. I don't think sing-songy writing is a good thing. Puma

I don't think that rhythm = sing-songy writing. I consider rhythm in prose to be a matter of how it sounds when read aloud. To me, that's important enough that I read everything I write aloud. I want it to sound a specific way, and if it doesn't--if a line is awkward because of having too many beats or too few, I'll change words to get the rhythm right. Each piece, though, will have its own rhythm, so I'm never trying to make my prose conform to some idealized rhythm. Some is languid, some staccato, some herky-jerky, some plodding.

It's important to me. When I'm reading back what I just wrote, I "listen" for it. It helps me pinpoint when a short, blunt sentence is needed, or when a fragment will say it better than a grammatically perfect sentence. So that if I was reading it out loud it would sound varied, interesting. Which doesn't mean I purposefully use 10 words when 4 will do. It's just something internal I listen for. I can't explain it better than that.

Rhythm is everything for me. I look for it in both poetry and prose. I strive to inject it into both poetry and prose. Rhythm is the exact reason that I love words enough to write.


ETA: Yeah...sing-songy and rhythm do not go together, IMHO. Rhythm in prose, for me, simply means that it sounds as beautiful as its meaning.

What Redzilla said. One of the reasons I like to read aloud when I edit is so I can hear the rhythm, the number of beats in a sentence--or string of sentences. It's amazing how much better adding or subtracting a beat or beats can make the the prose sound.

in my last two poetic-like WIP rhythm plays an important part in mapping out the structure and making order out of seeming chaos. I rigidly retain the same pacing throughout each, as in a musical score. I think they're in 4/4 time. (Been awhile since I took music lessons.)

Redzilla said:

I don't think that rhythm = sing-songy writing. I consider rhythm in prose to be a matter of how it sounds when read aloud. To me, that's important enough that I read everything I write aloud. I want it to sound a specific way, and if it doesn't--if a line is awkward because of having too many beats or too few, I'll change words to get the rhythm right. Each piece, though, will have its own rhythm, so I'm never trying to make my prose conform to some idealized rhythm. Some is languid, some staccato, some herky-jerky, some plodding.

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KTC said:

Rhythm is everything for me. I look for it in both poetry and prose. I strive to inject it into both poetry and prose. Rhythm is the exact reason that I love words enough to write.


ETA: Yeah...sing-songy and rhythm do not go together, IMHO. Rhythm in prose, for me, simply means that it sounds as beautiful as its meaning.

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What they said.

Rhythm is very important to me when I write.

Some people notice; some people don't.

But if twenty words sound better to the ear than two, you bet I'm using the twenty.

As KTC put it, I want passages to sound as beautiful (or in some cases, as ugly) as the meaning behind the words.

In prose and poetry both, rhythm helps create emotion in the readers' minds the same way a musical score helps create emotion in movies. It adds to setting, to character, to the overall feel of the piece.

Yes, it is important.

It does not have to be sing-songy.

Question: Go back and look at your posts. Do they have rhythm (and I'm not being snotty, I'm curious as to your opinions).

When I'm talking about sing-songey writing, I'm talking more along the lines of repetition of sounds and sequences and the use of actual accented/unaccented words. I ran into one of those in a post recently and it was a complete turnoff. Puma

Puma said:

Question: Go back and look at your posts. Do they have rhythm (and I'm not being snotty, I'm curious as to your opinions).

When I'm talking about sing-songey writing, I'm talking more along the lines of repetition of sounds and sequences and the use of actual accented/unaccented words. I ran into one of those in a post recently and it was a complete turnoff. Puma

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Posts aren't revised and edited and beta-read and revised again. I tend to ramble in my posts more like stream of consciousness. But when i write fiction, I have deliberate rhythm and beats in my sentences. Fast-paces action requires shorter, more stacatto sentences. Long, lanquid scenes get long, lanquid sentences with bigger words. That's all part of rhythm.

Not iambic pantameter though. that belongs in poetry.

OctoberRain said:

It's important to me. When I'm reading back what I just wrote, I "listen" for it. It helps me pinpoint when a short, blunt sentence is needed, or when a fragment will say it better than a grammatically perfect sentence. So that if I was reading it out loud it would sound varied, interesting. Which doesn't mean I purposefully use 10 words when 4 will do. It's just something internal I listen for. I can't explain it better than that.

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This explains me better than I can

It sounds in my head as I write and I subconsciously alter the sentence for rhythm as I type. I think.

*hopefully not starting to sound too odd here*

actually it isn't the words in my works that are rhythmicaly arranged but the overall plot that is: build-up, build-up, build-up, bang/climax // build-up, build-up, build-up, bang/climax // build-up... (Makes the works easier to follow, and hopefully adds impact too.)

Prose rhythm is one of so many tools in a writer's toolbox. It can be very useful to help set the tone for a scene or a part of a scene--as long as the writer realizes that rhythm can take many forms, kind of like the rhythm of the various forms of music (from classical, blues, jazz, soft and hard rock, to heavy metal). I some ways the movie industry does, in fact, use music as a background rhythm to influence audience interpertation and participation in various scenes. Although it is not a necessity for writing good prose, creating a specific type of rhythm in some of the passages in a scene may contribute as much to the tone of the chapter or scene as does the background music in a movie scene.

Not as important as enthusiasm.

I'm sorry - what were we talking about?

I've been a rhythm fan ever since I learned how to spell it.

I like to have a rhythm to what I'm writing. Ideally, I would like it to be impossible for a reader to imagine the voice of the narrator being that of Ben Stein. Rhythm is part of what differentiates prose writing from academic writing.

I've posted about this before, and for me rhythm is vital. Being a musician, I'm particularly aware of it. I firmly believe that esp in dialogue, the most important thing is rhythm of the sentences, the long and short, the tags inserted at just the right place to keep the rhythm flowing, etc. It's what make dialogue come alive, and if it has the wrong rhythm or no rhythm at all, it just feels artificial no matter what the words.

NicoleMD said:

How important is rhythm to you, the beat of your words on the page?

For instance, some people say "why use ten words when four would do" but what if those ten words give a better rhythm?

Does rhythm come to you naturally, or do you tease your sentences until the beat rings true? Or is it something you don't even think about?

Just wondering.

Nicole

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It's very important to me that my words have rhythm. For the most part it comes to me naturally, it's the way I think. Rhythm keeps the flow of the story moving without jarring the reader unless I want them to be jarred.

I'm extremely sensitive about rhythm. A lot of times I notice that a piece of writing doesn't flow well, and I can't explain why. It's just an instinct, something I've somehow picked up.

One thing that helps me when it comes to rhythm is imagining the narrator's voice speaking the lines as I write them. It helps that I usually write in 1st person, but even when it's in second person, I often imagine the narrator speaking the words. Imagining a distinct voice really helps me get my voice and rhythm down for a particular piece.

Most of them end up sounding either like the English voice actor for Nauta from FLCL or like Edward Norton. Sometime I should try Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman. And David Duchovny.

I don't tend to think about such things consciously--that would make the writing come out too forced to me--but if I read over something I wrote and it sounds clunky in some way, I'll redo it. I can't say if this is related to "rhythm" or not, though. I have no clue if my work has any sort of rhythm, I just write it the way it sounds best to me personally. *shrug*

The rhythm is vital in stories as short as what I usually write. I always go for succinct, but there has to be a logical flow of words, and the beauty of language can only be felt if the right words flow together in a stream to produce the story. This creates a sublte rhythm that allows for reading the story aloud without awkward stops.

I can't always achieve it, but I always strive for it.

Rhythm is also incredibly important when you are writing humour. A punchline needs to fall on a certain beat, the story has to have a certain flow. I totally am obsessed with rhythm in my writing. It is just one more tool that we authors use to get our story across to audiences.