The Rule of 3 articulates that “3” is the magic number for many essential elements in a work of writing. In truth, this is more a principle than a hard-and-fast rule: many works of writing work precisely because they don’t follow this rule.

Nonetheless, this is a tool well worth knowing about. Read on to learn how the Rule of Three operates in creative writing, and how you can wield it in every element of your work.

What is the Rule of Three in Writing?

The Rule of 3 describes a principle of successful writing: elements of a work of literature often deliver the most impact when presented in a trio.

The Rule of 3: elements of a work of literature often deliver the most impact when presented in a trio.

By “elements,” we mean virtually any aspect of a piece of writing can be effectively presented in groups of three. A tripartite sentence might have three equally weighted clauses; a novel might do well with three main characters; a joke will be funniest when presented three separate times—and so on.

The Rule of Three is not a golden rule—in fact, no rule is. And there are plenty of times when it doesn’t need to be followed, as well as plenty of other times when breaking the rule is more effective.

Nonetheless, three seems to be a magic number in literature. Why is that?

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Why Rule of 3 Writing Works

Three, for some reason, seems to be a magic number for the mind. We chunk our telephone numbers into groups of 3 and 4. When remembering long lists or sequences, like the numbers of pi, it’s easiest to do so when chunking that information into trios or sometimes quartets.

Trios present the smallest amount of information in which both a pattern and a rhythm emerges.

Basically, our minds really like patterns and rhythm. Trios present the smallest amount of information in which both a pattern and a rhythm emerges. So when an element of writing appears on three separate occasions, those occasions become linked in a way that’s memorable for the brain.

It’s the literary equivalent of “bump, set, spike” in volleyball—a phrase that, not coincidentally, also follows the rule of three.

Rule of Three Writing Examples

I’ve named the rule of 3 as occurring when any “element” of writing appears in triplets—but what are some actual forms of this rule, and what are those elements?

Here are a few forms of the rule of three in writing, with examples to demonstrate this powerful literary tool:

Hendiatris

A hendiatris is the representation of one idea through three words. It can be formed by putting together any three words that, when combined, represent something greater than themselves alone.

A hendiatris is the representation of one idea through three words.

A couple examples:

Tricolons

Where hendiatris are composed of three words, a tricolon is composed of three equally weighted clauses.

A tricolon is composed of three equally weighted clauses.

In a tricolon, each clause should contain the same structure: ideally, the same sequence of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and the like. Tricolons also do not have to represent one idea in three parts, which is a requirement for an effective hendiatris.

Here are a couple examples:

Tricolon, like hendiatris, is a form of parallelism—a stylistic device that helps amplify and equate the meaning of different ideas.

Tricolon in Poetry

Tricolons are a useful tool for poets to know, too, as poetry’s ability to organize and juxtapose images and ideas makes the number three especially useful.

Poetry’s ability to organize and juxtapose images and ideas makes the number three especially useful.

Here are two brief rule of three writing examples in poetry:

This cinquain poem operates entirely on the rule of threes, with the third tricolon element being the most surprising. The brevity of this short poetry form imbues the poem with a sense of something spiritual, too, like a brief and poignant prayer.

A dirge is a song of lamentation, often performed at funerals or wakes. Take note of these lovely repetitions of three: down, down, down; the beautiful, the tender, the kind; the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

And then, the poem intentionally breaks its simple pattern in that final line. “I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.” It’s still technically a tricolon, but the elements are intentionally unequal, giving proper emphasis to the speaker’s sense of resistance to death.

Tricolon in Rhetoric

Tricolons are naturally useful rhetorical devices. This is for a few reasons, including: 1), they help emphasize the most important elements, priorities, or ideas a speaker wishes to present; 2), they are useful style tools to keep people engaged and listening; 3), quite frankly, they make a person sound smart and considered.

Here are some tricolons from famous speeches in history:

Advertising

Because the above devices—hendiatris and tricolon—are so punchy and short, it only makes sense that advertisers gravitate to them. The savvy marketer sells you a product, brand, or idea in the fewest high-impact words as possible, resulting in the following sloganeering:

Notably, many corporations also have punchy three-word slogans: “I’m Lovin’ It” (McDonald’s); “Just Do It” (Nike); “Finger Lickin’ Good” (KFC); and so on. While a three-word motto isn’t any particular literary device, it does follow the rule of threes in that it’s simple and memorable.

Rule of Three Comedy Writing

An idea, a set up, and a punchline walk into a bar…

In comedy, the rule of 3 helps organize a joke so that it’s funny, unexpected, and memorable. Good comedy operates on the violation of expectations: when a norm is disrupted, we laugh.

Good comedy operates on the violation of expectations: when a norm is disrupted, we laugh.

The rule of three helps set up those expectations so that the disruption is more effective. Since we see patterns and rhythm when three elements are available, the surprise of a third element is naturally funnier.

This all seems a little abstract, so here are two examples of the rule of three in comedy:

This example comes from Simon Taylor’s self-paced course Writing Funny, a fantastic resource for anyone looking to imbue their work with humor.

A second example comes from Seinfeld. Watch the below clips from “The Pledge Drive”:

A waitress gives “the finger” to George twice. The third time he receives the finger is while driving, which prompts him to chase the car that flipped him off—only to find that the driver, somehow, was driving with a cast over his hand.

And remember, violating expectations is essential to comedy. So the rule of threes is not a requirement for effective humor. Here’s a punny example, authored by yours truly:

Character Trios

Many novels, fables, and stories only have one protagonist. But some of the most memorable works of literature have three main characters, even if two of them are deuteragonists. They might also have three antagonists, or, they might have one protagonist and three supporting characters.

Some stories with trios of characters include:

• “The Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs”
• The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow all aid Dorothy)
• “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”
• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
• The Three Fates / Parcae in Greek/Roman mythology
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future)
• Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
• Percy Jackson & The Olympians by Rick Riordan (Percy and his friends Grover and Annabeth
• The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (Frodo, Sam, and Gollum)

Certainly, this is a small selection of literature, and there are plenty of books that only have one or two main characters. So there’s no hard-and-fast rule of three in character development, nor any particular reason a story needs three characters.

Plenty of books only have 1 or 2 main characters.

In the case of stories that do have character trios, think about what each character might represent as part of their triplet. What kinds of oppositions can they play against each other? For example, the three musketeers are each charged by a primary trait: leadership/mentorship (Athos), intellect (Aramis), and foolishness (Porthos). A trio could also represent, for example, the three registers of Freudian psychoanalysis (id, ego, superego), the three tenses (past, present, and future), and so on.

Three-Part / Three-Act Structures

Lastly, the rule of three appears when structuring a long-form piece of writing. Many novels, plays, and movies follow a three-act structure, a structure that has been around since before the time of Plato.

The Three-Act Structure is descriptive—it is not a rule that needs to be followed, it is merely an observation on successful works of fiction.

Briefly, the Three-Act Structure is composed of the following:

• Act 1: the exposition and inciting incident—we learn who our main characters are, what causes the story to exist, and what complications initially setback the protagonist(s).
• Act 2: the rising action—the story becomes more complex as the protagonist(s) try and fail to achieve some goal, often because of new setbacks of growing antagonism. The only way for the main character to overcome these setbacks is by some change happening within themselves or their perspective. Act 2 ends on another major turning point in the plot.
• Act 3: climax and denouement—the story reaches a make-or-break moment, the climax, in which the outcome of the story is determined based on whether the main character has changed and makes the right decision. After the story’s climax, we may see some denouement, which tells us the aftermath of the climactic moment.

This structure is better explored in our article on Freytag’s Pyramid. Although many stories have more than three events or twists, the Three-Act Structure shows how many works of fiction can be partitioned in threes.

The Three-Act Structure is descriptive—it is not a rule that needs to be followed, it is merely an observation on successful works of fiction. But the fact that we observe successful stories often operating in three parts further confirms the unconscious power that the number three has in literature.

Tips For Using The Rule of Three in Writing

Here are some tips for wielding the rule of 3 in your writing.

1. Keep Items Equally Weighted

There’s a reason the slogan isn’t “live, expel air rhythmically and in good humor, love.”

The rule of three works when each of the three elements are equally weighted.

The rule of three works when each of the three elements are equally weighted. In the above example, you not only have to work to understand that I’m talking about laughter, but once you parse the meaning of that ungainly clause, you move on without seeing the relationship of the three elements. Elegance and simplicity are key to the rule of three.

2. In a Sentence, Use the Oxford Comma

This is more a style suggestion than another hard-and-fast rule. Certainly, some style guides sneer at the oxford comma—the comma separating the second-to-last and last element in a series.

Here’s an example without the oxford comma, and with it:

Without the oxford comma, it looks like I’m saying my two brothers are Daniel Craig and God.

Using the oxford comma all the time helps you keep the writing flowing instead of stopping to think.

This is, of course, a specific and perhaps pedantic example. But it nonetheless illustrates the utility of the oxford comma when writing a tricolon. Rather than deliberating whether to use the comma every time you have a group of three or more items in a sentence, using the oxford comma all the time helps you keep the writing flowing instead of stopping to think.

Learn more at our article on the oxford comma.

3. Make the Third Element Most Impactful

We’ve talked about how the human mind likes patterns and rhythms. Another thing it likes is the final element of a series.

This is known as the primacy-recency effect, or the serial position effect. Give someone a list of things, and no matter how long the list is, they are most likely to remember the first and last items.

The last element is the most remembered, and thus the most impactful.

Of course, in a list of three items, you’ll remember the second element as well. But the point is that the last element is the most remembered, and thus the most impactful. Knowing this, it only makes sense to make the last element in your triplet doubly impactful.

Let’s return to Adelaide Crapsey’s “Triad”, but with the elements re-ordered:

It’s still a fine poem, but the impact has been lessened, here, because the most surprising element is sandwiched in the middle, and the poem falls a little flat ending on the dawn.

4. Break the Rule of 3 for Emphasis

Because the rule of three is so established in writing and the arts, we’ve come, I think, to anticipate it unconsciously. As a result, when the rule of three is broken—when the element is repeated a fourth time (Tetracolon), or when a fourth item is tacked on to a perfectly good triplet—the broken rule emphasizes itself.

Here’s one last example:

I find breaking the rule of three is especially useful in comedy writing. Because we expect the third element to be the punchline, it can be surprising when the third element isn’t, in fact, anything. Thus, the surprise fourth element really throws us.

Hone the Rule of Three in Writing at Writers.com

Want to hone your writing further? Check out the creative writing courses at Writers.com, where our instructors will give you expert feedback on every piece of writing you submit.

The post The Rule of Three in Writing: How the Number 3 Can Transform Your Work appeared first on Writers.com.

When I was first asked to write an article on the rules of poetry, I briefly short-circuited. There are no rules of poetry, I was about to say, that’s the whole point of writing it. 

Many of my fellow poets will tell you the same thing. It’s not that there aren’t principles of successful poetry, but to say there are rules implies a strict set of dos and don’ts—and any poem that doesn’t conform is, ultimately, not a poem.

I don’t believe that to be true, and I actually love poems that break the rules of poetry. Nonetheless, there are definitely worthwhile guidelines to know about, whether poets choose to follow them or break them intentionally.

Here, then, are the rules of poetry for contemporary poets, with examples of poems that follow the rules—and poems that break them. 

The Rules of Poetry for Contemporary Poets

Here are some rules you may have heard with regard to writing successful contemporary poetry: 

Rules of Poetry: Show, Don’t Tell

Alternately, to quote William Carlos Williams: “No ideas but in things.”

Poems ought to convey tangible experience.

What this means is that poems ought to convey tangible experience; they should uphold the primacy of imagery over abstraction. Images alone should convey a poem’s ideas, feelings, and attitudes. If the poem, or the speaker of the poem, names abstractions or tells you how it feels, then the poem is doing the work of interpretation for the reader, or else reducing the poem’s capacity for complexity by limiting its imagination.

Here’s a vivid short poem that does a great job of showing instead of telling, retrieved here: 

“In the Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound

Pound here combines a haiku-inspired approach to poetry with a sharp, surprising comparison. In two lines, the whole of Modernism feels present here: its cacophonies and discordances, and the melange of faces populating a subway station in the strange new urban world. 

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Break the Line on Verbs, Images, Breaths

Because line breaks differentiate poetry from prose, they are a primary tool for us to consider in our work. Line breaks introduce tensions, multiplicities, and complexities. The line break makes the line its own unit which, in coordination with the poem’s clauses and sentences, results in a kind of forward-moving tension that strings the work along to its conclusion. This is true for both free verse and formal work.

Line breaks introduce tensions, multiplicities, and complexities.

The conventional wisdom—one that was hammered into me in undergrad—was to end lines on important words, usually verbs or concrete images. This is an easy guide to follow, as it allows those important words to operate on two registers, both the line it sits in and the line that follows it. It also emphasizes those words to the reader. 

One professor once told me that you should be able to read the end words of a poem alone and grasp what the poem is getting at. (Of all the rules of poetry I’ve been taught, I might disagree with this one the most.)

An alternate way of approaching line breaks is to read the words out loud, and break the line wherever you take a natural breath—an idea present especially in the world of the Beats and of mindful poetry. This allows the poem to mimic human speech and thought, following your own intuition and relationship with language.

Here’s an example of a poem with concrete, intentional line breaks, retrieved here:

“Weather” by Linda Pastan

These line breaks are so good! I love the complicated syntax of a menace “opening” over the speaker’s childhood, that stanza break at “seems” (a subtle nod at the gulf of perception and reality), and that one-word line “dazzling”, which really, truly dazzles. 

Do Not Be Cloying, Mawkish, Maudlin, Schmaltzy; Avoid Sentimentality

Pardon the SAT words, but they all point towards the same idea: do not indulge too deeply in your feelings and emotions.

Do not indulge too deeply in your feelings and emotions.

It’s not that poetry doesn’t have capacity for intense emotion. But, when a poem magnifies emotions past a certain point, the work itself feels unserious or uninteresting. Big feelings aren’t quite so interesting as the contexts and conclusions that may come from them, but the poet, as an artist, knows how to select only the most relevant and interesting feelings so that they don’t engulf the point of the poem.

Here’s a poem that certainly has big feelings, but explores them in a way that feels genuine and real, retrieved here:

“We Have Not Long to Love” by Tennessee Williams

He’s more well known for his fiction and playwriting, but Williams here delivers an admirable poem, both for its lyricism and its soft yearning. He toes the line well: it would be far too schmaltzy to say “we’re all going to die and I’ll never love you the way I should”—but that’s not the sentiment here at all. What we get, really, is a brief and gorgeous rumination on the urgency of love, and how difficult it is to love despite its urgency. 

Avoid Redundancy and Redundant Amplification

This is pretty straightforward. Every word in a poem should be essential. If you can remove a word or a sentence, and the poem’s meaning and effect doesn’t change, remove it. Omit needless words.

Every word in a poem should be essential.

Repetition for the sake of amplification is sometimes useful, but if that repetition doesn’t contribute to the poem’s impact (or even distracts from it) then, again, remove it. Simplify the poem as much as possible—keeping in mind that to simplify is not, necessarily, to reduce complexity; we are simply searching for the simplest ways to express the most complex ideas.

Here’s a poem whose concision is felt deeply, yet whose repetition is essential, amplifying all the more its ideas, retrieved here:

“Poem” by Langston Hughes

This heartwrenching little poem doesn’t need many words to convey the depth and intensity of its feeling. Despite the fact that it largely dabbles in abstraction, it still has motion and movement to it: the friend goes away (dies), the poem returns to its starting point; the cycle of love and loss feels both brief and endless. 

Do Not Rhyme for the Sake of Rhyming

Contemporary poetry has a rather tortured relationship with rhyme and meter.

Now, it’s not as tortured as it used to be. The Beats, The New York School, and The Confessional Poets of mid-century steered English-language poetry further away from its highly architected past. Then, New Formalism came onto the American poetry scene and argued for a return to rhyming, metrical poems.

A period of the 1970s and 1980s are now called The Poetry Wars, in which New Formalists fought with everyone else to say that formal poetry deserves more space in the world of poetry and publishing. Those “wars” are too detailed to summarize, but the point I’m making is, it used to be even worse for formalist poets.

Nowadays, formal poetry is certainly more accepted in the poetry world. The canon has also expanded to include forms that don’t hail from the West, like the South Asian/Persian/Arabic Ghazal form or the Malaysian Pantoum. And I do see iambic pentameter in contemporary poetry journals from time to time, in poems that are really accomplished and exceptional.

The prevailing sentiment would be to not rhyme for the sake of rhyming. Sometimes, a poem that rhymes ends up with tortured language, language whose purpose is simply to rhyme and make grammatical sense—but not to reveal, illuminate, expound, complicate, or expand the poem’s possibilities.

The prevailing sentiment would be to not rhyme for the sake of rhyming.

In the formal poetry of yesteryear, every rhyming word accomplishes something essential and artistic; so, too, in the non-rhyming poetry of today. So when a poem rhymes just so that it can rhyme, the poem loses so many opportunities to push the boundaries of language, or to reveal something about the words that are rhymed. 

Of course, rhyme can also accentuate a poem’s movements, contribute to an interesting story, or even be dismantled for poetic effect. The point, again, is to rhyme with intention, whether it’s to highlight tensions and contrasts between ideas, to tell a great story in verse, or to reveal something through the poem’s own architecture.

Here’s an example of a New Formalist poem, so you can get a sense of contemporary rhythm and meter, retrieved here: 

“Sonnet On a Line From Vénus Khoury-Ghata” by Marilyn Hacker

Marilyn Hacker is a brilliant contemporary voice in formal poetry, able to write within virtually every type of form poem. What might differentiate this sonnet from classical variations of the form is its syntax: those hard stops and punctuations that occur mid-line feel distinctly modern, interrupting the flow of the language with intention. A successful poem will negotiate the tension between the sentence and the line to produce more complex meanings. And, of course, these 10- and 11-syllable lines scan beautifully, with end-rhymes that do not impede the flow of the work, but rather fit within the poem’s aesthetic whole (even when the rhymes themselves start to slant).

Learn more about forms of poetry here:

https://writers.com/what-is-form-in-poetry 

Seek Aesthetic Unity

Lastly, and briefly, a successful poem in the contemporary sense will have some form of aesthetic unity. By this, I mean that all aspects of the poem correspond to something central. There’s a gestalt that forms only when every element is present and placed intentionally in the work. 

All aspects of the poem correspond to something central.

This might look like a poem relying on the same categories of image. Conversely, a poem whose subject matter is fragmented or disjointed might also include fragmentation in its word choice and line breaks.

However the poem strives for this unity, contemporary poetry often strives for it.

Here’s a poem that has this unity of effect in action, retrieved here:

“Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand

Is absence an aesthetic? Certainly it is in this poem, whose negotiations with self and place move swiftly through sharp, bright line breaks. The movement of the speaker reflects the movement of this poem, whose repetitions feel like ways of filling the empty space of the speaker’s own body, of the poem’s own brevity. 

Other Contemporary Rules of Poetry

The list of dos and don’ts can be rather tedious, perhaps even nonexhaustive. Nonetheless, here’s an unfinished assemblage of guidelines I’ve been given over the years.

• Avoid lofty, abstract words like “soul”. If everyone interprets the meaning of a word in dramatically different ways, it has no useful effect in the poem. 
• Words that ring of yesteryear are best avoided. These include, but are not limited to: Oer, eterne, alas, hark, heretofore, afar, ere, forswear, forsooth, prithee, anon, nought, perchance, and aye. 
• Poems should always be written left-flush, unless there is an artistic reason for using indentation or right-flush lines, but never write an entire poem in which the line is centered on the center of the page.
• Starting a poem or an aside with “once” to tell a story from the past is convenient, but rather overdone.
• Metaphors can lend themselves to effective poetry, but a metaphor is not inherently poetic, and poetry overloaded with metaphors and similes will likely falter under the weight of comparison. 
• “Untitled” is, in fact, a title, and not a very effective one. Unless  you have intention behind “Untitled,” give your poem a more intentional title. 
• Do not write in a poem what is best expressed in prose. 
• Do not preach, proselytize, or try to be didactic in poetry. 
• Although poetry requires skill and intellect, do not write poems with the intent of being praised for your genius, or with the intent of becoming famous online. 

Against the Rules of Poetry Craft

Despite the fact that I’m a workshop organizer and educator—or, perhaps, because I am those things—I have an ambivalent relationship to these rules of poetry in the 21st century.

This isn’t to say that the rules of poetry are wrong (though there are some that I dislike), or that contemporary poetry is worse than older poetic movements (though individual poems fail to live up to my standards). I just hate prescriptivism in general; I dislike formulaic art, and I think there is a difference between writing within constraints and writing constrained poetry. The rules that ought to inform the former so often produce the latter.

There is a difference between writing within constraints and writing constrained poetry. The rules that ought to inform the former so often produce the latter.

It’s not that these rules are wrong. It’s that they’re rules. And it’s not that rules are always bad; it’s that, especially in art, they should not be treated with such absolute power as they’re given.

My favorite poems—the ones that challenge me, delight me, and show me new possibilities in language—break rules. They are daring, stubborn, perhaps even iconoclastic. These poems know what the rules are and know when to follow their own internal logic instead.

I like it when a poem has ungainly line breaks, or lines that are way too long for the page. I like it when a poem is a bit over-indulgent, because, really, why should the poem moderate itself? And I like it when poems are highly conceptual, or when poems begin in iambic pentameter and end unmetered, and I LOVE when a poem cannot be easily categorized.

A Poem That Breaks the Rules

I’m going to share with you now a poem that breaks some rules. You are welcome to hate it—several of my friends did—but let me at least tell you why I love it, too.

“Glove Money” by Sophia Dahlin

Retrieved from The Yale Review.

The Broken Rules of Poetry

Let me acknowledge the rules that this poem is breaking:

1. Effective line breaks and end-words—that first stanza uses some form of the word “hand” as the end-word 4 times. The second stanza has more variations on hands, palms, gloves, etc. as its end-words.
2. No Ideas But In Things—There are a few times when I feel like the speaker is interpreting images for me, like in the line “I mean when I despised my own thin / smallboned chest”.
3. Avoid redundancy—that first stanza in particular expresses the same idea in a number of ways, but the idea itself doesn’t evolve much. Nor is the amplifying effect all that significant, except maybe to highlight some sort of absurd feeling around money.
4. Seek aesthetic unity—What is with this poem’s weird diversions? First the fun fact about “cashier”, then Lance Armstrong (????), and then that third stanza, which has, on a first read, zero relationship to the first two stanzas.

It’s this last rule that, I think, is the most divisive in this poem. I run a poetry writing group and recently used this as a model poem for one of our prompts. About half of the group appreciated the poem’s zaniness; the other half said, among other things, that The Yale Review “must be going downhill.”

I, for one, love this poem. It is basically two poems in a trench coat, with that break between the second and third stanza being comically, cosmically large. The poem leaps across that break on wobbly footing, and what we end up with is a poem that, to use Dahlin’s own words, “would drive a workshop insane.”

What that giant leap did for me is make me pay really close attention to how these two seemingly unrelated sections are connected. A fun exercise you could even do is reread the poem without the first two stanzas, so that it is just “Glove Money // Once, before I knew I was a kind of / lesbian…”

What I notice, then, is a number of really interesting binaries. For example:

The poem is also, I think, linked by a fear of touch. In the first two stanzas, the speaker desires gloves because they do not want to touch money, but the speaker also mentions not wanting to touch other peoples’ hands if those hands have touched money, resulting in a kind of fear-by-proxy—that we are stained and tarnished by money, and our touch, thus, is tainted. 

But then the third stanza contains a different fear, the kind of sublime fear that informs erotic desire: to touch the object of our wanting and thus be irrevocably transformed by touching that object. (Or, by being unable to touch it.)

As for the other rules this poem breaks, I think the poem maintains its unique voice and perspective because it eschews those rules. I much prefer a poem whose voice adds texture to the contemporary canon—rather than a poem who blends in so seamlessly with contemporary aesthetics that it is, ultimately, forgettable.

Other Poems That Break the Rules of Poetry

Here are links to some other poems that, I think, break some 21st century rules of poetry—and are all the more better for them.

• “Tomorrow, No, Tomorrower” by Bradley Trumpfheller 
  • A poem that could be described as excessively sentimental. 
• “Death, Yes, Life” by Lily Greenberg
  • There’s no explicit rule that you can’t mention the craft elements of poetry within a poem itself, but I find it daring that this poem tells the reader that its images are not metaphors or symbols—a controversial act of interpreting itself to the reader.
• “Prayer” by Galway Kinnell 
  • Poems that try to be universal usually falter—it’s much easier to find the universal in the particular. But this poem’s vast, abstract appreciation for what is does, indeed, feel like a prayer. 
• “The Problem of Writing Poems in the Shape of Deciduous Trees” by Brian Bilston
  • Shape-based poems are usually kind of gauche—overly constricting language and relying on geometry to convey thought. And this one is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek pun… and yet, I’m charmed somehow. 
• “Poem” by Alice Notley
  • Poem, in general, makes for a horrible title for a poem. We know it’s a poem. We see the poem on the page. What a waste of language space! And yet… the “anonymity” of this Poem poem somehow makes Poem a fitting poem title. 

Tips For Breaking The Rules of Poetry

If you write poems that follow the rules, great! If you want to break those rules, that’s great, too. Here are a few pieces of advice:

Break the Rules of Poetry With Intention

If you laugh at a funeral, people will notice. Similarly, if you do something in a poem that goes against convention, it will draw the reader’s attention towards that broken convention. You don’t want to commit a faux pas. 

What this means is, if you plan to do something against-the-grain in a poem, it should be done with artistic intent. Disliking the rule is perfectly fine, but breaking it must come with some sort of creative purpose.

For example, if all of your lines end on weak words, don’t do it just because you hate concrete language. Do it because it contributes to the poem’s meaning. A great example of this exact broken rule is Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool”, whose weak end words signify a weakness of selfhood and identity in the poem’s hooky subjects:

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

Follow the Logic of Your Voice

When a poem breaks a rule successfully, its success is found in the uniqueness of the poet’s own voice. 

This advice is a lot easier said than done. How do you measure voice? How do you know when to follow it, and how do you follow it? 

What “voice” is is the inimitable quality of your work, which can only be honed through your own unique relationship to language. It means avoiding cliché, figuring out your own perspective on the world, and finding the best language to transmit that perspective. These things can’t really be taught—they are honed simply through the poet’s practice—but the more you know your voice, the easier it will be to break the rules in favor of your own art. 

Read Rule Breaking Poetry 

My favorite poems are the ones that make me think, you can do that in a poem? 

The more poetry you read and encounter, the more likely you are to encounter this same reaction, and the more you will want to write poems that challenge the limits of language.

Here’s a poem I read recently that gave me the above response—I love it for its speaker-as-observer lens and its wandering, universal humanity. Retrieved here.

Everything All at Once by Oliver Baez Bendorf

Interrogate the Rules As You’re Using Them

Why does this line need to be broken on the verb? What’s wrong with using the word “soul” in this stanza? Why can’t I cry in my own poem about death? 

Oftentimes, these questions have obvious answers, but sometimes they don’t. And it’s those moments when the reason for the rule isn’t apparent that are windows into further possibility. The rules exist to help you write successful poetry, but when the poem feels more successful without the constraint of those rules, opt to break them instead. 

One Last Thing…

I really like this article from LitHub about the capital-C Craft of literature, and when to ignore Craft rules. It’s written for a fiction writing audience, but I think a lot of the notes and ideas presented here are equally applicable to poets: 

https://lithub.com/25-essential-notes-on-craft-from-matthew-salesses/

More Advice on Writing Poetry

Here are more articles, guides, and resources for writing successful poetry:

• How to Write a Poem
• What is Poetry?
• How to Start a Poem 
• Finding Poetry Inspiration
• Becoming a Poet

Break the Rules of Poetry at Writers.com 

At Writers.com, we teach the rules just as often as we break them. Take a look at our upcoming online poetry writing courses, where you’ll receive expert feedback and instruction on every poem you write.

The post The Rules of Poetry for Contemporary Poets appeared first on Writers.com.

Do not mistake brevity for simplicity: a successful piece of flash nonfiction still incorporates complexity and insight into its small size. If you’d like to learn more about this genre, or learn how to write flash nonfiction, read on to discover this exciting form of CNF.

What is Flash Nonfiction?

Flash nonfiction is a work of creative nonfiction that, typically, is written in 1,000 words or fewer. This word limit mirrors the limits of flash fiction, which are fictional stories told in under 1,000 words. 

Flash nonfiction is a work of creative nonfiction that, typically, is written in 1,000 words or fewer.

Alternate terms for this genre include “micro-memoir,” “flash memoir,” “flash creative nonfiction,” or “micro-essay.” Sometimes, “micro” genres are even smaller than flash—a maximum of 100 or 200 words, for example—but they bucket under this category of concise truth-telling.

Of course, what makes a flash nonfiction piece successful is not only its brevity. In order to tell a complete story about your own life, you will need to rely on the craft tools of poetry and flash fiction. 

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Common Craft Elements of Flash Nonfiction

When reading or writing flash nonfiction, you are likely to come across the following elements and craft decisions:

1. Concise Word Choice
2. Imagery
3. Theme
4. Experimentation and Hybridity

Concise Word Choice

With few words to tell a complete story, flash nonfiction writers must push language past its limits. This means allowing words to convey multiplicities, complexities, and nuances, as well as letting images also be metaphors or symbols.

In other words, flash nonfiction often straddles the borders of poetry. When working with the constraints of such a low word count, works of flash, both nonfiction and fiction, sometimes read more like prose poetry. 

Imagery

Successful literature often operates through striking images. The need for this grows when working within the flash genre, as flash nonfiction writers rely on imagery to convey essential experiences, metaphors, and symbols. 

This doesn’t have to be a visual image—imagery as a literary device includes touch, smell, sight, taste, and even things like motion or internal sensation. A resonant work of flash nonfiction will leave the reader with an image or feeling that they digest long after the story ends. 

Theme

Of course, all works of literature have a theme. But flash nonfiction must approach its theme in as few words as possible, and thus elevate important ideas so that every aspect of the work points towards them. 

This is opposed to works of prose that prioritizes, say, the story’s plot or characters. Flash nonfiction has those elements, of course, but it must waste no words getting to the heart of things: the feelings and energies—thematic elements—that give the story its reason for existing. 

Experimentation and Hybridity

Works of flash nonfiction are more likely to experiment with form and structure. Much like in poetry, flash nonfiction’s reliance on concision requires the work to take creative approaches in the telling of true stories. Form and structure offer writers more ways to layer their ideas and structure their thoughts outside of the conventions of standard prose. 

A piece of flash nonfiction might also be a hermit crab essay, for example, which borrows its shape from other types of text. Or it might engage with the experimentation of lyric essays or incorporate poetry into the work. Whatever the experiment, successful flash essays discover their own form and language to tell the story that needs telling. 

Examples of Flash Nonfiction

Let’s look now at some examples of flash nonfiction to see these principles in action.

“Mary Ruefle Drives Me to the Dentist” by Kelly Luce

Read it here, in Craft Literary.

This quirky flash nonfiction piece is also an example of speculative nonfiction, in which nonreal, imagined, or speculative elements intertwine with the author’s lived experiences. 

It doesn’t actually matter whether or not Kelly Luce was driven to the dentist by the poet Mary Ruefle—though it’s likely that this is just a conversation that happened in Luce’s head. Ruefle’s zany, vivacious presence in the story allows Luce to access the unanswerable questions in her own life, magnifying a mundane car ride into something exploratory. 

At times, the prose teeters on the poetic, arriving at epiphany through its wit and concision. Ruefle’s poetry and imagined presence reminds Luce, as well as us readers, to always be moved by beauty. 

“Sanguine” by Molly Akin

Read it here, in Brevity. 

This is a great example of how flash forms push the shape of language to speak in such small spaces. Here, Akin interrogates language itself to understand and convey the painful nature of miscarriage. 

This hybrid, braided essay interweaves the author’s own experiences with definitions and etymologies. If anything, I find those definitions to be the most painful, salient moments of the work: it defines the author’s own pain without directly naming it. 

You can also see the craft tools of poetry in action: concision, internal line breaks, evolution in form, and a tension propelled by word play. 

“Childhood Cranes” by Andrew Bertaina

Read it here, in In Short. 

You can tell this piece was written by a poet, and not just because it references the poetic craft in the first line. Each image offered in this gorgeous prose cuts closer and closer to the professor’s emotional core, painting a kind of portrait-by-proxy, painted through periphery.

There’s an idea in the craft of poetry called the initiating and generated subject. Essentially, the idea that gets you into the poem is not where the poem ends, nor is it what the poem is really “about.” Successful poetry discovers something and takes a leap. 

I feel this is happening here. The professor telling the class about cranes and imagery is just a doorway into what this piece discovers about childhood, nostalgia, memory, change. 

“Point of View” by Lina Herman

Read it here, in Craft Literary.

This flash nonfiction piece has a kind of metanarrative: there’s the story, and then there’s the author commenting on the craft of the story as it progresses. 

It’s an interesting experiment. On the one hand, the author risks interpreting herself for the reader, rather than letting the work be open to interpretation. On the other hand, the metacommentary is a way of inserting the author’s thoughts into the work in a way that feels more genuine. What would a writer do to change the story as it happens in real life? What would it be like to press pause, step outside of one’s self, and reframe the narrative? 

That the story’s subject matter would be so intense as to fracture the author’s sense of narrative is enough to make this experiment pay off. We see the story’s lens move, evolve, catch up with the author’s experiences; the pain, distorted, becomes much more deeply felt. 

How to Write Flash Nonfiction

Here are some tips on how to write flash nonfiction. 

1. Omit Needless Words

It goes without saying that flash nonfiction can’t have wasted words. Really, no good work of writing wastes words. But in flash, the magnitude of concision increases greatly, and words need to have layered, complex meanings to convey a full story in such small space. 

It is akin to a circus performer folding themselves into a box: their body is interwoven and nonlinear, as are the words in a flash piece. Here are some tips for omitting needless words:

• Target common filler words.
  • Adverbs can often be replaced with better verbs (Does the road “run curvily”, or can the road simply “curve”?). 
  • Prepositions can sometimes be rerouted or removed (Do you have “a lot of money” or do you “contain riches”? Are you “with child” or “pregnant”?).
  • Punctuation, particularly semicolons and em-dashes, can sometimes replace conjunctions and connective words—while texturing your prose. (Note—I originally wrote “making your prose more textured”; turning the adjective “textured” into a verb “texturing” was more efficient.) 
• Let images represent themselves.
  • It’s tempting to interpret an image for the reader, or to explain an image with a lot of description, metaphor, etc. However, letting images exist on their own without interpreting them for the reader allows the reader to interpret the images themselves, giving the writing room for thematic complexity. 
  • For example, it’s wordy to say “The countryside felt lonely, with so few people around, and I was aware of how sublime and beautiful nature is.” Besides the fact that the idea is a bit cliché, it chews the reader’s food for them; it conveys no experience.
  • A concise way of writing the above idea comes from Kelly Luce’s flash nonfiction piece: “People live out there. Horses stare. Big boulders rest beside barns like ancient pets.”
• Watch out for needless repetitions.
  • A free gift is simply a gift; the hot summer sun is merely the summer sun.

For more advice on concision, check out our article on omitting needless words:

https://writers.com/concise-writing

2. Let Structure Lend Its Voice

Another way that flash nonfiction exercises concision is by letting the story’s structure create layers of meaning. 

The above flash nonfiction examples showcase how structure is wielded within story. Akin’s “Sanguine” interweaves etymology with personal experience to tell the full story of miscarriage and convey an embodied pain that, otherwise, cannot be easily conveyed. Through a discordant, braided structure, the story comes to resemble, perhaps, the author’s own body after undergoing such trauma.

Conversely, Herman’s “Point of View” incorporates point of view into the story structure itself, creating two stories: the actual event of the piece, and the author’s running commentary as she tries to understand a fundamentally heartbreaking situation. These alternating narratives combine to give the story, again, a sense of discordance, mirroring what the author’s own experience of the event might have been like. 

These are ideas that lose their power if they are merely described in the work itself. Akin gains nothing by telling us her miscarriage was difficult; she gains everything by transmitting an embodied experience through her inquiries of language. Herman gains nothing by telling us she didn’t know how to deal with her daughter’s thoughts of death; she gains everything by interweaving the story’s event with her own struggle to understand. 

3. Experiment With Perspective

Successful works of flash nonfiction often convey experience through some nonlinear mode of storytelling. 

By linear, I mean the convention that a story is one event after the next, told by a single, easily identifiable narrator, who tells us that A led to B led to C. 

Narrative is the story we tell ourselves about what happened, and the truth is not always linear. Notice how, in the flash nonfiction examples we’ve shared, the authors’ relationships to time are nonlinear: the narrators look forwards and backwards, sometimes at the same time. They speak from moving cars and classrooms, from dictionaries and park benches. 

Think about the best place to tell your story from. From what point of view? With what voice? Exploring what elements of time? These questions can lead to exciting, daring works of micro-memoir that convey more precisely our strange relationships to our lived experiences. 

4. Read Flash Nonfiction Regularly

The best way to write successful flash nonfiction is to also read it. The following journals routinely publish great works of creative nonfiction, including flash and micro pieces. 

Where to Read (and Publish) Flash Nonfiction

Here are some great literary journals to read flash nonfiction—and submit your own work to when you’re ready.

• CRAFT Literary
• In Short
• Brevity
• Hippocampus Magazine
• Smokelong Quarterly
• River Teeth

Write Your Best Flash Nonfiction at Writers.com!

The creative and flash nonfiction courses at Writers.com will help you write your most daring and original stories. Check out our upcoming online creative nonfiction courses, where you’ll receive expert feedback and teaching on every essay you submit. 

The post Flash Nonfiction: The Craft of Tiny Truths appeared first on Writers.com.

Writing Resources for Crafting Good Writing

How do you write well at the level of syntax, grammar, and basic writing craft? These writing resources help you with the mechanics of effective prose. 

Writing Resources for Grammar and Mechanics

These writing websites help you learn the basics:

• Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips—A blog and podcast dedicated to the quirks of the English language, plus advice for writers of all stripes.
• AutoCrit—A writing platform with both free and paid software options that helps writers write error-free, stylish prose.
• OWL at Purdue—A great resource that goes over every single mechanic of effective prose writing. 
• Grammar Monster—A site with lessons and games to help you lock down the mechanics of good writing. 
• Syntaxis—Grammar quizzes to ensure you’ve mastered the quirks of the English language.
• Common Errors in English Usage—A database of common errors, hosted at Washington State University. 

Writing Resources for Vocabulary

Want to expand or test your vocabulary? These writing websites help you find the right word or learn a new one.

• Tip of My Tongue—for when that word you’re trying to think of is, well, “on the tip of your tongue.”
• OneLook—Helps you find the word you’re looking for by first describing the concept. 
• Online Etymology Dictionary—teaches you the known histories of English-language words and how they evolved to become what they are today. 
• Free Rice lets you test your vocabulary on 5 different levels. It’s great for English-language learners as well as native speakers who want to test their knowledge of words like “passipied” and “pandiculate.” For every answer you get right, the site donates 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Programme. 

Writing Resources for Style

Think deeply about your writing style with these helpful resources:

• Word Frequency Counter—paste any text here, and it will tell you the frequency that every word is used in the text. Great for if you feel your writing is getting redundant or repetitive. 
• This summary of Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook “style scale” (great for speculative writers!). 
• Our article on Writing Styles. 
• “The Sentence is a Lonely Place” by Garielle Lutz—A craft essay that thinks deeply about words, sentences, and our relationships to them. 
• Our masterlist of 116 common literary devices.
•  Literarydevices.net, which offers more literary devices examples and tools for you to practice with. 

Websites for Classic and Contemporary Poetry and Literature

Great writers are great readers. Here’s where to read classical literature and find out what’s happening in the contemporary writing world. 

Classical Literature

• Project Gutenberg—A library of literature that all exists in the public domain. Completely free. 
• Cornell University’s Digital Library—Another great collection of historical literary ebooks. 
• This public Google Drive filled with PDFs of literary theory, criticism, and analysis from both past and contemporary thinkers. 
• American Verse Project—A digital library of American poetry books and verse collections pre-1920. 
• Luminarium—If you can get past the hard-to-read fonts, this website features a lot of English-language poetry from Medieval and Renaissance times.
• Poet’s Corner—Another digital repository, and possibly the oldest online. 

Contemporary Literature

• UPenn’s Electronic Poetry Center—A huge collection of texts and examinations on innovation in poetry. 
• Ubuweb—An audiovisual collection of experimental, concrete, and visual poetry. 
• LitHub—Essays and craft analyses about contemporary literature and events.
• Book Riot—A book blogging website all about contemporary events in literature. 
• The Marginalian—The brain child of Maria Popova and a vast intertextual repository of philosophy, literature, and science. 
• Poets House—Also a school, a library, and a community center in New York, Poets House is often at the forefront of contemporary poetry. 

Writing Resources to Help You Focus

If you find your attention is everywhere except your word document, these resources can help you get words on the page. 

Writing Softwares

• Write, Or Else—Admittedly, this is a stressful writing resource, but it might work for you. The idea is that you set a timer and keep the words flowing on the page, otherwise the page yells at you. You can also set it on hard mode, wherein the text editor starts deleting your writing… unless you keep typing. 
• Written? Kitten!—A kinder version of “Write, Or Else”, this site shows you a new photo of a kitten for every X amount of words you write. Positive reinforcement!

Noise Cancellation

Useful websites for when there’s too much sound around you. 

• Rainy Mood—If rain gets you in the spirit of writing, this white noise generator is great for you. 
• Coffitivity—If the sound of a busy coffee shop helps you focus, but there’s no cafe nearby, this site might help you focus. 
• Rainy Cafe—And, if you like both the sound of rain and of coffee shops, why not both? 

Word Processors for Creative Writers

Looking for something other than Microsoft Word and Google Docs? These softwares and products will meet your unique writing needs.

Free Software

• Open Office—A great replacement for Microsoft Word, Open Office is a free suite of open source software that provides similar tools and functions.  
• LibreOffice—Another Microsoft Office Suite alternative. 

Paid Software

• Scrivener—Novelists and bookwriters will especially love this word processor that has all the bells and whistles you can think of. Keep track of ideas, plan characters, plot things granularly, organize your work, and, of course, write the bestseller waiting inside of you. 
• Final Draft—Screenwriters looking to write perfectly formatted scripts would do well to write them in Final Draft, which includes a number of easy-to-use features that formats while you write, so that you can just focus on the writing. 
• OmmWriter—A word processor focused on focus, OmmWriter offers distraction-free structure so that you can write and create in your best digital environment. 

Writing Websites for Research

The internet is often too big to trawl. While your local library often has the resources you need, these websites also help you find the information you’re looking for. 

Broad-based Search Engines

Google is the dominating search engine, and it’s so strong that other search engines often exist unnoticed. However, savvy writers would do well to know the different engines that exist, as many of them will yield results that otherwise remain hidden. 

• Searchmysite—a great search engine for the “indie web”, with results that privilege personal sites and “digital gardens” rather than sponsored content. Great for digging up websites oriented around personal experience—a must-have for fiction writers. 
  • Other similar sites include Indieweb, Blogarama, and this big list. 
• Marginalia Search—Another great search engine that focuses on non-commercial content. 
• World Cat—Kind of like a meta-library site, this search engine connects you to library resources around the world. Great for academic or literary research, as well as books, maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, and content that might otherwise be paywalled. 
• RefSeek—An search engine with over a billion academic resources, including encyclopedias, magazines, monographies, etc. 
• BASE—An index of academic journals and publications, about 60% of which is Open Access. 
• EBSCOHost—Another massive database. Your local library might have a free subscription for you. 
• JSTOR—Short for Journal Storage, JSTOR has research on any topic you can think of. Also may be free to access through your local library. 

Search Engines on Niche Topics

For queries on more granular topics, consider these site:

• Writer’s Search Engine—A database of articles on literature and writing craft. 
• SpringerLink—A search engine focused on scientific research and documentation.  
• Science.gov—a database of scientific research specifically from U.S. labs and scientific sites. 
• RePec—Publications on economics and related sciences. 

Wikipedia also has this fantastic list of specific search engines that can hopefully meet your niche research needs.

Other Research Resources

• Social Security Administration—A database of popular baby names from 1879-Present. Especially useful for writers of American historical fiction. 
• Finding Data on the Internet—An amalgam of useful tips for finding information online. Especially useful for journalists and digital researchers. 

Fiction Writing Resources

These writing resources are specific to writers of short stories, novels, screenplays, and other forms of fiction.

• E. A. Deverell’s free worksheets for every aspect of the fiction writing process. 
• The Storyteller’s Roadmap—Free guides through the process of planning, writing, and revising stories. 
• Story Structure Database—Especially useful for screenwriters, this website deconstructs the plot structures of books and movies so you can see how it’s done and construct new stories yourself. 
• Relatedly, TVTropes is a fantastic database of plot and character tropes throughout every genre of fiction. 
• MIT’s List of Primary Personality Traits—Useful if you’re working through the basics of character development. 
• This guide on writing realistic injuries, in case your characters ever get injured. 

Poetry Writing Resources

These websites make the craft of successful poetry that much easier. 

• Poemancer—By poets, for poets, the website features prompts and guides through writing inspired poetry. 
• RhymeZone—Great for poets writing rhyming and formal poetry. 
• Poets.org—A huge repository of poetry, including daily poems in your inbox and ways to connect more deeply to poetry. 
• The Paris Review—In addition to being a literary journal, The Paris Review has an interview series that lets you hear from contemporary poets and writers about their approach to the craft. 
• Poetry Foundation—Also a literary journal and nonprofit advocacy group for poetry in American life, Poetry Foundation has a “Learning Prompts” section that prompts new poetry and learning all at once. 

Publishing Resources

Want to put your work out into the world? These sites help you do just that. 

Publishing in Literary Journals

• Our guides on the best literary journals for poetry and on how to submit to literary journals. 
• Chill Subs—A huge database of contemporary literary journals, with useful queries and search terms to help find the best homes for your work. 
• Duotrope—A site built on user-reported data that offers insights into a literary journal’s publishing opportunities, selectiveness, and guidelines.
• Submittable—A submission manager that also lets you search for upcoming deadlines and publishing opportunities.
• New Pages—A classifieds site for publishing opportunities. 
• Authors Publish—A magazine that routinely announces new submission opportunities and literary journals. 

Traditional Book Publishing and Finding Literary Agents

• QueryTracker—A directory and website for finding and tracking your submissions to literary agents. 
• The Directory of Literary Agents—An annual guide to the state of contemporary U.S. publishing. 
• Agent Query—Another database of agents, searchable by genre. 
• Our guide to how to publish a poetry book. 

Self-Publishing

• Our guides on self-publishing on Amazon and 5 tips for self-publishing your book. 
• This in-depth guide on the self-publishing process.
• PRESStinely—A boutique service that partners with writers to help them self-publish and self-promote their books. 

Creative Writing Websites for Prompts and Inspiration

If the blank page won’t stop staring at you, these websites for writers and poets will help you find and explore new ideas. 

• Creativity Portal—A library of creative writing prompts. 
• Language is a Virus—An automatic prompt generator, hosted at a site with a ton of great writing exercises and games. 
• Reedsy—Each week, Reedsy puts out a set of 5 prompts that writers can submit short stories (1,000-3,000 words) to. Winners receive $250!
• NYC Midnight—A platform that puts out different creative writing contests. Writers are tasked with writing stories or scripts of different lengths in an assigned genre. If you make it to the final round, you’re eligible for big cash prizes!
• Writing Exercises—A repository of prompts, exercises, and articles to help you write what you need to write. Check out their generators, including a first line generator and character generator to get you writing randomly and creatively. 
• Seventh Sanctum—A website that hosts 150 different random generators. 
• Poets & Writers—A magazine and collection of writing resources, including this prompts section for writers of all genres. 

Creative Writing Websites for Classes and Further Education

We break down the best (non-degree-conferring) creative writing schools at our article here on creative writing programs. Of course, we’re biased in thinking that Writers.com is the best place to learn the craft. 

Additionally, we think these websites have great blogs, newsletters, and opportunities for learning more about writing:

• The UK-based National Centre for Writing’s Writing Hub. 
• DIY MFA. 
• Janice Hardy’s Fiction University blog. 
• Yale’s free self-directed course on Modern Poetry.

Miscellaneous Writing Resources

These writing websites are harder to categorize but are nonetheless helpful to know about.

• Copyscape—A great tool for checking if your work has been plagiarized online. 
• BetaBooks—A service that lets you keep track of how Beta Readers read, respond to, and interact with your work. 
• Pacemaker—A free service that helps you set a writing goal and keep track of it. 
• Our article on the best gifts for writers. 

Find More Writing Resources at Writers.com

Want more support for your writing? Take a look at our online creative writing courses, join our writing community, or read our writing tips section for more advice on the writer’s life. 

The post 90+ Writing Websites and Resources for Writers of All Stripes appeared first on Writers.com.

Research illuminates the connections between our personal experiences and their broader meanings.

Done well, research makes our writing deeper and more significant. It bolsters the connection between “what I experienced or observed” and “what this experience or observation means.” It offers readers not only new information, but also new ways of looking at the world.

How Research Can Inform a Nonfiction Piece: An Example

Each essay in Shelter and Storm arose from some striking incident or discovery. While living in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, it seemed all I had to do was step out the door and I would stumble into another topic, whether a record-breaking flood, a tornado, a rare, blue-glowing firefly, or a battle with beavers who kept damming a creek and flooding the neighbor’s field. Since I was curious and didn’t know a lot about the topics, I turned to research.

I love interviewing people, not only to tap their expertise, but also to find out how they feel. For one essay, I went to Louisiana and Mississippi to commiserate with landowners who had lost hundreds of acres of trees in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita right after I’d lost forty acres in a tornado. I rode around with foresters for three days.

My days of research became maybe 200 words in my final essay, but I needed to get the full picture of what people were grappling with.

Those days are represented by maybe 200 words in that essay. I knew while sitting in the foresters’ trucks, viewing toppled trees and listening to descriptions of the storms, that I wouldn’t use most of what I was learning. But it felt important for me to get the full picture of what people were grappling with. I discovered that although those forests were plantations of pines destined for lumber mills, property owners still felt crushing grief over their loss.

How to Use Research in Your Piece

Research can be used strategically for:

• filling gaps
• connecting the personal with the universal
• complicating matters to add interest
• challenging claims to reinforce veracity
• offering a metaphor to support a theme
• raising tension or prolonging suspense
• mirroring structure

When you find the perfect fact or anecdote to add to your work, consider how it might support your material beyond simply adding background information.

Balancing Scene, Research, and Reflection

When I teach writing, I talk about three elements that make up narratives: scene (what happened?), research (what else?), and reflection (what of it?). Each element enhances the others. You will balance these three elements, and where and how they intersect, based on your aims for your piece.

In my teaching, I discuss three elements that make up narratives: scene (what happened?), research (what else?), and reflection (what of it?).

The Risk of Including Too Much Research

Beware! One danger of researching is that the author will feel compelled to include more of what they learned than the reader needs. That’s why I advise you, during revision, to highlight in different colors the material in your work belonging to scene, research, and reflection.

One danger of research is that you’ll feel compelled to include more of what you learned than the reader needs.

Then, in your word processor, zoom out until each page is the size of a playing card or smaller. You won’t be able to read the words, but you can see at a glance, by color, if you have a long section of research that’s likely bogging down the narrative. You can zoom in there and cut or redistribute those findings.

Drawing Out Reflection

Research and scene come more easily to me than reflection. It takes me a while to articulate what I understand and feel about experiences. If you struggle with that, too, in revision, try responding to prompts such as:

• Only after learning ___________ did I realize ______________

OR

• I used to think ____________, but now I know _____________

What you’ve learned from experts, archives, and other sources will complement your experiences and observations and lead to new insights.

About Tamara Dean

Tamara Dean’s latest book, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless, is a collection of twelve true tales of discovery that inspire readers to live more mindfully in nature and community. Reviewers call it “luminous,” “fascinating,” and “a revelatory study of person and place, entwined.” Her stories and essays have appeared in The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, The Guardian, One Story, Orion, The Southern Review, and other publications. Her essay “Safer Than Childbirth” received a 2024 Pushcart Prize Special Mention and “Slow Blues” was named a 2021 National Magazine Award finalist.

Check out her upcoming courses with us:

• Writing with Consistency and Courage (Sep. 6)
• The Magic of Flash Nonfiction (Oct. 22)

The post What Else? – How Research Makes Meaning appeared first on Writers.com.

When I was drafting my first novel, I wasn’t thinking much about subplots. I had the general shape of the story in mind—beginning, middle, end—but I hadn’t yet considered its inner architecture. In my novice novel writer mind, everything revolved around the main plot. Subplots? They existed, but I assumed they’d emerge naturally as I developed my draft. I didn’t understand that subplots needed arcs of their own, momentum, or a clear connection to the larger story.

During revisions, I tried to fix this by overcorrecting. Suddenly, every minor character had a personal storyline. I gave each one a narrative arc—whether or not the story needed it. While some of those threads were interesting, the result was a cluttered, unfocused draft. My main plot stalled, and the pacing lagged. My beta readers were confused, and likely bored. It was like I’d mixed too many colors on a canvas: the final image had no contrast, no clarity—just an overwhelming shade of gray.

Since then, I’ve developed what I call the Goldilocks method of subplotting: not too few, not too many—you have to find the balance that’s just right. And that balance will look different for every book.

In this article, we’ll explore:

• What a subplot is (and isn’t).
• How many subplots a book should have.
• Different types of subplots.
• How to weave subplots into your story.
• Common subplot mistakes.
• Real-world examples that show subplotting done well.

Whether you’re a hardcore outliner (plotter) or a discovery writer (pantser), subplots can and will elevate your story, when they’re intentional and supportive of your main plot. Let’s subplot!

What Is a Subplot?

A subplot is a secondary or minor storyline that supports, echoes, or contrasts with the main plot. It can follow a secondary character, add depth to an antagonist, deepen a theme, introduce a counterpoint, or help your protagonist evolve in subtle ways. Subplots are not just filler or side quests—they’re essential structural elements that create emotional and narrative depth while supporting the forward progress of your main plot line.

A subplot is a secondary or minor storyline that supports, echoes, or contrasts with the main plot.

Think of the main plot as your story’s spine. Subplots are the ribs: they branch off the spine, support the body, and help your story breathe.

A subplot:

• Has its own complete arc, including a beginning, middle, and resolution.
• Is thematically or emotionally tied to the main plot.
• Typically involves supporting characters.
• Should enhance the reader’s understanding of the central conflict.

In my early writing, I struggled to know how far I was “allowed” to branch away from the main plot—especially when writing in first person point of view (POV). How could I develop minor characters or explore other threads if I was tethered to one narrator’s perspective? What I’ve learned is that subplots don’t require a shift in voice or POV. 

When done well, a subplot often becomes one of the reasons readers love a book. When done poorly, it’s the part they skim. Or worse, it’s the reason they DNF.

How Many Subplots Should a Book Have?

This is one of the most common questions writers ask, and one of the hardest to answer definitively.

The truth is: there’s no magic number. Some novels hum along beautifully with one well-developed subplot, most need two or three, and a few epic, sweeping books can handle more. Most stories benefit from a less-is-more approach, especially in early drafts.

Some novels hum along beautifully with one well-developed subplot, most need two or three, and a few epic, sweeping books can handle more. Most stories benefit from a less-is-more approach, especially in early drafts.

As I mentioned, when I revised my first novel, I made a massive overcorrection. I went from nary a recognizable subplot to suddenly having half a dozen emotional arcs unfolding at once. On paper, it sounded ambitious (maybe?). In execution, it was narrative chaos. My main plot kept getting buried, and my pacing suffered. My early readers and critique partners told me they were confused about what the story was actually about. I had made a mess!

One subplot in particular stands out in memories from that time. My novel centered around the death of a sibling, and I had written a storyline about how that death affected the sister’s best friend—how her grief pulled her into a darker world. It was well-written, emotionally complex, and…entirely out of place. It didn’t connect directly to the main character’s arc, and it slowed the manuscript down. It was hard to cut, but I had to let it go in order to make the novel stronger as a whole.

Subplots should never feel like they’re pulling focus. They should be supporting the main narrative, not trying to compete with it.

As I said, the number of subplots will be different for every book you write, but if you’re a number person, here’s a general guideline:

• Short novels or novellas (under 60,000 words): 0-1 subplot
• Standard novels (70–100k words): 1-3 subplots
• Epic or genre-spanning novels (100k+ words): 3+ subplots (Only if the story genuinely needs them!)

Whatever the genre, subplots should serve a clear purpose:

• Advance the main plot
• Add emotional weight
• Develop a character
• Explore the theme from a new angle

If they don’t do any of those things? Especially if they don’t aid in the advancement of the main plot? Delete them. Cut out of your manuscript.

Subplots are only powerful when they’re purposeful.

Types of Subplots in Fiction

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to subplotting. The kinds of subplots you use depends entirely on the story you’re telling. I’ve written novels where a character’s personal arc held the emotional weight of the entire book, and others where a subplot that seemed necessary at the beginning ended up feeling out of place by the final draft.

That’s the beauty of discovery drafts: they help you find the story beneath the story. They help you discover what the story actually is.

Here are some common types of subplots—and how they can deepen your work:

1. Character-Driven Subplots: These explore the internal growth of secondary characters or flesh out dynamics between people in your protagonist’s life. A character-driven subplot is a great device to reveal information about and add depth to secondary characters.

2. Thematic Subplots: These reinforce the central theme by presenting another version of the story’s emotional or moral question. These subplots are like philosophical mirrors: they pose alternate versions of your story’s core question, offering different perspectives or outcomes that enrich the emotional and intellectual experience for the reader.

3. Antagonist Subplots: These follow the opposing force—whether it’s the villain or simply someone working against your protagonist. These subplots can build tension and expand the complexity of your story.

4. Mystery or Intrigue Subplots: Handled well, these can add suspense and page-turning tension. Used poorly, they feel like a gimmick or genre mismatch. I once added a mystery subplot to a quiet, literary novel, thinking I was making the story more interesting. A wise editor pointed out that it wasn’t necessary, and only weakened the story. She was right.

5. Romantic Subplots: Romantic tension can be used in any genre. But only include it if it adds emotional stakes, contrast or momentum to your main plot. Don’t force it or add it just because you think it should be there.

An honorable mention goes to subplots that reveal the “real” story. While not a real type of subplot, I felt it was worth nothing. I once wrote the first 50 pages of a new novel before realizing a side character had more voice, conflict, and emotional richness than my original protagonist. I started over, and made that side character my new protagonist. The subplot wasn’t a distraction—it was the real story trying to break through.

The key to any strong subplot is this: it should reveal something new—about your characters, your theme, or your story’s emotional core. If it doesn’t, it might be unnecessary background noise your novel doesn’t need.

How to Write a Strong Subplot

Here’s the secret no one tells you when you’re first learning how to write a novel: subplots are structure. They aren’t just nice to have—they’re part of the engine that drives your story forward. A weak subplot can drag your pacing, confuse your themes, and dilute your emotional impact. A strong subplot, on the other hand, can deepen everything.

Here are a few tips on how to develop a solid subplot:

1. It Must be Connected to the Main Plot

A subplot shouldn’t feel like a detour or an occasional hiatus from the main storyline. It should feel like a corridor leading to a different part of the same house. It might offer a quieter moment, a new character perspective, or a parallel emotional arc, but it needs to be in deep conversation with the larger story.

Sometimes, writers fall in love with a side story simply because it’s fun to write. However, fun doesn’t always equal functional. Writers often have to cut entire storylines, even those that are beautifully written or interesting in isolation, because they had nothing to do with the central tension of the book.

Ask yourself: If I removed this subplot, would the book still work? Would it be stronger without it? Or would something vital be missing?

2. It Has Its Own Arc

A strong subplot has shape. It’s not just something that shows up occasionally to break up the action. It has a beginning, a build, a complication, and a resolution.

In my own work, I’ve learned to chart subplots the way I chart main plots. Even if I’m not outlining in detail, I’ll track where the subplot enters, where it develops, and how it resolves. If I can’t do that, it’s probably not really a subplot; it’s just a stray idea looking for a purpose.

3. It Reveals Theme or Deepens Character

Subplots are excellent tools for illuminating a story’s emotional undercurrents. A subplot can show your protagonist failing in one area while succeeding in another. It can echo a theme in miniature. It can offer a counterpoint that invites the reader to ask bigger questions.

Think of your subplot as your story’s echo—it should be saying something related, but from a slightly different angle.

4. It’s Woven Seamlessly into the Main Narrative

This is where craft meets finesse. The best subplots don’t announce themselves. They’re folded into the story in a way that feels natural, inevitable. You don’t want your reader to think, Ah, here comes the subplot. You want them to think, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

One way to do this is through rhythm. If your main plot is heavy and high-stakes, a subplot might offer breath and space—a romantic tension, a bit of humor, a philosophical pause. If your main plot is internal and introspective, a subplot might raise the stakes or propel the pacing.

Subplots can be used to:

• Develop your protagonist through relationships
• Add tension or contrast to the central conflict
• Reinforce or question the moral center of your book
• Build out the world of your story

Always remember the most important part: A subplot should serve the story, not distract from it.

Subplot Examples from Literature and Film

Sometimes the best way to understand how subplots work is to see them in action. A well-crafted subplot doesn’t shout for attention—it deepens the story, sharpens the emotional stakes, and leaves readers more invested in the world of the book.

Here are a few famous examples that demonstrate different types of subplots used to masterfully benefit the main story:

1. The Weasley Twins’ Rebellion — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

While the main plot follows Harry’s battle against the rising threat of Voldemort and the internal corruption of the Ministry of Magic, a subplot develops around Fred and George Weasley, and their rebellion against authority at Hogwarts. At first glance, their antics seem like comic relief, but the subplot mirrors the main story’s central theme: resistance in the face of institutional control. Their exit isn’t just funny—it’s iconic, and it raises the emotional pitch of the main plot.

2. Lila’s Hidden Ambition — My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

While the main plot of My Brilliant Friend follows Elena’s coming-of-age and evolving self-perception, one of the most compelling subplots centers on her friend Lila’s complex relationship with intellect, creativity, and power. Lila doesn’t have access to the same educational opportunities Elena does, but her fierce intelligence and submerged rage quietly drive the narrative. Though Elena is the narrator, Lila’s arc often holds the emotional center of the book.

3. Celie’s Sister Nettie — The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Nettie’s letters form a powerful subplot that expands the scope of the story beyond Celie’s immediate world. While Celie’s arc is deeply internal—focused on reclaiming her voice and self-worth—Nettie’s subplot brings in themes of global injustice, colonialism, and family separation. The two plots feel distinct, and yet they are emotionally inseparable.

4. The Failed Love Story — The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tom Buchanan’s affair with his mistress, Myrtle, and the lingering past between Daisy and Gatsby, function as romantic and moral subplots. These relationships aren’t central to the action, but they amplify the novel’s core themes: illusion, longing, and the rotten deception lurking beneath the glitter of wealth. (You can read The Great Gatsby here.)

Common Subplot Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Subplots are one of the most powerful tools in fiction, and also one of the trickiest to manage. When they work, they enrich and elevate the story, but when they don’t they slow it down, dilute its focus, or confuse the reader.

Here are some of the most common subplot mistakes I’ve seen (and made), along with how to avoid them:

1. Subplots That Don’t Connect to the Main Story: If a subplot feels like it could be lifted out of the book without changing anything, that’s a red flag. Every subplot should connect to the main plot in one of three ways: it advances it, reflects it, or complicates it. Otherwise, it’s not doing enough work, and needs to be expanded or deleted.

2. Too Many Subplots: Writers, especially in early drafts, often overwrite, and try to give every character their own arc. It can feel like you’re deepening your world, but too many threads can pull focus, and muddy the core story. Even strong subplots can lose their impact if they end up competing for attention.

3. Subplots That Are More Interesting Than the Main Plot: This one is trickier. Sometimes, the subplot is where the emotional truth of the story lives, and it begins to outshine the main narrative. Remember my early tale of starting over after writing fifty pages, because I realized a subplot was really my main plot? If a subplot is stealing the shine of the main plot or main character, you either need to accept that you’ve been writing the wrong story, or you need to pare down the current subplot.

4. Subplots That Go Nowhere: Never introduce a subplot, build it up, and then forget about it, or abandon it halfway through. This leaves readers frustrated, and creates a sense of narrative imbalance. Even if your subplot ends quietly, it still needs resolution. Leaving no loose ends includes resolving all of your subplots before writing “The End.”

5. Subplots That Clash Tonally or Thematically: Sometimes writers insert a subplot to add excitement, tension, or variety, but it doesn’t belong in the world of the story. Like that time I added a mystery subplot to a literary novel because I thought it would make the story more exciting. The tone didn’t match, and the story didn’t need it.

Subplot Writing & Revision Checklist

If you’re unsure whether your subplot is working, this checklist can help. Use it to evaluate whether a subplot is pulling its weight—or if it’s just taking up space.

Concept & Purpose

• Does this subplot relate to the main plot, theme, or protagonist’s arc?
• Can I clearly state the purpose of this subplot in one sentence?
• Does this subplot add tension, deepen character, or reveal theme?

Structure & Pacing

• Does the subplot have a beginning, middle, and resolution?
• Is the subplot introduced early enough to matter?
• Does it build over time rather than dropping in and out?

Character & Emotion

• Does it develop a side character or show a new side of my protagonist?
• Does it mirror or contrast the emotional stakes of the main plot?
• Is the tone and voice of this subplot consistent with the overall story?

Relevance & Impact

• If I cut this subplot, would the story still make sense?
• Is this subplot pulling focus from the main narrative?
• Does it resolve or evolve in a satisfying way by the end?

Bonus Tip: If you find yourself stuck, try writing a one-paragraph summary of each subplot as if it’s its own mini-story. If you can’t find a compelling arc, it might not belong—or it may need more work.

Subplots Are Where the Story Deepens

It’s easy to think of subplots as optional, or as bonus material for when the main plot needs to take a breath. But in truth, subplots are where stories expand, characters grow, and meaning gathers weight. They’re not detours. They’re echoes, mirrors, and undercurrents. Subplots are how your story speaks in more than one voice.

Like everything in writing, learning to use subplots well is a process. You’ll overdo it. You’ll underdo it. You’ll write a subplot that hijacks your book, and another that dies on the page. Eventually, you’ll write one that surprises you by revealing the beating heart of your story. Each time, you’ll get better at knowing the difference.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. If something feels off in your draft, try adding a new subplot, cutting one, or try following that side character who won’t shut up in your head. It’s okay to not get it just right, while in your pursuit of finding just the right balance of subplots.

Hone Your Subplots At Writers.com

Not sure if your story has the structure it needs? Check out the upcoming novel writing courses at Writers.com, where you’ll receive expert advice and feedback on every aspect of your novel. 

The post Subplots in Fiction: How to Use Them to Deepen Your Story appeared first on Writers.com.

Sound devices help make writing memorable and engaging, while also building the mood and atmosphere of a work, helping it evoke stronger reactions from the readers. While the bulk of this article dissects sound devices in poetry, these same devices often appear in prose, and good storytellers know how to imbue their work with sound and musicality.

What literary devices are sound devices, and how do they aid your writing? Let’s define sound devices first before looking at great examples of sound devices in literature.

Sound Devices Definition

Sound devices are literary devices in which the sounds of words themselves impact the meaning and interpretation of the work.

Sound devices are literary devices in which the sounds of words themselves impact the meaning and interpretation of the work.

Take this literally—we mean that the use of certain vowels, consonants, and sonic qualities in words, as well as how the words sound next to one another, are sound devices that impact the writing as a whole.

There are plenty of reasons to employ sound devices in literature. They help build the mood and atmosphere of a work, they create formal restraints that improve the work’s resonance, and sometimes, they simply make a passage of writing more memorable. After all, it’s hard to forget the phrase “Sally sells seashells by the seashore,” even if that sibilance makes it hard to speak out loud.

Sound Devices Vs. Sonic Imagery

The one thing sound devices are not is sonic imagery. By this, we mean imagery of sound: descriptions of sounds intended to convey an experience we can hear in our minds.

An example of sonic imagery comes from Robert Hass’ poem “Picking Blackberries with a Friend Who Has Been Reading Jacques Lacan”:

I can hear this moment in the poem, but it’s not because of the sounds of the words themselves, but what they evoke in the mind’s ear. Ears being stoppered by bee-hums transports me directly to the field where this poem is happening, and there’s a charming quality of Charlie “laughing wonderfully” that I can also imagine.

Admittedly, the word hum in “bee-hum” has an onomatopoeic quality to it, and one could argue that “hum” is being used as a sound device. But, this passage on the whole is evoking a sound-image without replicating that sound in the sounds of the words.

Sound Devices in Poetry Vs. Prose

Most discussions of sound devices revolve around poetry. Indeed, poetry is a sonic art form, and good poetry is enhanced by its attention to sound and musicality.

That said, the sound devices in this article can apply to both poetry and prose. While it’s true that prose is rarely, if ever, metered and rhyming, good prose can be enhanced by the intentional use of rhythm and rhyme. The best prose writers will also be poets—or, at the very least, be readers and admirers of poetry, as poetry pushes the limits of what language can accomplish.

Here’s a passage of prose I’ve always found particularly poetic—the opening paragraph from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston:

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

What makes this passage poetic isn’t its loftiness, though it certainly has a heightened quality to it, but rather the passage’s attention to musicality. Speak the words aloud and feel how they flow, both the words themselves and the lengths of sentences. Notice, also, how each word is carefully chosen and essential: there’s no excess, and the words that are abstract are still necessary. This stands in stark contrast to something like purple prose, which attempts to be poetic and lofty but is ultimately elaborate, overwritten, and communicates little.

Prose writers, like poets, will do well to understand how these sound devices can be implemented in their work. When prose is a joy to read, it invites the reader into worlds more richly built and real.

Learn more about poetry vs prose here:

https://writers.com/prose-vs-poetry

Sound Devices in Literature: Examples and Analysis

Let’s take a look at some actual sound devices in literature. In addition to defining each device, we also provide examples in published works of writing, and an analysis of what that sound device does for the writing as well.

1. Alliteration

Alliteration is the use of the same sound at the start of successive or closely placed words. It is specific to the beginning letters of words; two other devices, assonance and consonance, describe recurring sounds more generally.

It’s worth noting that the alliterating words need to be different. For example “bells, bells, bells” wouldn’t be noteworthy alliteration, since the words are just being repeated—but that would be an example of epizeuxis, a repetition device.

Alliteration, when employed effectively, makes a passage of writing more musical and memorable. Take Tracy Brimhall’s poem “Lullaby at 102º”. Words in alliteration with one another have been bolded and italicized:

This gorgeous, mystical poem has more going for it than just its alliteration, but those moments of repeated sounds create a textured, sonic experience for the reader. There are also moments of consonance, which we’ll define shortly, that work in tandem with the poem’s alliterations.

2. Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in closely placed words. These vowel sounds can occur anywhere in the words themselves—beginning, middle, or end—but must be repeated in such a way that their repetition is resonant or echoic.

Different vowel sounds can emulate different feelings and moods. So, too, can the frequency of their repetition. Quick, successive, tall vowels might add a sense of energy or urgency; long and low vowels might create a sense of depth or somberness.

There are a few lovely examples from Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays”:

This poem aches, and that ache can be felt in the poem’s vowels and consonants. (We’ll look at consonance next.) There are a lot of tall vowels in the first stanza, and in my experience reading it, those vowels lift the language up, but in a spiked and urgent way. This stands in contrast to the poem’s melancholy ending, whose low, long vowels draw out that sense of loneliness and regret. Assonance, here, creates a feeling that echoes in the body, that lasts long after it’s read in the mind.

3. Consonance

Consonance is assonance, but with consonants. Specifically, it’s an echoing of similar consonant sounds in closely placed words. This, like assonance, can impact the mood and feeling of a poem.

Also like assonance, there are no hard and fast rules for how different sounds will replicate different feelings. But let’s look again at Robert Hayden’s delightfully sonic poem, this time with attention towards repeated consonant sounds:

What do you notice in this poem, now that you’ve paid attention to its consonance? This poem nearly runs the alphabet, but there’s a recurrence of “b”, “k”, and “w” sounds that each offer a different emotional texture to the work. K’s and hard C’s feel sharp and percussive; “B’s” and, to a lesser extent in this piece, “D’s” are also percussive, but duller and more spread out, melancholic; and those soft, ruminant “W’s” seem to stretch this poem’s melancholy even further. I also notice that “cold” recurs in each stanza, though each use of the word feels new somehow.

4. Dissonance and Cacophony

Dissonance and cacophony are essentially the same thing, so we’ll include them as one device. There is a slight difference between the two, in that cacophony is an instance of dissonance; if cacophony is a singular use of sound, dissonance describes a work that is artfully replete with cacophony.

Both words describe writing whose sound is intentionally unpleasant or harsh to the ear. The key word, of course, is intentional: it’s not writing that’s accidentally rough, but writing whose harsh sound is resonant with the writing’s subject matter.

A rather obvious example of dissonance comes from “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” from Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

The language is musical, but has a sense of discordance, and though the vowels are somewhat assonant, there are a lot of different, cacophonous percussive consonants mirroring the speaker’s harsh cry.

Sometimes, dissonance simply helps call attention to a single stand-out word. For example, the poem “Self-Portrait Against Red Wallpaper” by Richard Siken has a lot of beauty and craft in it, but I’ll call your attention to the word “compartmentalization”, which occurs a little more than halfway into the poem. It’s an ungainly word, hideous in its context and hideous to pronounce, but essential to understanding the psychology of this poem’s speaker.

Retrieved here.

5. Elision or Syncope

Elision is a useful sound device, especially for poets trying to fit their language into the rhythm and meter of a formal poem. What elision refers to is the intentional erasure of a sound or syllable.

A lot of old-timey poetic words are the products of elision. For example:

These forms of elision rarely occur in contemporary poetry, as contemporary poetry is more interested in replicating how people think and speak in the 21st century.

However, elision is common in a lot of everyday speech. Taking the g off of a gerund word, for example—you might say you’re “goin’” to the store, not going. Contractions like “can’t” and “won’t” are also elisions in their own way, since they elide sounds by conjoining words together. (Some of the above examples, like t’other and ‘tis, are also contractions.)

6. Euphony

Euphony is cacophony’s opposite. It is the use of musical, melodic sound to enhance the beauty or quality of a poem’s language. It is, put simply, the lyricism and musicality often found in poetry.

Euphony is not a singular device—it is something achieved in the gestalt of sound devices, and so any example of euphony may contain various iterations of alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, meter, sibilance, repetition, etc.

Consider this poem:

We Have Not Long to Love
By: Tennessee Williams

Pay attention to what makes this poem flow off the tongue—you should even read it out loud to fully feel the language. The poem’s movement and rhythm, its odd but wise syntax, and its noticeable but not-annoying rhyme scheme all combine to make a poem as delightful and interesting as its choice of words.

7. Homophony

Homophony is the use of homophones, which are words that sound similar to one another but have different definitions. Think: bear/bare, there/their, wear/where/ware, etc.

Sometimes, writers use homophones as puns or forms of word play. I could say that the bear bares its face, or I could give someone a box of powdered grains and call it a “bouquet of flours.”

But homophony can also be used to simulate the sound and feeling of language in new and surprising ways. Some contemporary poets write poems that are “homophonic translations,” or poems written to emulate the sound of a source text, but use different words to create wonderful accidents of language.

Here’s an example of a homophonic translation, which attempts to sound like the opening of the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot.

By taking the sound and feeling of a poem but using different words, poems like these call into question how language can communicate through sound instead of meaning, and what happens when words say what they don’t mean.

8. Meter

Meter refers to the rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a piece of writing—almost always poetry. Contemporary poets do sometimes utilize meter in their work, but it is far more present in classical poetry.

If you’ve read any poetry from before the 20th century, you have almost certainly encountered iambic meter, which is a pattern of unstressed-stressed syllables. The motion of an iambic poem is often compared to that of a heartbeat. You can see it in action from these lines of Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Again, read these lines out loud, and you’ll get a feel for iambic meter, including where the stresses are placed in the syllables.

You can read our in-depth guide on poetic meter here:

https://writers.com/rhythm-and-meter-in-poetry

9. Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeias are words that sound like the sounds they refer to. They are words made to emulate what they describe. Think bark, honk, meow, vroom, boom, or yackety-yack.

Onomatopoeias are rarely the central feature of any piece of writing, but they do add a kind of sonic texture to the work, and they’re useful for making a piece of writing feel more real and alive.

This excerpt from the poem “Honky Tonk in Cleveland, Ohio” by Carl Sandburg demonstrates the value of onomatopoeias nicely:

Read the full poem here.

Notice how the poem feels livelier and more interesting, especially as those onomatopoeia words are bumping up against one another, practically in conversation.

Learn more about onomatopoeias here:

https://writers.com/onomatopoeia-definition-and-examples

10. Repetition

Repetition is the artful, intentional duplication of sounds and words to highlight or amplify a certain effect on the reader. Like euphony, repetition is not a singular device, but a set of strategies authors use for literary effect.

One type of repetition is called epizeuxis, which is the rapid, immediate repetition of a word. Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Bells” gives us a great example:

The almost obnoxious, incessant chime of the word feels like there are bells actually jingling and tinkling around me. Repetition is more than just a sound device, but here, I think Poe is using the device in a sonic and interesting way.

Discover more repetition devices here:

https://writers.com/repetition-definition

11. Rhyme

You’re probably acquainted with rhyme, which is when words mirror each other’s assonance, or else have corresponding sounds. Examples of this:

• Score / store
• Whether / heather
• Interior / inferior
• Scarecrow / hair grow

There also exist such a thing as slant rhymes, which are rhymes that almost mirror one another, but the length or intonation of a vowel differs enough that the two rhymes slightly misalign. Examples of this:

• Boarish / boorish
• Worm / swarm
• Immigrant / monument
• Tall / toll

Rhymes can occur in both poetry and prose. They make writing more musical and can also call attention to the rhymed words themselves. In poetry, certain forms like villanelles and traditional sonnets require the end words of lines to be rhymed. A line can also have an internal rhyme, or rhyming words occurring in the middle of lines.

Edgar Allan Poe also gives us some great examples of rhyme in poetry. Here’s the opening stanza of The Raven, with internal rhymes italicized, and end rhymes bolded:

12. Sibilance

Sibilance is consonance with “s” sounds, so it’s delightful that sibilance is itself a sibilant word. This sound device gets its own shoutout because it has a unique impact on the feeling of a passage of writing. Sibilance can make writing seem sinister, slippery, tense, or eerie, particularly if the writing is complete with only “s” sounds.

However, repeated hushing and shushing “sh” sounds are also sibilance. If a piece of writing has a lot of “sh” in it, the passage might feel calming, soft, quiet, or windswept.

To be clear, sibilance is just as intentional as the other sound devices in this article. While plenty of words have s’es in them, and most plural words end in s, sibilance requires a certain amount of frequency and intensity in other to impact the mood, tone, and feeling of a piece of writing.

You can find many examples of sibilance in John Clare’s poem “The Wind”:

Why do writers use sound devices in literature?

Sound devices make writing musical, memorable, interesting, and atmospheric. A writer can control the mood and energy of a piece based on how they utilize sound.

Sound devices might enhance a piece of writing by:

• Generating a mood, tone, or atmosphere that enhances the subject of the work.
• Imbuing the work with a sense of musicality that’s pleasing to read and hear.
• Building a textured, sonic experience that the reader can hear and feel.
• Creating doorways into new ideas by attending to the accidents off language.

Really, sound devices are tools that help elevate a piece of writing from merely transmitting information to creating an artistic and intentional experience. The dullest writing thuds for its disinterest in sound. Think long, technical passages of prose with convoluted, abstract language.

Reading bad writing is like trying to drill through a prison wall—and finding that the other side of the wall is just as boring. Musical writing, on the other hand, has a gravity that you don’t want to escape from, and these sound devices help create that gravity.

For more on creating musical, stylistic writing, check out our article on the topic:

https://writers.com/writing-styles

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