/verse-craft

Verse Forms

Each form lists its rules, a short original example, and the faults to check for. State the rules you are following before drafting; when the user bends a form on purpose, follow the user.

Limerick

• Five lines, rhyme scheme AABBA.
• Lines 1, 2, and 5 have three beats; lines 3 and 4 have two.
• Anapestic (da-da-DUM), usually starting with an unstressed syllable or two: "there WAS an old KEEP-er of GREY".
• Line 1 often names a person and a place, but that is convention, not a rule.
• Line 5 turns the joke. It may echo line 1's rhyme word, but a new word lands harder.

A keeper who lived on a rock
Whose lamp was as true as a clock.
    When his clock lost a hand
    He relied on the sand,
And he keeps his accounts in a sock.

Faults: a line 5 with no turn; a limp beat count in lines 3 and 4; the same rhyme word used twice in the A lines; stress forced onto a weak syllable to keep the gallop ("the KEEP-er ex-PLAINED it to ME").

Sonnet

Fourteen lines of iambic pentameter (five da-DUM feet).

• Shakespearean: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Three quatrains develop the idea; the closing couplet turns or sums it up.
• Petrarchan: an octave ABBAABBA and a sestet (CDECDE, CDCDCD, or a close variant). The turn (volta) comes at line 9.

Faults: no turn; a couplet that restates the quatrains; lines padded to ten syllables with filler; inverted syntax to reach the rhyme.

Haiku

• In English, the usual pattern is three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. Many poets write shorter lines; follow the user.
• One concrete image, often a season word (kigo) and a cut (kireji), a pause that sets two images side by side. In English a dash or line break does the cutting.
• Present tense, no rhyme, no abstract statement of feeling.

paraffin runs low
the keeper tilts the last can —
a gull's shadow falls

Faults: syllables counted wrong (count aloud: fire is one or two syllables depending on accent, so say which you used); a moral in line 3; two ideas instead of one image.

Villanelle

• Nineteen lines: five tercets and a closing quatrain.
• Two refrains: line 1 (A1) and line 3 (A2). A1 ends tercets 2 and 4; A2 ends tercets 3 and 5; the quatrain ends with A1 then A2.
• Rhyme scheme ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA, on only two rhyme sounds.
• Usually iambic pentameter.

Faults: refrains that do not carry more meaning each time they return; running out of B rhymes and forcing the last ones. Pick a B sound with many common rhymes before drafting.

Ballad

• Quatrains, usually rhyming ABCB (sometimes ABAB).
• Common meter: lines alternating four beats and three beats (8 and 6 syllables in strict common meter).
• Tells a story, often with dialogue, a refrain, and incremental repetition (a line repeated with one word changed as the story moves).

Faults: summarising events instead of showing them; losing the beat in dialogue lines; a refrain that does not fit every stanza it follows.

Clerihew

• Four lines, AABB, irregular line lengths.
• Line 1 is, or ends with, a person's name. The rest is a comic, unlikely claim about them.

Faults: lines so regular it reads as a limerick fragment; a real living person treated unkindly (check with the user).

Couplets

• Rhymed pairs. Heroic couplets are iambic pentameter; shorter couplets (tetrameter) move faster and suit comic or children's verse.
• Each couplet often closes its sense on the rhyme.

Faults: every sense ending on the rhyme until it thuds; vary with enjambment (a sentence that runs over the line end).

Free verse

• No fixed meter or rhyme. Line breaks still carry meaning: they set pace and put weight on the last word of each line.
• Scan it anyway: note where the stresses cluster and whether line ends land on strong words.

Faults: prose chopped into lines at random; breaks on the, of, and with no reason.

Song lyrics

• Written to be sung: stresses must fall on the melody's strong beats, and long vowels on long notes.
• Verse, chorus, and often a bridge. The chorus repeats word for word (or near it) and carries the title or hook.
• Slant rhyme is normal in lyrics; the ear forgives more in song.
• A character's song in a story is read on the page, not heard: it needs to work as verse too.

Faults: lines with more syllables than the tune has notes; a chorus that changes each time; quoting a real song's lyrics (never do this; see Hard Rules).

Rhyming picture-book text

• Plan the spreads first with the adaptation skill; one stanza or couplet per spread is common.
• The adult reading aloud has never seen the text: every line must scan on a cold read, with stress falling where normal speech puts it.
• Anapestic tetrameter (four da-da-DUM beats) and iambic tetrameter are common. Keep one meter through the book.
• Rhyme only if every line scans perfectly. Many publishers prefer prose picture books to rhyme that stumbles.

Faults: a word chosen for rhyme that a child would not know and the story does not need; meter that only works in the author's accent; a refrain that changes.