"the way is clear / the light is good / I have no fear / and no one should"

[larryhammer]

So there's a writers' meme going around LJ* of taking the opening (or any other) passage of a work in progress (or a published novel) and line-break it into poetry. This was started as a diagnostic tool, because lineation has a way of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of words and phrases -- weak prose makes for bad verse. I'd take part, but what I'm actively working on is already in verse.

So I'm doing the reverse-meme -- here's the opening passage reset as prose:

Already! -- here, another moon is gone, or will have slivered away from me come dawn, and I've not written as I promised to. I swear this term, which seemed so long, just flew -- classes transmute slow Time to something faster than thought. (Speaking of classes, Spellcraft Master insists we practice rhymes at every chance: even our letters home should chime and dance -- I know, Jem, you won't mind (much) these words' clothes, and for the Elders -- summarize in prose.)

Which, hmm, does highlight that the parenthetical part is indeed much more prosaic than the rest. I should probably do something about that,** even if the narrator says she's too unimaginative to write poetical.


* I caught it from dancinghorse.

** Not to mention: "chime" "dance" "clothes" bah -- pick one metaphor and stick with it.

---L.

Comments

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Coolness!

I like the idea that words put together well can read well either way, and that changing the format casts light on what works and what doesn't.

[larryhammer]

It's interesting how that works. I should keep this in mind as a tool in the future.

Also, when looking at certain kinds of verse that read like prose-with-linebreaks, doing this is instructive: sometimes it confirms the impression, sometimes it highlights that, no, actually, there's something more going on.

---L.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Personally, I love it. *g*

Yeah, fix the metaphor, but otherwise it does rock. Good stuff, Larry.

[larryhammer]

It's got things going for it.

Now, to finish the darn thing.

---L.