Writing in Rhyme for Children

The Bible says God gives us specific talents. Do you remember being a kid and discovering something you were really good at? God planted that seed in you and it started to grow. As you grew you learned to make what you’re good at work for you.

I’m good at making rhymes. When I was little, I drove people crazy singing silly made-up songs. My mother enjoyed reminding me of my first rhyme, made up at age three, Pepsi cola hits the pot . . . but, I digress. As a freelance writer, I’ve written more than a dozen rhyming books.

Editors often reject manuscripts written in rhyme. The truth is, writing in rhyme is hard. It requires more than counting syllables, matching stressed and unstressed beats and careful placement of multi-syllable words. A good rhyme has to flow and also move the story forward. It’s not about finding a word that rhymes to fit a rhyming pattern, but finding the best word. That means playing with words, turning them inside out and upside down, until they work. Rhymes can’t be forced. The words need to flow smoothly one line melting into the next.

When writing in rhyme, here are three tips to remember:

1. What’s most important is the story. The words need to create pictures in the reader’s mind.

My brother’s bug was green and plump,
It did not run, it could not jump,
It had no fur for it to shed,
It slept all night beneath his bed.
Jack Prelutsky

2. Next, think about meter, the pattern of the beat. Count syllables. Make sure they flow. Read your rhyme aloud. Have someone read it back to you. (I find it helpful to have my computer’s speech function read it back.) Keep rewriting until the meter flows smoothly.

Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-grumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.
Shel Silverstein

3. Finally, and this is the trickiest part, check the rhyming words and decide if they are the best words or if you’ve chosen them just because they rhyme. Sometimes, using a stronger word can set your story or main idea in a whole new, and better, direction.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” Dr. Seuss

The words Theodore Geisel  chose: “feet”, “shoes”, “steer”, “direction” all work together to create an image that implies motion. Imagine if he had written instead:

“You have brains in your head. You have nothing to lose. You can take yourself to any place that you choose.” 

The idea falls flat.

Online rhyming dictionaries can be a great help. I like RhymeZone. It allows you to organize results by syllables, words and phrases. For inspiration you can also search for a word to see how it was used in published song lyrics and poems.

If you plan to write in rhyme, learn by reading classics by authors like Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, Margaret Wise Brown . . . Check out Anna Dewdney’s “Llama, Llama” books,  Julia Donaldson’s rhyming books (“The Gruffalo” and others), and Jane Yolen’s “What Rhymes With Moon?”  Study the meter, the story structure, the way the words flow. Using their rhymes as models, try writing your own.

Writing in rhyme takes practice. It’s not as easy as you think.

If you find your task is hard,
Try, try again.
Time will bring you your reward,
Try, try again.
All that other folk can do,
Why, with patience, should not you?
Only keep this rule in view,
Try, try again.
William Edward Hickson

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What Do You See—Something Commonplace or Something Totally Different?

Two authors standing side by side. One might see only what is commonplace while the other sees a great deal more.

This is how the author, Hamlin Garland, saw Greenfield, Indiana in the late 1800s:

“To my eyes it was the most unpromising field for art, especially for the art of verse. The landscape had no hills, no lakes, no streams of any movement or beauty. Ragged fence-rows, flat and dusty roads, fields of wheat alternating with clumps of trees – these were the features of a country which to me was utterly commonplace . . .”

But the poet, James Whitcomb Riley, saw his birthplace, Greenfield, differently. The dusty wooden plank road stretching through Greenfield, the vast, flat farmland with its rickety fences, the scent of buckwheat and basswood . . . . these inspired him to write in the voice of a farmer using a Hoosier dialect sprinkled with 19th century, Middle-Western colloquialisms.

Different things inspire our words. Two writers can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

As October slips away, take a walk with Riley and see Greenfield through his eyes:

WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

 

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

 

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

 

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! …
I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—
I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Look around.
Take a break from raking leaves
(or whatever else you’re doing).
What do you see—something commonplace
or something totally different?

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How Autumn Can Supercharge Your Descriptive Writing

Last month, I shared with you summer-themed poetry and suggested you study its descriptive paragraphs, sentences and phrases and apply what you learned to your own writing.

The seasons have shifted now from summer to fall. Think about the ambiance words create in these autumn poems and compare them to the mood of summer poetry.

In her “November Night”, American poet, Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914) invokes a powerful image using less than twenty words. What does your mind “see” when you read her poem?

November Night
Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

Notice how the English poet and aesthetic philosopher, T.E. Hulme (1883–1917), uses similes to create a word picture in his short poem, “Autumn”.

Autumn
A touch of cold in the Autumn night –
I walked abroad,
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded,
And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.

Now, compare the mood of the English poet Rainer Maria Rilke‘s poem “Autumn” to Hulme’s. Rilke (1875–1926) was a master at weaving word pictures with existential thoughts.

Autumn
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

Three poets: Crapsey, Hulme and Rilke, all living in the same era, writing about the same theme, using words to create significantly different images. Use what you’ve learned reading their words to supercharge your own writing—

Start right now by writing
your own autumn-themed descriptive
paragraph or poem.

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and inspiration for writers.

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