Verse novels with Yvonne Mes

 A blog post in verse by Annaleise Byrd

A bashing

………. crashing

……………… thrashing

………. S T O R M

means we

are meeting

………. on Zoom

…………………. today.

Yvonne talks us through

what a verse novel

……….is

and how it

………. works

and why it’s

………. more

………. than just

………. chopped up

………. prose.

Euphony,

………. cacophony,

consonance,

………. assonance,

alliteration,

………. imagery

and onomatopoeia

………. are all here,

………. filling us with ideas,

………. making it clear

we are allowed to play.

So we grapple with

………. e m o t i o n s,

cram them messily into

………. stanzas,

fiddle with

………. line breaks

and contemplate where to put

………. an end stop.

Did you know

that when a sentence

continues without a pause beyond

the end of a line, that is called

enjambment?

‘And what about dialogue?’

There’s a place for it, too,

amongst the rules

we set for ourselves

around the structure

(or lack of)

we choose for our story.

It is powerful stuff,

enough to make

tears

f

a

l

l

when

we read

our words

aloud

at the end.

Remember:

It is all ours to play with,

……….. ours to taste,

……….. ours to explore

……….. and find out more…

an open door

into another way

of telling stories.

Annaleise Byrd is the author of middle grade portal fantasies Losing the Plot and Down the Plot Hole, and the picture book You Are Not a Pup