What is important for good writing? Find the rhythm.

U m pa pa - U m pa pa - U m pa pa U m

Um.
Have you ever wondered why the waltz is so recognizable and memorable?

Let's read the onomatopoeia again:

u m pa pa - u m pa pa - u m pa pa u m

Um.

Letters that repeat themselves with the same cadence.

And the accent? It always falls on the first one.

The effect is that of a natural rhythm that imitates life ; indeed, we could say that music comes to life when it manages to imitate its constant pulsation. Same thing happens with words.

As?

We're here to find out together: you beat the time, while I start... playing them?

The variation? A lifestyle

Let's say right away that the um - pa - pa is an exception, because the charm of the waltz is certainly not all there is.

The phrase comes to mind: "Um-dad why do you always repeat the same things to me?"

Yes, the repetition of similar words bores the listener and the reader : length, sound, tone must change. The Latin relatives would have called the device variatio : long-short-long-short-atonic-tonic-atonic-tonic. All a matter of accents and positions.

On the other hand, the life on which we (dis)run never runs the same way; and, not surprisingly, it is said that "everyone has their own rhythms". The individual letters have a sound and become words; the word phrase; the sentence period; the text period. Just as music is a set of notes balanced on the stave, writing is melody in graphemes . The pulsation of the lifeblood is inside lines and... lines.

Short words or long words?

No, it's not like choosing pasta because in that case mixing means taste bud chaos .

In writing, my dear, the mix works; and there is something for all auricol(-)ocular tastes.

Let's go back to music in an onomatopoeic key, so we understand each other:

Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta [short-short-short-short]

Calibrated-Calibrated-Calibrated-Calibrated-Calibrated [long-long-long-long]

The first line scrolls a lot; the second less.

But do you want to know my opinion? Both boring: the ideal is to alternate, letting your eye quickly fly over the short words to linger more on the long ones.

Monotony kills the living text and keeping the head alert means feeling the rhythm of the heartbeat : slow, fast; always different according to the concept expressed.

On the other hand, life and word have been contaminating each other since the dawn of history.

In the ninth century there was time to read and prose was slow: long sentences, verbs in the passive, complex syntax; the advent of the 20th century, on the contrary, saw the triumph of the futurist movement: short sentences, verbs in the infinitive, flat syntax and a sign that becomes a drawing to communicate noises.

Writing evolves, mutates and adapts to technology so as not to remain... silent (?)

Words have a sound

It's a burden.

Like a waltz dancing on the penta.GRAMMA (?)

The sound of words is the result of the juxtaposition between individual letters , which together create harmony or cacophony: the first is good, the second is bad. I won't go back here to aspects covered in other posts (i); just think that to grasp the fluidity of a text it is important to read it aloud - what the reader will do unconsciously; and that also in this case the alternation always wins : using the right letters based on sound and role; loosen the tongue from stumbling; respect accents and lengths.

On the other hand, when we "read on tape" it means that the text is melody.

The slang expression is not casual: learning to grasp the rhythm of the text is like listening to a melody with your eyes closed and your finger tapping on your chest [an exercise that I suggest you take as a vice]. To be catchy, the melody is cadenced - it is no coincidence that "rhythm" and "refrain" have the same etymology - but not the single note: that is varied. Everything becomes harmony when it doesn't include the verb "to be out of tune": notes that collide and screech against each other would be just noise. You assume that the tone is the accent, the letter a note, the words clusters of accented notes and the refrain phrases that flow smoothly to compose a melodic text.
"I don't know, it seems to me that sounds really bad" is a way of saying that can not fit.

And the periods?

They too are like words.

There are long ones that cradle the eye to the next line; and the short ones that chase and leave no respite. Too long is tiring, too short is stressful.

Again the writing adapts to the historical period and we helplessly witness the jubilation of the concise text: little time, half-fast, reading on the screen. Yes, we live in the oxymoron of a futurist past; but you realize that you have passed from the eighteenth-century waltz to the (fis)harmonic future of our century [which renders crises and crasis well]: I open and close; I open and close.

The ideal text alternates long paragraphs with short paragraphs : its length varies according to the meaning we want to give it. If I'm describing an excited scene, I'll be brief; if I'm getting lost in calm reflection, I'll make the reader's eye stay on my words as long as possible.

I can also choose to amaze, launching myself into difficult graphic and creative contaminations: round and spacious fonts for soft concepts; or hard and narrow for cutting slogans .

Italo Calvino in his " American Lessons " points out how rapidity and lack of detail leave room for the imagination . How the economy of language exists, according to which the same term can have multiple meanings; thus there is the economy of the story, which lets our reader's imagination fly: as he reads... he fills.

On the other hand , the long/short alternation has a visual advantage that has its importance on the web : paragraphs of different consistency attract curiosity and make the eye breathe.

Text blocks yes, then; but also varied.

Rhythm is fluency

Because, if the flow of water interrupted by the stone can be beautiful and produce a swirling effect, the reader has already embarked on your text: he is not contemplating it sitting on the bank as it flows; a sudden jump could throw him out of line in a flash.

Like when you feel a storm and everything starts to shake. To avoid?

• Assign a single thought to each period; and for each paragraph a precise topic
• Connect the thoughts well with each other and put the full stop only where necessary
• Throw yourself headlong into the bulleted list, when there are too many concepts

On the other hand , punctuation is a powerful weapon for communicating pauses, sighs, emotions .

And also intonations .

Intonation between sign, drawing, position [and other things]

In writing there is no intonation: everything is concentrated on words and punctuation.

Then, since the web arrived, the latter has also become "emotional drawing".

But here are some other details that help the textual rhythm:

• the position of word and phrase based on sound and relevance
• the alternation between strong/weak punctuation
• the contamination between conjunctions/interruptions
• the variation between tonic/atonic syllables - Alessandro Lucchini in Business Writing points out, for example, that the word accented on the last (truncated) syllable emphasizes the question by interrupting it at the apex and throwing the ball to the interlocutor [this must be why at question "Do you want a coffee?" do we always end with a "yes"?]

On the other hand, the value of the question is also well known in the writing of CTA (Call to Action): let's use it.

Rhetorical figures and [equally] rhetorical conclusion

Yes they are there too; and with rhythm they have a lot to do with it.

Abused, hated, thrown into the text like a boomerang for effect, they must be exploited with care: no to clichés, yes to originality; no to pushed inspiration, yes to delicacy; no to length, yes to brevity.

The rhetorical figure strikes the reader and breaks the monotony of the text ; but it forces him to make a considerable interpretative effort - in addition to the fact that he has to "leave the thread" to go back and pick it up again.

Some figurative expressions are digressions such as to confuse readers and engines.

Better to know how to dose them at the cost of clipping one's wings.

On the other hand, using rhetoric is like slipping on the spiral of our DNA.

This is why I close the article with a Latin saying that sums up the variatio well: festina lente . Hurry up slowly .

Because, in the symphonic oxymoron of alternation, there is the whole backbone of good writing.