Education vs. Poetry

Basic writing education requires that you learn the "five sentence paragraph." First, your topic sentence. Next, your three descriptor sentences. Finally, your conclusion sentence.

[Jason is distraught. His girlfriend dumped him. She was his first relationship. Now, he sulks in his favorite music. Jason is in a total slump.]

This format, however, is extremely boring, and forces the writer to answer a survey question. It is a bad habit ingrained from backwards pedagogy. We must instead learn to take from poetry.

The limerick is a poetic format of AABBA; where the A-lines are long and rhyme with each other yet the B-lines are short and rhyme on their own.

[Jasons' failures and mistakes let him lose

His girlfriend dumped him just like refuse

He escapes in music

His feelings grew sick.

Many of his problems stem from difference of views]

The limerick is far more interesting due to its play on structure, rhythm, and wordplay. Most joy of reading comes from the emotion invested into these words, not the cold logic of fixed description.

Now let's try to reforge this limerick poem into a prose form.

[Jasons' failures and mistakes allowed him to lose, for his girlfriend dumped him just like refuse. In light of this, he escapes in music, for his feelings grow sick. Of course, these problems stem from a difference of views.]

This is not to forgo the five sentence format, however. It may actually be faster to write in simple sentences first, and then to "poeticize" your writing. After all, your writing is improved after the edit and revision.

Let's apply our lesson of structure play with that of dialogue.

["I hate you." She flips her middle finger high.

I took offense. "Wh-What, for what reason! Why?!"

"You're always like this"

"This is just taking the piss!"

"You know what, I don't have to explain. Goodbye!"]

Interesting writing will always come from playing around with poetic devices.