Lesson 5 of 7 Free account 4 min read
Rhyme, Meter and Read-Aloud: When Verse Works
Rhyme can make a picture book irresistible or unreadable. Learn the basics of meter, how to spot a forced rhyme, and how repetition and refrains give you musical text without the risk.
Key takeaways
- Rhyme only works when the meter is steady and the story never bends to fit the rhyme.
- Meter is the pattern of stressed and unstressed beats; read your lines aloud and tap the stresses to check it.
- A forced rhyme is any word choice or word order you would never use if you were not rhyming.
- Repetition, refrains and patterned text give you most of rhyme’s musical pull with far less risk.
Many new picture book writers start in rhyme, because the books they remember from childhood rhymed. Rhyme done well is delightful: kids predict the next word, adults find the rhythm easy to perform, and the book gets memorized. Rhyme done badly is one of the fastest ways to sink a manuscript. The difference is almost always meter and story.
Should a Picture Book Rhyme?
Only if rhyme is the best way to tell this story and you are willing to work at it. Rhyme suits playful, bouncy, cumulative stories: silly animals, bedtime countdowns, a list of things that go wrong. It suits quiet, emotional or complicated plots much less well. If you're writing rhyme because it feels like what a children's book should sound like, try writing the story in prose first. A great prose picture book always beats an average rhyming one.
Some editors and agents say they are cautious about rhyming submissions, largely because so many arrive with shaky meter. Rhyming books also translate poorly into other languages. Neither is a ban, but both mean rhyme needs to be excellent.
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