Creating Compelling Cadence: Small Changes, Big Impact – From the Writers in the Storm Blog

Margie Lawson

Cadence counts. Truly counts.

You probably know you should read your work out loud. But do you?

And do you read it out loud with feeling?

Most writers don’t take the time to read their WIP out loud until they’re on a final draft.

Aack!

By then they’ve read most scenes at least a dozen times. Whatever they’ve written sounds normal to them, but the cadence may not be compelling.

Read my last sentence out loud:

Whatever they’ve written sounds normal to them, but the cadence may not be compelling.

Hear the compelling cadence?

The beats in the two halves of the sentence match. Sounds cool, right?

I named that structural parallelism. It makes the sentence cadence driven.

If you’ve heard me present, taken my online classes, done my lecture packets, or completed a 5-day Immersion class, you know I use examples to share my teaching points.

We’re diving in. Lots of compelling cadence ahead.

Please read the examples out loud, with feeling.

Read the rest of this post HERE.