For today's blog, Lisa Fipps, author of Starfish, is sharing some tips for writing a novel in verse. Welcome, Lisa!
Guest post by Lisa Fipps
Here are three tips for writing a novel in verse.
1. When you Tweet, you have just a few characters to get your point across, right? And so sometimes you spill your thoughts into the Tweet and then have to start figuring out what to cut so you can get to and keep the most important part, the heart of your message. Think of writing in verse like that. Take a passage you’ve written in prose and start cutting. Since Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is in the public domain, let’s use it as an example. I can rewrite the beginning in verse using only 92 words and convey the same meaning compared to 274 Carroll words used in prose. Is it exactly the same? No. But it includes the same main points you need to know to tell the same story.
Here are three tips for writing a novel in verse.
1. When you Tweet, you have just a few characters to get your point across, right? And so sometimes you spill your thoughts into the Tweet and then have to start figuring out what to cut so you can get to and keep the most important part, the heart of your message. Think of writing in verse like that. Take a passage you’ve written in prose and start cutting. Since Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is in the public domain, let’s use it as an example. I can rewrite the beginning in verse using only 92 words and convey the same meaning compared to 274 Carroll words used in prose. Is it exactly the same? No. But it includes the same main points you need to know to tell the same story.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Beginning retold in verse by Lisa Fipps
Stretched out on
the soft grass under
the summer sun,
Alice nearly fell asleep.
“What a snoozefest,” she yawned then
glanced at her sister’s book.
All words.
No pictures.
“Bor-ing!” Alice said.
The word still hung in the air when
a white rabbit with
pink eyes hippity-hopped right by her and
whipped a watch out of his waist-coat pocket.
“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!”
He took off running.
“Now that’s not boring!”
Alice said, chasing the rabbit down a hole.
She didn’t even think about
how she’d get out.
Beginning retold in verse by Lisa Fipps
Stretched out on
the soft grass under
the summer sun,
Alice nearly fell asleep.
“What a snoozefest,” she yawned then
glanced at her sister’s book.
All words.
No pictures.
“Bor-ing!” Alice said.
The word still hung in the air when
a white rabbit with
pink eyes hippity-hopped right by her and
whipped a watch out of his waist-coat pocket.
“Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!”
He took off running.
“Now that’s not boring!”
Alice said, chasing the rabbit down a hole.
She didn’t even think about
how she’d get out.
 2. Keep the reader moving through the poem by ending a line before you finish a thought. Notice the same example, above. What is she sitting on? Under what? What happens after she yawns? The word hangs in the air when what happens? A white rabbit with what? He hops by her and does what? 3. Use the white space on the page with as much intention as you use your words. In my verse version of the Alice in Wonderland example, notice the break between all that happened in the beginning and the end. That little bit of what space – just one simple line – separates the next thought and sets it apart, so you get a cliffhanger effect. Here’s another example, using a poem from my book, Starfish. (This is not how it appeared in my book, but it could have.)  | Original Alice in Wonderland beginning by Lewis Carroll |
More about Lisa:
Lisa Fipps is an award-winning former journalist, current director of marketing for a public library, and an author of middle-grade books. Starfish is her debut novel.
Lisa Fipps is an award-winning former journalist, current director of marketing for a public library, and an author of middle-grade books. Starfish is her debut novel.
More about Starfish: Ever since Ellie wore a whale swimsuit and made a big splash at her fifth birthday party, she’s been bullied about her weight. To cope, she tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules — like “no making waves,” “avoid eating in public,” and “don’t move so fast that your body jiggles.” She’s found her safe space — her swimming pool — where she feels weightless in a fat-obsessed world. In the pool, she starfishes. Stretches out. Takes up all the room she wants, instead of living by the fat girl rules society taught her. The pool is also where she can get away from her pushy mom, who thinks criticizing Ellie’s weight will motivate her to diet. Fortunately, Ellie has allies in her dad, her therapist, and her new neighbor, Catalina, who love Ellie for who she is. With this support buoying her, Ellie might finally be able to cast aside the Fat Girl Rules and starfish in real life — by unapologetically being her own fabulous self.
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