Read poetry to write better stories

You do not have to write poetry to learn from it. Poems pack images, sound and feeling into very few words, which is exactly what good prose needs too.

Notice the images

In Wordsworth’s “Daffodils”, the flowers are “a host”, “continuous as the stars”, “tossing their heads in sprightly dance”. Each image makes us see them freshly.

Listen to the rhythm

Read Robert Louis Stevenson’s “From a Railway Carriage” aloud. The rhythm sounds like a train. Your sentences have rhythm too, and changing it changes the feeling.

Learn compression

Poets say a lot in a little. Kipling’s “If—” gives a lifetime of advice in a single sentence. Practising compression helps you cut waffle from your stories.

Borrow techniques

Personification, repetition, alliteration and strong verbs all work in stories as well as poems.

Try it: read one poem from our Poetry corner, choose your favourite line, and write a sentence of prose that uses the same technique.