We don’t talk about rhythm enough. We talk about voice, about meaning, about structure and style and sensibility—but rhythm? That quiet thump beneath the prose? It’s often left to the poets and the editors with musical backgrounds.

But it matters.

Rhythm is the body of the sentence. Cadence is how the mind moves through thought. The pulse of your prose is the difference between a sentence that carries the reader and one that drags them behind it, bumping their knees on every clause.

Let’s start here:

Think of a sentence that has stayed with you. Not for what it said, but for how it moved. You didn’t read it. You felt it. It swept you up or slowed you down or wrapped itself around your ribs like a bandage.

Cadence is what made that possible.

It isn’t about style. It isn’t about correctness. It’s breath, pattern, tension, pause. Some sentences expand like lungs. Others snap shut like a suitcase.

If you want to write something that lives in someone’s body after they’ve read it, start with rhythm. (And for those of you who love figuring out how sentences work, check out Nina Schuyler’s Substack: Stunning Sentences)

How to Shape Cadence in Prose

• 1. Write Toward Breath, Not Grammar

  Grammar will give you correctness. Breath gives you life. Let your syntax follow the way someone feels when they speak—not how they ought to write when they’re being watched.

  • Try reading your sentence aloud, not just to hear it, but to feel it—where it expands, where it contracts, where your breath changes shape to keep up.

• Use Syntax Like a Dancer Uses Space
  Words don’t just convey meaning—they move across the line. Fast, slow, graceful, broken. Rearranging a sentence is less like rearranging furniture and more like learning to walk differently.

  • Sure, you’ve heard “vary sentence length.” But this takes it further. It’s not just about pace—it’s about gesture. Syntax as choreography. You’re not just moving the sentence forward—you’re making it perform.

• Interrupt Yourself on Purpose
  Good rhythm isn’t smooth. It’s alive. Surprise is a rhythm too—a sudden clause that throws the reader off balance. A jagged metaphor. A thought that doesn’t finish the way it began.

  • Yes, we’re still talking about sentence variety, but now we’re weaponizing it. Think of this as syncopation—a musical technique where an unexpected beat lands hard. The goal isn’t flow. It’s friction.

• Let Rhythm Reveal Character
  Cadence is character before description. The way someone thinks is the way they sound. If your characters all move at the same verbal tempo, you’re not listening closely enough.

  • We’ve all read advice on giving characters “distinct voices.” But try starting with rhythm rather than diction. What’s their mental tempo? Do they unspool or jab? Do they trail off or charge ahead?

• Revise by Ear, Not by Eye
  The page lies. The page wants balance. But rhythm isn’t tidy—it’s felt. Don’t trust how the sentence looks. Trust how it lands.

  • Reading aloud is the classic tip. This is the upgrade. Don’t just perform your sentences—become your audience. What sounds intentional? What sounds flat? You’re listening for texture, not just tone.

Cadence isn’t decorative. It’s what makes the reader feel time. It’s the rhythm of thought made visible. Get that right, and you can make anything dance.

Creative Connections

Literature: Toni Morrison’s Beloved
There’s a rhythm to grief, and Morrison writes in it. Her sentences swell and collapse like lungs, sometimes lyrical, sometimes flat with pain. Cadence here is not stylistic—it’s emotional infrastructure. It is the story.

• Toni Morrison reads a selection from Beloved

• Toni Morrison on Beloved | Hay Festival

Music: Max Richter’s Recomposed: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons
Richter doesn’t just reinterpret Vivaldi. He stretches it until it aches. He builds tension with tempo, repetition, rupture. It’s familiar but defamiliarized—made strange again through rhythm. Prose should work the same way.

• Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons, The Unsung Collective - YouTube

Invitation to Play

Take a paragraph of your own writing. Just one. Don’t rewrite it for clarity or correctness—rewrite it for cadence.

• Read it aloud while walking. Where does your breath catch? Where do your feet stutter?

• Now, revise it like it’s a piece of choreography. Where’s the leap? Where’s the fall?

• Break the pattern. Interrupt a sentence. Rearrange a clause. Make the rhythm tell the truth, even if the grammar disagrees.

When you’re done, read it again—eyes closed this time.

Try it. Let your prose move differently.

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About Me

I’m Rena—a writer, educator, and relentless explorer of stories. Originally from Southern California, I’ve spent the past 20 years making my home in Costa Rica, where I live with my husband, two children, and a pair of Rhodesian Ridgebacks who refuse to acknowledge their size.

My writing has appeared in places like Brevity Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Five on the Fifth, New Flash Fiction Review, Headland Literary Journal, and more. Along the way, I’ve collected more rejection letters than I care to count—a badge of honor for any writer chasing the next story.

At my core, I believe in the power of ideas, in listening for what’s unsaid, and in finding beauty in the unexpected. Stories connect us—and together, I believe, we’re better.

Come write, wonder, and explore with me.

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