100 Days to a First Draft

Next week begins the 100 days course that should help me produce my first draft. The WritePractice is helping me.
My novel did start its way by pantsing. I got to about 14000 words and lost my way. It was at this time I sat back and thought I should outline, and do some research into the subject areas within my story.
Firstly I did a Creative writing course on Udemy and found out my English was fairly bad. That needed some work and practice. My comma splices were plentiful but that got corrected by sentence diagrams which I learned through the English Grammar Revolution.

As my intended protagonist was a private investigator; I did a foundation course on being a private investigator by Rockwell Private Investigators.
Being sure my P.I. was going to encounter dead bodies; I did a Forensic Science and Profiling course, that was very interesting and cheap as I got it from GroupOn.

While all this was going on, I researched what was favourable about Shakespeare and why his work is still popular after four hundred years. I came across the rhythm of English and the Iambic pentameter, that was used by William Shakespeare, the master of the Iam.
I also looked at memorable characters in movies and tv and why they were so accepted. For instance; Basil Fawlty, the worst, hateful owner of a hotel in history, but he was admired so much, why?

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

When writing a sonnet in the style of Shakespeare, there are some rules you need to keep. This type of poetry is required to follow a specific format including length, rhythm, and rhyme scheme. To write a sonnet correctly, to follow this process:

Select a subject to write your sonnet about as Shakespearean sonnets are on tradition grounded as love poems. Write your lines in iambic pentameter.

Write in one of the various standard rhyme schemes such as Shakespearean, Petrarchan, or Spenserian.

Necessary Format: Format the sonnet using three quatrains followed by one couplet.
Form your sonnet as evidence that builds up as it goes from one metaphor to the next. Be sure that every line of the sonnet has ten syllables that conform to the Iambic Pentameter. Guarantee your sonnet is precisely 14 lines and the last syllable on each line rhymes with another last syllable on a previous line.

The Shakespeare Rhyming scheme
If you’re writing the most common kind of sonnet, the Shakespearean sonnet, then the rhyme scheme for the last syllable of the line is as follows:

A
B
A
B

C
D
C
D

E
F
E
F

G
G

Every ‘A’ last syllable of the line must rhyme, and every ‘B’ syllables rhyme and so forth. You’ll see this kind of sonnet consists of three quatrains. Or four consecutive lines of verse that make up a stanza or division of lines in a poem, and one couplet (two successive rhyming lines).

How a Sonnet Tells the Story
Ah, but there’s more to a sonnet than just the structure of it. A sonnet is also an argument — it builds up a certain way. And how it builds up is related to its metaphors and how it moves from one metaphor to the next. In a Shakespearean sonnet, the argument builds up like this:

First quatrain: An exposition of the central theme and primary metaphor.

Second quatrain: Theme and metaphor extended or complicated; often, some ingenious example is given.

Third quatrain: Peripeteia (a twist or conflict), often introduced by a “but” (very often leading off the ninth line).

Couplet: Reviews and leaves the reader with a new, closing image.

One of Shakespeare’s best-known sonnets is Sonnet 18, which follows this pattern:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The arrangement of a Sonnet like this:

First quatrain: Worship, worship, excellent.

Second quatrain: Worship, worship, excellent.

Third quatrain: But, even if the bad thing happens, still excellent.

Couplet: Future excellent.

So now you see Shakespeare was a master of the english language and has been remembered over four-hundred years after his death.

 

The Iambic Pentameter – Rythm of English

Syllables

Many words are single syllables or many syllables. Each syllable is either stressed or unstressed.

Unstressed Syllable symbol:
Stressed Syllable symbol: /

In a sentence, these syllables ( unstressed = lower case, and stressed = uppercase letters) will string together to make a rhythm, and in the case of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, he used the Iambic Pentameter:
   U       /        U          /             U          /     U      /       U          /
“But SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS.”
       1         |        2            |         3               |       4        |        5

What is an Iamb? and example words:
Iamb: U /  –   Behold, Behind,  Destroy,  Desire,  Reserve
Trochee: / U   –  Sunny, Forest, Planet, Double,  Changes
Spondee: / /   –   Football,   Heartbreak 
Dactyl: / U U   –   Strawberry,   Scorpion
Anapest: U U /   –   Understand,   Contradict   

So, I’m sure you are thinking, “I’ve never heard of an Iambic Pentameter, and what’s its use anyway?”

Ok, I can ask you if you remember any dialogue from the James Bond film Goldfinger. I’m sure after some thought you come up with, “No Mister Bond I expect you to die!”

Funny that is the only line you remember from a film that had a run time of 110 minutes. Since that is a memorable line and now quite famous as it has over six youtube videos with that name, let’s look more closely:
  U     /   U        /      U  /    U       /     U     /  
“no MISter BOND i EXpect YOU to DIE!”

The Iambic Pentameter – Odd that that was a line that you remember. Find some more lines from films or tv programs that you still remember, and you will likely find they are ten syllables long with the perfect rhythm of the Iambic Pentameter.

Syllable Rates:
1. Single syllable rate: Monometer
2. Double syllable rate: Dimeter
3. Tripple syllable rate: Trimeter
4. Four times syllable rate: Terameter
5. Five times syllable rate: Pentameter
6. Six times syllable rate: Hexameter
7. Seven times syllable rate: Heptameter
8. Eight times syllable rate: Octameter

Shakespeare wrote a lot of his plays and Sonnets in Iambic Pentameter.