Steering the Craft Chapter 4: Repetition
Mar. 29th, 2026 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I decided to poke my writers block by getting back to this and immediately hit a thick wall of Fear of Failure even though that makes no sense with writing exercises. But I persisted!
The rhythms of prose must be more subtle than poetry, and larger. Like the mountains under a mountain road, you may not see them, but they are there.
Quote from the mythically repetitive “The Thunder Badger,” from W. L. Marsden, Northern Paiute Language of Oregon, a word-by-word translation, slightly adapted by U.K.L.
Quote from Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.
Exercise 4.
Part One: Verbal Repetition
Write a paragraph of narrative (150 words) that includes at least three repetitions of a noun, verb, or adjective (a noticeable word, not an invisible one like was, said, did).
The room was full of books. Books upon the floor, upon the table, even scattered across the stairs. And of course books on the shelves, tightly packed and three layers deep. And somewhere here, amongst this sea of prose, lay the single book he needed, like a needle in a haystack that smelled of dust and stale vanilla.
Part Two: Structural Repetition
Write a short narrative (350–1000 words) in which something is said or done and then something is said or done that echoes or repeats it, perhaps in a different context, or by different people, or on a different scale.
The thief watched as a rat crept along the edge of the wall, its brown fur barely visible against the shadowed stone. It stopped, and sniffed the air, dark eyes flicking around the room for threats, hunger visibly warring in its mind with fear, eyes ever drawn towards the corner of the room, where metal glinted faintly in what little light pierced the gloom of this forgotten hallway. The thief wondered if it would notice her. She was no threat to rats, nor they to her, but they both had good reason to avoid behaving in ways which would attract notice. She was suddenly seized by an irrational impulse to check the map again, though she had it memorised, and there was hardly light enough here for reading. She steeled her nerves, and started sneaking along the short distance between her and the door her contact sweared would lead to a hidden treasure room. She had barely finished unpicking the lock when she heard a snap, not from the door, but from behind. She froze in fear before looking back over her shoulder. But it was only the rat, caught at last in the waiting trap. She was safe. She opened the door, and stepped inside. It was even darker in here, so she lit a match, and was immediately dazzled as the light reflected off more gold and gems than even her avaricious heart had dared to hope for. So dazzled was she, that she didn't notice the click as the door locked behind her. She only realised she was not alone when she heard a sickeningly familiar huff of laughter, and felt the sharp pressure of a knife against her neck.
The first exercise is the sort of thing I've done a bunch before but the second was not! Not consciously and in such a straightforward way, at least, I don't think. In a story I was trying to make good I wouldn't be so heavy handed but HMMM. Something to consider.
I decided to poke my writers block by getting back to this and immediately hit a thick wall of Fear of Failure even though that makes no sense with writing exercises. But I persisted!
to make a rule never to use the same word twice in one paragraph, or to state flatly that repetition is to be avoided, is to go right against the nature of narrative prose. Repetition of words, of phrases, of images; repetition of things said; near-repetition of events; echoes, reflections, variations: from the grandmother telling a folktale to the most sophisticated novelist, all narrators use these devices, and the skillful use of them is a great part of the power of prose.
The rhythms of prose must be more subtle than poetry, and larger. Like the mountains under a mountain road, you may not see them, but they are there.
Quote from the mythically repetitive “The Thunder Badger,” from W. L. Marsden, Northern Paiute Language of Oregon, a word-by-word translation, slightly adapted by U.K.L.
“Repetition is often funny. The first time David Copperfield hears Mr. Micawber say, “Something is certain to turn up,” it doesn’t mean much to David or to us. By the time we’ve heard Mr. Micawber, forever hopeful in his incompetence, say the same or nearly the same words throughout the long book, it is very funny. The reader waits for it, as for the inevitable and delightful repetition of a musical phrase in Haydn. But also, every time Mr. Micawber says it, it means more. It gathers weight. The darkness underneath the funniness grows always a little darker.
Quote from Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.
Structural repetition is the similarity of the events in a story: happenings that echo one another. It involves the whole of a story or novel. For a marvelous example of it, you might reread the first chapter of Jane Eyre and think about the rest of the book as you do.
The first chapters of many great novels bring in an amazing amount of material that will be, in one way and another, with variations, repeated throughout the book. The similarity of this incremental repetition of word, phrase, image, and event in prose to recapitulation and development in musical structure is real and deep.
Exercise 4.
Part One: Verbal Repetition
Write a paragraph of narrative (150 words) that includes at least three repetitions of a noun, verb, or adjective (a noticeable word, not an invisible one like was, said, did).
The room was full of books. Books upon the floor, upon the table, even scattered across the stairs. And of course books on the shelves, tightly packed and three layers deep. And somewhere here, amongst this sea of prose, lay the single book he needed, like a needle in a haystack that smelled of dust and stale vanilla.
Part Two: Structural Repetition
Write a short narrative (350–1000 words) in which something is said or done and then something is said or done that echoes or repeats it, perhaps in a different context, or by different people, or on a different scale.
The thief watched as a rat crept along the edge of the wall, its brown fur barely visible against the shadowed stone. It stopped, and sniffed the air, dark eyes flicking around the room for threats, hunger visibly warring in its mind with fear, eyes ever drawn towards the corner of the room, where metal glinted faintly in what little light pierced the gloom of this forgotten hallway. The thief wondered if it would notice her. She was no threat to rats, nor they to her, but they both had good reason to avoid behaving in ways which would attract notice. She was suddenly seized by an irrational impulse to check the map again, though she had it memorised, and there was hardly light enough here for reading. She steeled her nerves, and started sneaking along the short distance between her and the door her contact sweared would lead to a hidden treasure room. She had barely finished unpicking the lock when she heard a snap, not from the door, but from behind. She froze in fear before looking back over her shoulder. But it was only the rat, caught at last in the waiting trap. She was safe. She opened the door, and stepped inside. It was even darker in here, so she lit a match, and was immediately dazzled as the light reflected off more gold and gems than even her avaricious heart had dared to hope for. So dazzled was she, that she didn't notice the click as the door locked behind her. She only realised she was not alone when she heard a sickeningly familiar huff of laughter, and felt the sharp pressure of a knife against her neck.
The first exercise is the sort of thing I've done a bunch before but the second was not! Not consciously and in such a straightforward way, at least, I don't think. In a story I was trying to make good I wouldn't be so heavy handed but HMMM. Something to consider.
