Writelike Shakespeare: Macbeth's 'Tomorrow' soliloquy

Over 2 1/2 lines, Shakespeare builds a metaphor. He creates a miniature portrait of a real-world situation that captures the essence of the experience he's describing. 

The experience he's describing is the passage of time, and the feeling of pointlessness and futility that comes with it:

"It's like when a bad stage actor comes on stage and struts and frets around for an hour, and then vanishes to never be heard again."

A big idea, summed up in an image. 

One important thing is that this isn't a one or two-word metaphor ("Life is just an act!")—Shakespeare builds a little scene, with a stage and an actor and passage of time. 

That's something we can experiment with—to what degree can we develop our a metaphor in our variation?

This snippet is a little more intricate than the previous two. Don't worry about modelling it too closely, just focus on some of the key elements.

Life's but

This is the most important element. The whole soliloquy hinges on this phrase, and we've brainstormed with it earlier. So boil your theme down to one word and create an 'X is but' phrase of your own.

That and 

You might want to use the existing starting words on each line of the other lines, or find your own.

The adverbs

Because this snippet describes a scene, it has more action, and because it has more action, it has more adverbs. We've highlighted the adverbs, but you can treat them as all one verb group if you want.

Once again: notice the strong line endings: 'player', 'stage', 'no more'.

The first line, setting up a new thought, starts with a strong noun: 'life'.

Now write your own variation. In order or priority:

• Lead in with a 'Life's but' variation.
• Develop a metaphor, a scene of some sort, to sum up your theme in one image.
• Describe it in 2 1/2 lines.
• End each line on a strong word.
• Consider using the same 'that/and' starters for lines 2 & 3.
• Feel free to be a little flexible within the structure.