Incorporating iambic pentameter

For this activity, we're going to revise our work by trying to incorporate iambic pentameter—along with rhythm variations for impact.

Here's our original:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth(1606)

Now here's our first drive-thru example, which was written without any particular attention to iambic pentameter.

If we highlight the syllables that are supposed to have an iambic rhythm—and then freestyle a little in the lines that break the beat—we get something like this:

Cars, and cars, and cars,

Line up the drive-thru from window to speaker

To the furthest corner of the neighbouring block;

And every customer now bears complaint

Against me for their order. Close, close, tiny window!

Customers are but a mouthing rabble, an appetite,

That brays and barks its orders into the mic,

And then grabs and goes. They are a beast

Made only of stomach, full of rage and greed,

Slurping everything.

If we were to highlight where iambic stresses would fall, you can see they all tend to fall on weak grammatical words such as 'and' and 'the', or the least impactful syllables in a word, such as 'furthest'.

We can also see that if we count the syllables, we have a wild mix of counts. For iambic pentameter, we'd expect to see five strong beats (and five weak), but we have some lines with two, some with six—it's all over the place.

So we could make this more Shakespearean by trying to even-out the beat count in each line, and trying to get those strong beats on impactful words or syllables.

We can do this by:

shuffling words
adding or removing grammatical words or syllables without changing meaning
finding new words, and
even rewriting whole phrases and lines.

Here's our drive-thru example revised to make better use of iambic pentameter. If you read them back to back, which one sounds better? Why?

Customers, and customers, and customers,

Line up the drive-thru from window to kerb

To the furthest corner of the longest block;

And every driver now bears some complaint

Against me for their meal. Close, close, tiny window!

Work’s but an endless worm, an open mouth,

That brays and barks demands into the mic,

But still is not appeased. It is a beast,

Brash and unafraid, full of ripened greed,

Hungry forevermore.

The lines are now more even, with five stressed beats per line, except where we mix it up as per the original.

The last beat on each line now lands more consistently on a noun, and on a meaningul syllable if it is a multi-syllable noun.

Even if you just look at the highlighted stresses, you can see the yellow highlights now capture more meaningful words and syllables than in the previous version.

Some words and images have been changed to get a different syllable count (e.g. 'window to speaker' changed to 'window to kerb').

Some lines have been changed completely in an attempt to find something that sounds good with the beat.

The overall meaning is the same: drive-thru customers suck (they don't really—they're mostly fine!) but we've changed some of the images we've used to make that case.

What do you think?

Does the example sound more Shakespearean?
Do the changes make the passage more effective?
Were they worth the effort?

Let's look at our second example, about being disappointed that everything falls apart.

Here's the original example written without thinking about rhythm, but highlighted as if it were meant to be in iambic pentameter:

Everything, and everything, and everything,

Turns to dust in the corners

Of every house in every town;

And any pleasure now brings despair

To anyone who held it. Go, go, sweet object!

Life’s but a rental contract, a limited subscription,

That claims to offer ownership of the things you love

And then lets them fade away. It is a tide,

Turned against us all, heavy with time and decay,

Delivering defeat.

As with the previous example, we can see:

Strong stresses are on weak words and syllables
Lines might end on nouns, but the stress isn't falling on the end of the line
Some lines have too many beats, some have too few

We can make the same tactics we used in the previous example:

Move words
Eliminate grammatical words and weak syllables
Choose different words
Change phrases

Here's a version with more iambic pentametric vibes:

Possessions, and possessions, and possessions,

End in a pile of dust upon the earth,

To be swept away by an endless tide;

And that which brought us joy now brings despair

Until we yield our grasp. Go, go, my purchase.

Life’s but a subscription, a rental contract,

That claims you own the things you love for good,

But in the fine print lies. It is a wave

Falling on us all, tumbling in the dark,

Until everything is gone.

Again, we have evened-out the beat counts and got strong stresses mostly falling on strong words and syllables, and on the last syllable of each line.

One exception is 'rental contract' which ends on a weak stress—but then Shakespeare did this himself in the first line, so maybe we can get away with it here.

The biggest criticism we might make of this is that we have two completely different metaphors at the end. The second metaphor is an echo of the 'swept away' image in the opening lines, rather than an expansion on the image of subscriptions and rental contracts.

If we were going to keep working on this, we'd probably focus on that and try to extend the rental metaphor.

What do you think of the two versions? Is one better than the other?

Now it's your turn. Here is your complete variation from where you last left it.

Read it with an iambic pentameter in mind and mark out where the strong stresses land.

We strongly suggest you copy and paste it into Word and draft there, because you can use Ctrl+B to quickly bold the heavy stresses.
Be careful not to miss small syllables in your count!

Once you've found the stresses, see what changes you can make to create a more consistent iambic pentameter while preserving some of those specific points where the rhythm varies for impact.

When you do this, let the rhythm be the guide and change your language around it—see where it leads you.

When you're satisfied/exhausted, paste your results below.

A note on pasting! Ideally, paste your text into Notepad or TextEdit first and convert it to Plain Text before pasting into Writelike, otherwise formatting can go weird.

Here is your current version. Revise it to incorporate iambic pentameter. Highlight the strong stresses that are on beat, and those that are off.

And we're done! If you're totally happy, click Next and we'll wrap up the lesson!

Writelike Shakespeare: Macbeth's 'Tomorrow' soliloquy

Incorporating iambic pentameter