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Diagnose the line that isn't landing

One line is dead and you know which one but not why.

Here is a line I am unhappy with, and the lines around it for context.

Work in this order:
1. Say what the line is trying to do in the poem: carry an image, turn the argument, set up a sound, hold a rhyme.
2. Name specifically why it fails at that. Options to consider: the stress falls on the wrong word, the syntax is inverted to serve the metre, the image is abstract where the poem has been concrete, the register jumps, it explains something the reader already has.
3. Give six rewrites. Vary the approach: two that keep the sense and change the sound, two that change the sense, two that cut or merge with a neighbouring line.
4. Say which you would keep and why.

If the line is already working and the problem is the line before or after it, say that instead.

Lines:

Making it yours

  • Paste your own material where the prompt asks for it. Everything above that line is instruction, not content.
  • Delete any rule that does not apply to you. A shorter prompt that fits beats a thorough one that does not.
  • If the answer comes back vague, add a line saying what you do not want. Constraints work better than encouragement.

Rewriting lines and stanzas. The line that is dead, the lineation that feels arbitrary, the verb that is doing nothing.

Related prompts

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