Writing a sonnet, please help!!!?

Question

Hi, does anyone know how to write a sonnet? Today, I was given an assignment which was to write a sonnet by tomorrow. Can someone please help me I am clueless?! I have been working on this for three hours and I still have nothing.

Answer 1

Here's an original from me you can use -

A sonnet about sonnets:

I wish I knew how to write a Sonnet
I wish I knew how long this poem should be
I hope I get a decent grade on it
If not an "A", I'll settle for a "B"

The rhyme scheme alternates from line to line
Through the first three quatrains anyway
Then add another pair of lines that rhyme
To emphasize the things I need to say

I hope your expectations are not high
I don't quite have the talent of the Bard
It's not as if I didn't really try.
The pressures of a deadline make it hard

This may not be a real exciting verse
But not to try would certainly be worse

Answer 2

Surely your teacher gave you some idea of the sonnet basics. For example, you known that a sonnet is just 14 lines long, right? You know that each line is 10 syllables long, with unstressed syllables alternating with stressed syllables:

I love you more than words can ever tell

i LOVE you MORE than WORDS can EVer TELL

You know something about the rhyme scheme, yes? Well, there's more than one possible rhyme scheme for a sonnet, but your teacher probably told you about the pattern of rhymes that Shakespeare used. The way of designating this rhyme scheme is:

a
b
a
b

c
d
c
d

e
f
e
f

g
g

That looks like a mysterious alien code, but it simply means that the first line rhymes with the third line and the second line rhymes with the fourth. Then line 5 rhymes with line 7 and line 6 with line 8. Then 9 with 11 and 10 with 12. And finally the last two lines rhyme with each other.

Here are some links to sonnets by a few famous poets -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Claude McKay, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sometimes it's hard to understand how a poem works if you just read a bare-bones description like the one I've given you above. Reading a few sample sonnets will help you understand how poets use the basic structure to create a poem.

http://www.sonnets.org/brownine.htm

http://www.sonnets.org/mckay.htm

http://www.violafair.com/pellmell/millaybuck1.htm

Answer 3

If it is a Shakespearean sonnet it has three verses of four lines, and then a final closing two lines. It rhymes: first line of each verse with the third line of each verse, second line of each verse rhymes with the fourth line. The final two lines rhyme. So the rhyme scheme is:

a
b
a
b

c
d
c
d

e
f
e
f

g
g.

Technically, it should also be in iambic pentameter, meaning that there are ten syllables in each line, going like this:

da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum

(I went to work at six o'clock today)


* * *

In terms of trying to write one -- pick a simple subject -- how you love a sunny day, or something. And then try to work backwards, thinking of the rhyming words, and build the full lines from the rhyming words.

If I start with my first line, I think of what rhymes with "gray." Maybe away.

SO

I went to work at six o'clock today
The sun was down, the sky was lined with gray.

SEPARATE

I went to work at six o'clock today
I drove the streets with not a soul in sight
The sun was down, the sky was lined with gray
The world unsure if it was day or night.

And so forth. It isn't easy, but you can do it.