How to Write a Sonnet

Series Summary

The world of a freelance writer is fraught with dangers and dead ends. But when a freelance artist works hard, networks her fingers to the bone and negotiates pay like a tenacious wolverine, she just might make a nice-sized place for herself in the world of professional writing. Some of the oldest names in literature were freelance writers, and they had to start somewhere, honing their writing skills and making a name for themselves. In this free series of videos, learn some tips for improving writing skills from a published playwright and college professor. She takes the time to discuss some basics of writing. Learn how to write a short story, a sonnet and a fantasy. Also, discover how to write in the third person. Curious about starting a playwriting career? Find out how to format a play script and character page. With this advice, start perfecting your writing skills.

Video Transcript

"Hi. This is Laura Turner and today I'm going to talk to you about how to write a sonnet. A sonnet is a poem that is directed towards a muse or something that the poet reveres in some way and would like to direct his adoration onto. So, the first thing you need to do when you choose to write a sonnet is to figure out what you're going to write about. Are you going to write about a woman, about a man, about the autumn? Usually, sonnets, actually use a lot of symbolism. So, for example, you could write about autumn, but you might, in fact, also be writing about growing old and dying, if you see what I mean. So you can actually use a lot of poetic devices within your sonnet to make it much more interesting. Today, I brought with me Shakespeare's Sonnet #18 and I'm just going to go through it and explain the rhyme scheme to you a little bit. "Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May. And Summer's lease hath all too short a date." So we see here that day rhymes with May, temperate, date, you want to say temperate to rhyme with date, you can make it rhyme more that way. So, every other line in a sonnet rhymes. And, also we only have twelve lines in a sonnet. So the challenging thing about writing a sonnet is getting everything you want to say about this person or this event, to squeeze it into twelve lines of verse. And we also have a very fun add on here with Shakespeare's sonnets in that he ends all of his sonnets with rhymed couplets, which sort of put a little cap onto the poem. "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." In this couplet, Shakespeare is talking about how the poem gives life to the subject. And so, whenever you write you sonnet, remember that it's something that is a very old tradition and has been used by many, many poets to bring life to the dead. For we are reading about this particular person, you know, 400 years later. So go with that."