Story Telling Crash Course - Session Eight: Form Constraints

Welcome to the 8th session of the story telling crash course. Today we're opening a new section: form constraints. For some reason, this is also one of the areas I like the most.

Writing with some minimal form constrains - like, for instance, having only 3 sentences per paragraph - makes me write more easily. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but knowing that I have only 3 sentences per paragraph gives me more clarity. Paragraphs become, in a way, more predictable.

It also reminds me of the days when I was studying poetry at the Literature Faculty in Bucharest. From sonnets to haikus, I was devouring poetry day and night. Even took a one semester of Japanese, only to understand the subtle link between hiragana, katakana and kanji.

And with that, obviously, you discovered the meaning of the featured photo of this post. Yes, that is correct, it's the Kanji representation of the word "haiku". Which is one of the most strict form constraint types of poetry.

A haiku always has only 17 syllables, grouped in 3 lines. The first and the last line have 5 syllables, while the middle line has 7 syllables. They're seldom rhyming.

The core meaning of a haiku is "cutting through" or finding a way to expose 2 different elements and then piercing semantically through them. It's hard to describe it for a Westerner but nevertheless beautiful. Just as beautiful as, for a Japanese, the fixed structure of a sonnet.

By now you may have realized that all the paragraphs in this article have only 3 sentences. And that we're going to experiment with this form constraint now. So, your assignment is to write an article using the same form constraint: no more than 3 sentences per paragraph.

Remember to tag your article with `challenge30` and `story`, and also leave me a comment with a link, that will make it easier for me to find your post. I will personally review all the articles and award a symbolic prize of 1 SBD to the one I like the most. I do this as a form of encouragement of support for people contributing to the growth of Steemit.

Looking forward to read your stories!

Links to previous sessions:

I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

You can also vote for me as a Steemit witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses

Story Telling Crash Course - Session Eight: Form Constraints - Write Only 3 Sentences Per Paragraph

By now you may have realized that all the paragraphs in this article have only 3 sentences. And that we're going to experiment with this form constraint now. So, your assignment is to write an article using the same form constraint: no more than 3 sentences per paragraph.