Writing Prompt December 11th – Let me Refrain

*Image found HERE

Greetings everyone!

Hope you are doing well this Sunday and you are up for a writing challenge.

As the title, I hope, hints it, this week we will be doing:

I would like to challenge you to write or create something that contains a Refrain.

A refrain is the repeated, often rhyming, often most catchy part of a song, or an often repeated phrase. It also, at the same time, means ‘stopping yourself from doing something’.

To help you kickstart your ideas for this prompt, here is a couple of suggestions:

• You can write a poem that has a refrain, or a repeated verse.
• The refrain does not necessarily have to rhyme
• if you prefer the classical rhyming feel of the refrain, you can always seek inspiration in poetic rhyming forms such as a Terza rima, or try the Villanelle, that offers repetition
• If writing a piece of Flash fiction, a single repeated sentence can be a refrain
• if writing flash fiction  or a story,  there is many things you can use for a refrain, like a riddle, or a nursery rhyme, woven into the story

What this challenge really seeks to do is challenge you to use repetition, but use it in a good way, the way that sticks, provokes and entrances the reader, much like a refrain does in a song. It is something that we hear and helps us seek the song later or identify it by that refrain for life.

The various poetic and written forms that offer repetition, help us get immersed easier into the poem. Stories and novels and books also use repetition techniques, that are not always visible to the naked eye, to get the same result. I know I personally shy away from repetition, sometimes even meticulously, because I am afraid of executing it badly. I know many also do because repetition can often appear boring. I want this weeks prompt to serve as a challenge to us to own repetition, use it, and hone it.

I hope you have fun with the prompt! When you are done creating, and you post your piece, please tag it with MindLoverMisery’s Menagerie, and tags like writing challenge, refrain, repetition, and don’t forget to pingback/link up.

I am looking forward to reading all the entries, and whatever you have to offer, just do so, any form of expression and inspiration is most welcome!

About Oloriel

Dreamer in the clouds

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