5 Tips for Writing a Novel-in-Verse

When my very first box of author copies arrived, my mother picked up my debut young adult novel-in-verse, Blood Water Paint, and flipped through it. Then she looked up and said in surprise, “It’s poems.”

(5 Lessons From Business School Every Poet Needs.)

She’d heard me talk about the book, but I suppose she didn’t know what ‘novel in verse’ meant—I think few people outside of publishing or English teachers probably do.

“Yeah, the story is told in poems. But it’s still a novel.”

She looked at it again, then said, “But why would you do that? Isn’t it meant for teenagers? Why would you make it harder to read?”

The idea that poetry is difficult comes, I think, from being forced as young people to parse archaic texts that have no resonance in our lives. Why, then, has the form of novels written in verse—in poetry—blossomed in children’s and young adult literature? Both bestseller and award lists in these categories consistently include novels-in-verse, and readers regularly tell me they didn’t think they liked poetry, but they liked my book.

Perhaps it’s because, as Madeleine L’Engle said, “If the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” But I think it’s also because these novels-in-verse are reaching young readers before anyone teaches them poetry is difficult.

Adult novels-in-verse are rare—for now. Editors who receive them on submission are baffled. (Ask me how I know.) But all those kids and teens who devour verse novels are growing up. I think soon enough there will be a demand for novels-in-verse across all age categories.

So if you want to write a novel-in-verse, whether for children, teens, or adults, here are my top tips.

I didn’t go through the obvious steps one might traditionally expect to achieve success in the form. It’s a narrow path requiring a great deal of privilege to navigate. (Which means that plenty of people before me have successfully become poets without the benefit—or possible harm—of MFA programs.) I didn’t take a single poetry class, even as an undergraduate. My only creative writing instruction was in playwriting. It’s fair to say I have no formal background in poetry.

What I do have is a lifetime immersed in words. My theater background has no doubt added a layer of understanding about rhythms and musicality, the economy of language, and how to effectively use what isn’t said. But other backgrounds would no doubt give me other strengths to bring to writing a novel-in-verse.

When I first started writing in verse, the idea that it had to be poetry paralyzed me. Poetry meant something very specific—literary and beautiful and perfectly selected words arranged precisely on the page.

Sure, maybe. Eventually. But that certainly doesn’t describe my first drafts. I started to enjoy writing in verse—and got my debut book deal—when I took a different approach. I let myself dump out first drafts as messy and unfit for readers’ eyes as my prose first drafts. I’ll throw line breaks in there and it sort of looks like poetry, if you squint. But really all I’m doing is figuring out the plot, character, and maybe—if I’m lucky—a recurring motif pops up.

It’s only in revision that I go back and make sense of the nonsense of the first draft. I revise just like I do with prose, fixing plot holes, smoothing character arcs, highlighting themes, but I add another layer of employing poetic devices, making sure each word is chosen precisely, and arranging and rearranging the words on the page until they support the story.

When choosing the form, it’s important to examine why verse is the right choice for this story, and then take full advantage of everything verse allows. This includes line-level poetic devices you learned about in school—alliteration, repetition, metaphors, etc. But also consider the bigger picture view on your story: Verse tends to be less suited to stories with heavy plot, action, or world-building—although maybe you’ll be the first to write a sci-fi thriller heist in verse!

Verse is well-suited for internal, character-driven stories, like my upcoming middle-grade novel, Kestrel Takes Flight, about a girl coming to terms with emotional abuse. It’s also well-suited to difficult topics like abuse, since the white space on the page can give the story—and the reader—room to breathe and process, and big emotions can be expressed with few words.

Another way to use verse to the fullest effect is arranging the words on the page intentionally, for the most impact. For example, in my upcoming memoir, Suffer a Witch, at a moment of enormous trauma, the verse shatters. It’s scattered across the page, some phrases repeating insistently, everything in fragments and without internal logic.

One of my favorite things about using the form of poetry to write verse novels is the lack of restrictions, the complete freedom inherent in poetry. There are truly no rules! Now maybe that’s daunting, but mostly it’s freeing. There’s absolutely no way to do poetry wrong. It’s totally possible to write a poem that’s boring or pedantic or derivative, but you’re never going to be doing it wrong. 

Because I have written many verse novels, I get questions from other writers about the form—how should I format dialogue? How long should a YA verse novel be? How do I handle time jumps? And there are no standard answers.

But when I say there are no rules, the writer craving structure might press me. “But I mean, for dialogue, should I use quotation marks, or…” And my answer will be, read verse novels. See how different writers handle dialogue—or whatever element you’re trying to figure out. See which ways you like, and which ways you don’t. Then try your own way, and read some more. Which leads me to…

You don’t need a formal education in poetry. You need to read verse novels. Every verse novel you can get your hands on. If you’re writing in the adult category, you won’t find a lot of mentor texts, but you should read children’s and young adult novels-in-verse. If you think there is anything lesser about these categories, remember that kids embraced verse novels first. There is an enormous library of verse novels from brilliant writers to explore—Hannah V. Sawyerr, Nikki Grimes, Jason Reynolds, Kwame Alexander, Jacqueline Woodson, Aida Salazar, Jasmine Warga, K.A. Holt, Candice Iloh, Margarita Engle, and many, many more.

I hope you’ll add my verse novels to your reading list. In addition to my back catalogue, I have two coming out this year: a middle-grade contemporary novel called Kestrel Takes Flight (Simon & Schuster, May 26) and an adult memoir called Suffer a Witch (Dutton, August 18).

And maybe, in the years to come, I’ll find your verse novels on my own shelves!

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