6 types of rhyming schemes to use in your work

Rhyming takes precision planning, but when done well, it creates a musical quality and evokes powerful emotions in your readers. It also forces you, the writer, to be intentional with diction, prompting you to come up with ideas and sounds you wouldn’t have otherwise.

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Rhyming couplets: AABB

If you’re not used to writing in rhyme, the classic AABB is a perfect scheme to start with. Rhyming couplets are a pair of consecutive lines where the last word in each line rhymes with the last word of the next. William Shakespeare used this rhyme scheme often, as you’ll see in this famous example below:

Excerpt from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Double, double toil and trouble; (A)
Fire burn and caldron bubble. (A)
Fillet of a fenny snake, (B)
In the caldron boil and bake; (B)
Eye of newt and toe of frog, (C)
Wool of bat and tongue of dog, (C)
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, (D)
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing, (D)

Alternating rhyme: ABAB

The alternating rhyme is another old classic rhyme scheme. Simple, yet precise, the ABAB pattern prompts you to write a quatrain in which the first line rhymes with the third, and the third line rhymes with the fourth. You’ll find plenty of examples throughout history, but for this example we’ll turn to Emily Brontë whose short poem features just two quatrains in the ABAB scheme. See how she masters it and try it out yourself.

I Know Not How it Falls on Me by Emily Brontë

I KNOW not how it falls on me, (A)
This summer evening, hushed and lone; (B)
Yet the faint wind comes soothingly (A)
With something of an olden tone. (B)

Forgive me if I’ve shunned so long (C)
Your gentle greeting, earth and air! (D)
But sorrow withers e’en the strong, (C)
And who can fight against despair? (D)

Enclosed rhyme: ABBA

To shake up your quatrains a bit, try the enclosed rhyme scheme ABBA—which has nothing to do with a Swedish singing group. With this pattern, you create a rhyming sandwich where your first and fourth lines rhyme with each other, while enclosing the second and third lines which rhyme with each other. Alfred Lord Tennyson uses this rhyme scheme in his elegy for his dear friend.

In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I hold it true, whate’er befall; (A)
I feel it, when I sorrow most; (B)
‘Tis better to have loved and lost (B)
Than never to have loved at all. (A)

Triplet rhyme: AAA

Here’s another simple one for you to play around with. A triplet rhyme scheme involves a tercet where the last word in each line rhymes together in an AAA format. Try it out and see what you can make with it. For inspiration, look at an excerpt from Hilaire Belloc’s whimsically dark poem Lord Lucky:

Excerpt from Lord Lucky by Hilaire Belloc

Who stood with an astounded air (A)
Bewildered by the whole affair (A)
—And was the third remaining heir. (A)

Monorhyme: AAAA

To take the triplet rhyme to an even greater extreme, try the monorhyme where every single line rhymes with all the others. While monorhyme seems easy on the surface, it’s hard to get right. You can find one of the best examples of monorhyme in the infamous tunnel scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl originally wrote this gerund-filled piece for his book, and the filmmakers liked it so much that they incorporated it into the 1971 movie as well. In this example, monorhyme works well to create an air of both whimsy and suspense.

Excerpt from The Rowing Song by Roald Dahl

Not a speck of light is showing (A)
so the danger must be growing. (A)
Are the fires of hell a glowing? (A)
Is the grisly reaper mowing? (A)
Yes! The danger must be growing (A)
For the rowers keep on rowing. (A)
And they’re certainly not showing (A)
any signs that they are slowing! (A)

Villanelle: ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA

To really challenge yourself, try the villanelle. Originating from France, a villanelle is a type of poem that uses a very particular rhyme scheme and structure. To write one, put together a piece with five tercets with the rhyme scheme ABA and one quatrain with the rhyme scheme ABAA. They typically involve meter but don’t require any one specific one: as long as they’re consistent.

Villanelles may be notoriously tricky, but they’re not out of reach. Just make sure your pick the right A and B rhymes since you’ll need 13 words that rhyme for A and six words that rhyme for B. For an example, look at the last two stanzas in Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle about loss:

Excerpt from One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, (A)
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. (B)
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. (A)

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture (A)
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident (B)
the art of losing’s not too hard to master (A)
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. (A)

Playing around with new rhyme schemes

Playing around with new rhyme schemes teaches you the art of conciseness and how to create works you wouldn’t have before. Rhyme can evoke a wide range of feelings from joy to suspense. And when you start a poem in rhyme then break it—you can seriously impact your readers. Take the great Maya Angelou for example. Her famous poem Still I Rise starts in rhythmic xAxA rhyme scheme, then she breaks her pattern in the last two stanzas just as one breaks from conformity.

Have fun playing around with these different rhyme schemes, and maybe invent a new one yourself. See how sticking to a rhyme scheme, or breaking one, can elevate your work.