An easy intro point to the creative process is rhyming.

Poetry is obvious.

Yet pretty much every creative discipline has a rhyme pattern. Here are a few:

  • contraction-release (modern dance)
  • shot-reverse shot (filmmaking)
  • high-low (fashion)
  • but-therefore (storytelling)
  • setup-punchline (standup) -call-response (jazz)
  • text-context (teaching)
  • text-subtext (drama)
  • event-interpretation (hermeneutics) -thesis-antithesis (rhetoric)
  • action-reaction (acting)
  • tension-release (architecture)
  • plant-payoff (narrative)
  • figure-ground (visual design)
  • straight man-comic (comedy)
  • real line-metaphor line (songwriting)

Even AI has picked up on this, in ways we don’t like:

  • it’s Not X, it’s Y

And sometimes, longer patterns are just back-to-back rhymes, like this 5-piece:

  1. Knock knock.
  2. Who’s there?
  3. Who?
  4. Who who?
  5. What are you, an owl?

If you want to engage your creativity, give rhyme a try.