Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

That’s the opening of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Listen to the next paragraph, because it’s hilarious.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

He’s basically saying here: yeah, this is a ghost story, but it’s not going to be grim and horrific. It’s going to be fun. Heavy themes, light voice.

And the sentence pacing – it’s short, short, long, long, short again.

It’s repeating itself for the sake of humor, BUT it’s not monotonous.

So what can we take from this?

#1: Set the tone right in your opening. If it’s spooky-funny, make it spooky-funny immediately.

#2. Repetition + variation = rhythm. “Marley was dead” hits different each time because the context keeps shifting.

Watch the video for the full visual breakdown 👇

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