Many years ago I began writing 100-word short stories. Some would argue that’s too long

Each week, Good Weekend’s how-to column shares expert advice on how to navigate some of modern life’s big – and small – challenges. This week: How to write a haiku.

Many years ago, I began writing 100-word short stories. Writers of haiku – who, like me, attempt to capture moments – might wonder why I’ve needed to be so damned long-winded.

A Japanese poetic form, haiku, in English, are measured in syllables, not words. But the popular perception that a haiku must always consist of three lines of five, seven and five syllables is a misconception. “Traditional Japanese haiku featured five, seven, five sound units, or morae, but these are very different to English syllables,” explains Grant Caldwell, a poet, novelist and honorary senior fellow at Melbourne University.

Caldwell loves the accessibility of haiku and its defining brevity, which suits our time-poor world and blowfly-like attention spans, but strict adherence to the “5-7-5” structure – which he says has long been discarded in Japan – rattles his bamboo, so to speak. “The problem is that writers focus more on that instead of the principles and the spirit of haiku.”

One essential principle of haiku, says Caldwell, is the use of everyday language. Another is that they should attend to, explicitly or implicitly, the “two basic notions of existence: the never-changing [such as the sun, sky, sea or seasons] and the ever-changing [anything that points to the ephemeral nature of existence].”

Caldwell likens the process of writing a haiku to that of taking a photograph or making a sketch. But a haiku, he says, “has the advantage of engaging a fuller range of a reader’s senses, such as sound, even indirectly”. Hear the joyous racket, for example, in an 1890 haiku by Japanese poet Masaoka Shiki: In the abandoned boat/The hail/Bounces about.

The first step is to pay attention to what’s around you, to what strikes you, and make a note of it in simple language: “One or two sentences at most,” Caldwell says. “You can incorporate sound, dialogue, touch, smell, thoughts. Collect any number of these descriptions over a period of days or weeks.” After a break, edit and polish them, reducing them to their most essential words. As such, adverbs and adjectives, along with clichés, direct metaphors and similes, can go. Aim for no more than 17 syllables.

“Don’t worry if it doesn’t seem to be great literature,” he says, suggesting the journey is more important than the destination. “Many of the problems people have are because we’re not focused on what we’re doing. Writing haiku concentrates our attention in the now.”

Paul Connolly writes the regular Kitchen Sink Drama column for Good Weekend magazine.

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