How to Write a Sonnet
Start with your subject, not your rhyme scheme. This is the mistake most people make they pick their end-words first and then try to reverse-engineer meaning into the lines. You'll end up with tortured syntax and lines that exist only to serve a rhyme. Instead, write out what you actually want to say in plain prose. One paragraph. Get the idea down, then figure out how to fit it into the form.
Once you know your argument (and a sonnet is an argument that's my hot take, and I'll stand by it), decide on your structure. A Shakespearean sonnet lets you explore three angles of your subject across the quatrains before snapping it shut with a couplet. A Petrarchan sonnet gives you more room to build tension in the octave and then release or redirect in the sestet. Pick the structure that matches your emotional arc. Our guide on how to write a poem covers broader techniques for choosing form based on content, which applies directly here.
Now comes the iambic pentameter. Don't obsess over perfect meter in your first draft. Write lines that are roughly ten syllables, then go back and adjust. Read them aloud. Your ear will catch the stumbles faster than your eyes. A common mistake is forcing every single line into rigid da-DUM da-DUM even Shakespeare broke meter when the line needed it. A well-placed spondee (two stressed syllables in a row) can hit harder than any regular beat.
The volta is where your sonnet lives or dies. Another frequent error: treating all fourteen lines as a single continuous thought. The turn should surprise even you a little. If your octave describes a problem, your sestet shouldn't just restate it more poetically. It should shift. Contradict. Reveal something. And if you're writing a Shakespearean sonnet, don't waste your couplet on a summary. Make it sting.
Pro tip: write your couplet first. Seriously. If you know where you're landing, every preceding line can build toward that moment. It's like writing the punchline before the joke counterintuitive, but it works.