Change sentence structure for the benefit of your rhyme scheme

Along the winding paths we slowly walked,

And all the while we chatted, spoke and talked.

‘So short is life,’ you made the valid point,

Although the statement’s structure you disjoint(ed).

And strong though was the bond of comradeship,

But help I couldn’t to cruelly up you trip.

Create subplots which bear no relation to the main story

Meanwhile, the ant whose escape from the sugar bowl had been witnessed by Mary at the pre-wedding dinner was struggling to return the sugar he had collected to his colony. Everywhere he turned, his path was blocked by puddles, the same puddles which had previously dampened the hem of Lisa’s wedding dress, although of course the ant didn’t know anything about that, being not only peripheral to proceedings and not an official guest at the function, but an ant.

Elsewhere, the builder who had been subcontracted to remodel the stables of the stately home in which Lisa’s wedding was taking place was preparing to tuck into a well-earned packed lunch. Being on the other side of the estate from the wedding party, he was unaware that the ham he had in his sandwiches was roughly the same colour as the centre of the chicken breasts currently being served to the wedding guests and would remain unaware of the events unfolding in the dining hall even as several aunts hurled and retched into the dahlias.

Begin your novel with the protagonist getting out of bed and seeing that it is raining outside, which perfectly mirrors his life

Jake opened his eyes and heard the rain battering against the outside of the glass window. Well, he thought grimly, it’s raining outside, and it’s certainly raining in my soul, which is about as inside as you can get.

It had only been seventeen days since he had lost his job and been dumped by his girlfriend, all of which made him very sympathetic without actually having to establish him as a character. Ever since that fateful day, he had been hearing the drip drip drip of his hopes (raindrops) and aspirations (hailstones) tumbling down onto the corrugated iron roof of his memory before disappearing forever down the drain of missed opportunities.