How Chuck Palahniuk Uses Repetition & Short Sentences In “Fight Club” To Establish Tone

Repetition and varying sentence lengths is a very useful way to inject rhythm into writing, and “Fight Club” is a great example.

The first rule about fight club is you don’t talk about fight club. If there’s one line from Chuck Palahniuk’s first novel that has transcended the book, as well as David Fincher’s 1999 film adaptation, this is it. Walk up to any millennial on the street and ask them if they’ve heard some variation of that line and there’s a good chance they know it, even if they don’t know where it came from. I am Jack’s Utter Lack of Surprise.

Fight Club, the novel, published in 1996, remains one of those texts that has continued to stay in the public consciousness, for better or worse. While much of it is due to its themes and subject matter, an understated reason is that the writing is just very punchy (pun extremely-intended) and fun to read. The first rule of writing is you show rather than tell, so let me show you rather than tell you.

“The first rule about fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.” This line sings and is fun to read because it utilizes repetition — by using “fight club” at the end of each half of the sentence, like rhyming…