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How to Build a Sestina Template in Microsoft Excel

by Daniel Ari

Open a new Excel workbook. In cell B1, write your title. Leave row 2 blank. In cells A3 through A8, place the letters A through F. These letters are the cues for your repeating words (teleutons). Leave row 9 blank to denote a stanza break. In cells A10 through A15, put the letters F-A-E-B-D-C. Then skip a line. Likewise create your teleuton template for the rest of your stanzas based on the standard sestina form (left to you to find).

You will be writing most of your sestina in column B. You’ll find it convenient to widen this column to give yourself a broader blank to fill in. Place the last word in each line of the first stanza into column C. These isolated words will be indexed with your line cues and duplicated down the page to create your automated sestina scaffolding. It’s possible to break

this template, so once you set it up, don’t touch column C below the first stanza break. Paste the “Sestina Formula” (in line 2 of the next stanza) into cells C10 through C43. You’ll find that “#N/A” appears in the rows that have been left empty for stanza breaks. Re-create your open lines by manually deleting these N/As, leaving those cells blank. When you place words in cells C3 through C8, your pre-placed line cues in column A will automatically populate column C with the correct last words for the other stanzas.

Use this Sestina Formula to structure your second through sixth stanzas: “=VLOOKUP” If you change or modify this, it may break. Retype it or copy and paste it into cell C10. It will automatically index the line cue in cell A10 (“F”) and return the word you put in C8. You’ll find it easiest to click and drag the lower right corner of cell C10 down over the blank cells in column C to row 43. This populates those cells with the Sestina Formula. Lastly, create

your envoi in rows 45 through 47. You’ll do this by creating direct links to the teleutons from the first stanza. In C45, type “=C4”; in D45, “=C7”; in C46, “=C6”; in D46, “=C5”. In blank C47, type “=C8” and in D47, “=C3”. Unless your focus was broken in the process of following these instructions, you’ll find that the last word to every line of every stanza is appropriately populated according to the line cues.

Now write stanza 1 with the last word of each line isolated in column C. Your line cues are formula-coded, so you can easily revise your sestina or create new ones. Any time you place a new word into cells C3 through C8, you’ll find that the corresponding lines in all of your other stanzas automatically update. Save often! Excel tools can break, but this one is simple enough that it should provide a useful blank

for all your sestina-writing needs. When your quality assurance (QA) is complete, select and copy your stanzas from columns B and C. Create a Word document and paste in your sestina. Remove cell breaks using “Convert Table to Text” (found in the Table menu). Or e-mail me (efflux@sonic.net) for the blank.

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Sestina: How to Build a Sestina Template in Microsoft Excel⁠

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