Hi Stephen, this is a question dear to my heart. Gregory Dowling's essay, “The Fascination of What’s Difficult: Narrative Poetry in Strict Forms,” in
The Contemporary Narrative Poem: Critical Crosscurrents, edited by Steven P. Schneider, has a fascinating discussion of ottava rima, among other rhyming forms. Christopher Ricks writes wonderful things about rhyme. I often wonder which rhyme scheme I prefer. I wrote a poem with 7 quatrains that rhymes AABB in each quatrain - in other words, only two rhymes in 28 lines. The book of essays I mentioned might be helpful to you also in thinking about moving through stanzas in ottava rima.
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