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So it’s been a few weeks since my last post, but I haven’t forgotten that I promised to go into some of my half-baked theories on writing. I rambled around the topic enough in the past entry that I’m not sure I even got to that point, which I suppose in of itself bespeaks poor writing, at least on a technical level. All these blogs tend to be first drafters anyhow, I’m not going for Dickens or Shakespeare.
Oh but speaking of those two gents, they both indulged in a bit of poetry didn’t they? In Shakespeare’s case so much so that he is often referred to as “The Bard” — which if you’re a D&D player will usually conjure up two immediate impressions: one of them NSFW and one of them a dude or gal who habitually carries and uses a musical instrument and sings a lot.
Well, let’s roll with this. What if I proposed to you that a gateway into writing could be found in music? Even music without official lyrics? Vidi this video proposing that the most memorable theme music for movies and television is stuff that lends itself to unofficial lyrics incorporating the title, and how many composers have completely admitted to getting their start from that text.
Star Wars… nothing but STAAAR WAAAARS…
But seriously, if text can lead the way to music, why not the reverse? We make up lyrics all the time. We sing stupid improvised songs to our baffled pets. Is that writing? Well if you took it and committed it in the fixed form of copyright fame, I would say so. Is that good writing? Okay, save that for the advanced class. After all, this memed parody of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was wildly popular and will get stuck in your head despite what seems like a serious lack of effort in its lyrics:
@mattstorerhere Art of the deal #comedy #music #fyp #parody #strangerthings
Ad jingles are kind of like that, too. I can’t remember where I left my keys earlier in the day but I can recite the lyrics to a Juicyfruit gum advertisement from the 1980’s nearly verbatim.
So maybe fledgling writers should stop worrying too much about being “good” and instead focus on, for lack of a better term, their “flow.” It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. To be, or not to be. Imagine someone reading the audiobook of what you’re laying down, do the words keep a kind of rhythm even though they don’t rhyme? This is especially true of writing dialogue. Speak it out loud, in the voice of the character as you imagine them, and see how it sounds. That way you hopefully don’t run afoul of Harrison Ford’s apocryphal quip to George Lucas of “you can type this shit, but you can’t say it!”
At very least I believe this could get you atarted, much the same as the music composers coming at the process from the other direction. It doesn’t have to be a full-on musical number, but a little bit of rhythm could go a long way.