Note — this was supposed to go up yesterday, but…err…well…I screwed up. I load and schedule these posts in advance (usually). When I loaded this one I…ahem…selected the wrong date. D’oh.
I’m a music guy. I love music, and I don’t mean just one or two styles — I love, and can appreciate, the talent and appeal of all kinds of music. I don’t think there is a style I won’t listen to, if the artist has talent and commitment.
Music, in fact, plays a huge role in my writing. I’ve mentioned before that I have to have the right “soundtrack” playing in order to really get the most out of a scene. Not just the message of the music, but also the beat, the tone, the character…they all help create the environment I need to write effectively.
Well, when it comes to the actual stories we write, those things matter, too. We don’t talk about them enough, in fact. Oh, folks love to talk about the tone and “color” of a scene. “Pacing” generally gets in there, too. But we talk about those things like they are discreet and separate.
They aren’t.
I mentioned music to open this because the rhythm and beat of a song underlies everything, is the structure on which the whole song is built. Think back to some of your favorite music. Better yet, think back to those songs that moved you emotionally, either to joy or to tears. Think about the rhythms and beats they used, as much as the notes and words, and how those changed and adjusted to shape the message.
That applies to writing, as well. The beat and rhythm of a story is important, as important as the words themselves. Unfortunately, we far too often mistake “pacing” for that necessary rhythm. Now, don’t get me wrong: all stories need the right pacing for their contents. But that pacing is a “big picture” concept, is the flow of the story as a whole.
The rhythm of the story? That’s different. That’s granular, and intimate, and needs to change and adjust to reflect what is happening at any particular point. It is needed, also, to build and reinforce the emotions and feelings you want your reader to feel.
Scenes long and languid, full of description and character development…
Scenes short and staccato, with just a few words to paint each picture and action…
Scenes with the slow, smoldering intensity of emotion (whether love or hate)…
I could go on, but I think the point is made. A good story needs all of these…all of these, and more. If you want to be more visual, you can come it from the perspective of movies (another passion of mine):
The slow panning of an establishing shot: peasants in the fields. Verdant green against the deep blue sky. A gentle breeze bending the young grain. Slow and stately…a mood is created.
Then erratic, staccato jump-cuts as black-clad raiders thunder through on horseback. The flash of a sword. A bit of red to mar the green. Fire. Screams. Hints of faces, of horror and savagery. But never does the camera linger long enough to truly focus on any one thing. The horror, and the emotion, comes from those flickering flashes of disturbing images.
The raiders leave, sated…and the rhythm changes again, communicates something different: a long, lingering shot that lets you see the bodies. Men who died badly. Women sobbing. A young boy, the sword in his hand nearly as big as he, lying in his own blood. A slow, painful zoom onto another child, clutching in horrified, wide-eyed silence at one of those bodies…
The scene is easy enough to imagine, and to write…but it is the changes in rhythm of the movie’s editing — and the changes in the soundtrack from slow and pastoral to brassy and loud, and finally to the minor key of mourning and death — that creates the emotion of the whole thing.
Short, choppy sentences. Dynamic, strong words. One detail on which to focus…one detail to carry the message of the whole scene.
Or sentences of depth and complexity. Sentences that tell the reader he or she is safe, can linger a bit over the words and concepts. Words that carry emotion and description. Words and sentences that are gentle, even, and convey all the detail of your characters and your world.
Too many stories use one structure, and one rhythm, throughout. Too many stories worry about the pacing of the plot, without thinking a bit about the rhythm and pacing of the scenes, or the actual words. I well-and-truly love me my Tolkien and my Asimov (to provide just two examples), but have you gone back and really read them recently?
They are, to put it gently, dry and monotone. Tolkien’s battle scenes read like the narration of a history professor centuries removed from the conflict…and Asimov? His (small) handful of battles read like they are in the stories because they are required, not because they actually belong.
And both use one rhythm, and one limited emotional range.
This is, by the way, why I listen to music of such variety…and why I watch — and try to learn from — so many movies: to find other rhythms, to find other ways to communicate emotion and meaning. The ultimate writing challenge, for me, is to study and learn, and to find ways to communicate in words the nonverbal emotions that have so much meaning in those two far-different mediums.*
*One of the coolest lessons from my linguistics days involved nonverbal communication: we watched a horror movie with the soundtrack and effects removed. There was just dialogue to carry and convey all of the information and emotion. It didn’t work…at all. That lesson stuck with me…
Finding My Way Out 