The Write Road: On Writing Symphonytically - Part 2

“Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul. I wanna get lost in your rock and roll … and drift away.” - written by country songwriter Mentor Williams.

In the previous issue of The Write Road, we started our discussion on writing symphonytically with a look at text decoration: italics, bolding, and combinations.

Of course, symphonytically is a made up word.

(However, I told my spellchecker to add it to the dictionary. Got tired of seeing the red squiggly lines. It is now a real word. LOL)

But the concept in writing this way is to guide your reader—orchestrate or conduct, if you will—in how to consume your content properly.

Of course, we’re going to throw many of the “immutable laws” your teachers taught you in school right out the window. If you’re going to make a word symphony, you’ve got to break some grammar rules.

Again, however, you should learn the rules before dashing them to pieces.

Developing your writer’s inner ear

It behooves us to read various and sundry writing works in learning to compose our own articles, books, and such. And I will cover reading to write better in a future article.

But since writing composition is half science, half art, and half inspiration, it’s hard to teach as there is no right or wrong way to compose your work.

However … I do believe that listening to music helps our writing become more natural, even universal.

I highly recommend you listen to music, if not during your writing sessions, at least before them. Often, a tune playing in the background is all it takes to get you into the write mood.

And during your off hours, the times you’re not writing, music can help nurture the inner creator in you.

I know that might sound strange, even ridiculous coming from someone who writes about industrial equipment, hard hats, and safety harnesses for a living.

But music has been called the universal language (although math is another contender for the moniker).

Music conveys emotion, even creates emotions, on many levels. And if we want our writing to do the same, then listening to, even studying music would be a boon to our writing.

I believe that listening to classical and neo-classical music can greatly influence your writing creativity.

And even some rock and/or roll.

Many of the great rock bands and songwriters of the early 70s took their cue from the likes of Stravinsky, who in turn, modeled much of his neo-classical work on the masters of classical music.

In an October 2020 article, How Classical Music has Influenced Modern Music, Dr. Justin Wildridge explains:

An unmistakable influence of classical music can quickly be discovered in the work of many well-known artists. In fact the more you look, the more songs you discover influenced by the work of the classical composers. On his 1983 album “An Innocent Man”, Billy Joel makes an unashamed use of the main theme of the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata (Op. 13) in his song titled “This Night”. The melody and the chords are an exact copy.¹

My favorite piece to listen to, either before or during writing, is The Moldau. But during the editing process, this tune really inspires me.

The Moldau , Czech Vltava, is a symphonic poem by Bohemian composer Bedřich Smetana that evokes the flow of the Vltava River—or, in German, the Moldau—from its source in the mountains of the Bohemian Forest, through the Czech countryside, to the city of Prague.

I was introduced to The Moldau during my relatively brief and somewhat less than successful stint in college. During our Music Appreciation Class, we were given a pack of  nine vinyl records entitled “The Enjoyment of Music/ The Norton Scores.”

It weighs a ton!

But I’ve carried it throughout my life, from one place of residence the next, for over 45 years. Although there are a plethora of musical styles contained in the collection, The Moldau seemed to stick with me the most.

Once you read the backstory of the composition, you can literally see the various scenes described musically in the piece.

From the Parker Symphony website:

The composition describes the course of the Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current, the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through landscapes where a farmer’s wedding is celebrated, the round dance of the mermaids in the night’s moonshine: on the nearby rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava swirls into the St John’s Rapids; then it widens and flows toward Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into the distance, ending at the Labe.²

I highly recommend you listen to it as soon as possible. In fact …

I need to refill my coffee mug. Listen to it until I return. It’s 13 minutes long, so I’ll take my time.

Or you can wait until we’re done.

Either way, here’s The Moldau by Smetana on YouTube.

I’m back.

So, listening to music of all genres can develop your writer’s inner ear.

Try it for yourself.

Developing your writer’s cadence

I love that word.

Cadence means rhythm. It implies a certain beat, maybe even … a heart beat.

While we usually think of music or marching when we talk of cadence, it’s more.

If we consult the unabridged edition of the venerable Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, we’ll discover that it applies to writing as well. In fact, the very first definition pertains to the written word:

1a: a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language  specifically : a particular rhythmic sequence distinctive of an individual author or literary composition <the grand cadence of his poetry>³

As a matter of fact, of the four definitions given for cadence in that entry, three of them refer to the written or spoken word. And all of them refer to rhythm.

• Song is the written word … vocalized.

• Speech is the written word … verbalized.

• Symphonytic prose is the written word … immortalized.

• Even if it’s about … motors and bearings and gears. Oh my.

Look at the four sentence preceding this one.

Did you see the subtle orchestration, both in text decoration, and visual presentation?

(And did you see what I just did there, above, LOL? Bonus points if you did.)

First, I called out those sentences in bullet points. In copywriting, they’re called “fascinations” because they’re items we want to draw particular attention to.

And you can use them in both sales copy and marketing content (blogs) in several ways: to show the order of importance, least to greatest; or call out a major point first, secondary points next, then wrap up with another major point.

There’s another use for bullet points that I learned from my dear friend and mentor

Sandra Franks

, author of Just One Good Idea. In an upcoming article about building a roadmap for your writer, I’ll cover that.

So, watch for it!

The second way I orchestrated the bullet points was using a visual layout. Did you notice the length of the sentences, from first to last? From shortest to longest, they form a sort of visual crescendo, to use another musical term. You can do that to show increasing importance or even build excitement.

Try it sometime. I think you’ll like it.

For a third cue, I did a grammatical no-no. I used the ellipses incorrectly … on purpose. Naughty, Steve … naughty.

An ellipsis is those three little dots together. In proper writing, like the MLA style⁴, they’re used to show omission, either for words, sentences, or paragraphs in a quote. And there are some pretty strict guidelines for their use and placement.

But as to the way I used them above? It’s more for a visual cue for a pause … even a dramatic pause.

If I was writing something highly technical in nature, I’d use them properly. But in my less formal writing … not so much.

Finally, in the fourth bullet, I dropped the commas, using “and” instead. That was intentional. It created a rhythm and alluded to a popular, classic movie as well. Normally, it would be written (depending on your bent toward serial commas) motors, bearings, and gears. But using “and” instead of the commas created a rhythm that harkened back to the 1939 film, Wizard of Oz.

In that movie, Dorothy and her three companions set off down a dark part of the woods along the Yellow Brick Road, chanting, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” And so, I sometimes use that.

Just for fun. It creates a rhythm … a cadence.

Write often and develop your own cadence.

Cadence revisited – the final long and short of it

Now, if you think I’m about to talk about sentence and paragraph length, you thought right.

But, if you thought I was going to tell you to always keep  them short … you thunk wrong.

I’ve been taught to write conversationally and it’s good for sales content. It really is. We’ll cover conversational copywriting in a future issue.

Vary the length of your sentences and paragraphs. Vary them, both in length and density.

But, sometimes you have to ask yourself, “Why use a shorter sentence when a  longer one will do?”

Here’s an example, and we’ll close with this.

I wrote an article about creating your LinkedIn profile a few years back. A series, actually. Here is an excerpt from the one about crafting your summary. Note the bolded text:

Stories have been part of human history since the dawn of time. It's embedded in our psyche. Stories help us remember important things. They talk to us. Even the crude drawings on cave walls, painted by our distant ancestors, tell stories.

The cave dwellers depicted their daily struggles and exploits in intricate story form with colorful stick figure narratives that stretched not only across the cavern's great expanse, but across the vast expanse of time immemorial as well.

But, what if they had used bullet points instead?

That bolded sentence is 37 words long! (The previous was fourteen … the next one, nine!)

I could have used shorter sentences, but I was going for an effect. The long sentence represented:

• The cavern’s expanse, and

• The vast expanse of time (as well)

Sometimes even longer sentences and paragraphs make the writing more effective. So use them at your discretion. Couple them with short ones.

Author Malcolm Gladwell shared his take on sentence length, both the reason for short sentences and the occasional behomoth, in a MasterClass on Writing.

Have a listen to what he says. The session is about 9 minutes long, so while you listen to it, I’ll start another pot of coffee.

By the way, if you do listen to the lesson, you’ll be offered a free 14-day pass to MasterClass to watch the entire group of sessions from Malcolm.

Are you back?

Cool.

Just in time to wrap this newsletter up.

Develop a cadence to your own writing. That’s something that can’t be taught. It must be learned and discovered. You must tinker with your writing to get it just write.

In a very real way, writing is your musical gift to the world.

So, in your writing … make melody. Symphonytically.

.

The more you write, the more quickly you’ll find your personal cadence. There’s no way around that … it takes time and diligence to find the “write” you.

As you hone your craft, your written melody—symphony, if you will—you will begin to move your readers. To freee their minds. Your personal rhythm and rhyme and harmony will help them along, making them stronger for the reading of it.

And that, my friend is the final long … and short of it.

See you in the next issue!

Write on.

Steve M.

1. How Classical Music has Influenced Modern Music – October 30, 2022 Dr. Justin Wildridge CMUSE.org

2. The Moldau - Patriotic and Inspiring Parker Symphony Orchestra website, May 2, 2017.

3. “Cadence.” Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/cadence . Accessed 23 Dec. 2022.

4. Using Ellipsis in MLA Style, University of Houston-Victoria website