Writing Word Music, Part 2

All of this listening feeds into my work.

I was being disingenuous earlier, when I said I had exhausted by songwriting career. Everything I write is a song.

When I write, I spend as much time on rhythm as on image or meaning. Even when it might interfere with the meaning, I’ll take rhythm first. See there? I had to have the word “first” to end that last sentence. It wouldn’t land right without it. And there—“land” had to be a one-syllable, accented word. And there—I rewrote that last sentence twice until I came up with the musical phrase, “one-syllable, accented word.” (A previous draft said “one syllable word that carries an accent.” See? No music there.)

You never noticed? No matter. Reading is like dancing. You don’t need to be a master of musical theory to have a nice dance. You don’t need to understand meter or rhetoric to enjoy a good read.

(See there, I instinctively added “al” to music theory. Why? I don’t know; it’s not correct. I go back to look for a cause: It’s because my rhythmic sense wanted both of those last two sentences to have exactly the same number of syllables.)

Now I’m just showing off.

* * *

During the Denver Tango Festival, I attended a lecture/performance about tango music. Grisha talked about what makes music inviting to dancers. As Grisha spoke about music, I made notes about writing.

Here’s a writing problem:

Authors must create “tags” to identify characters. A tag is a subtle clue that leads readers to easily identify a character. For example, in a mystery, Albert might have a sniffle. If the murderer sniffled just before clobbering the good guy, you would assume the murderer was Albert. Sniffling is his tag.

Dialogue is difficult, because you don’t want to overdo it. Albert might use a habitual phrase, but not too often. He could have a dialect or accent, but no one since Zora Neale Hurston has gotten away with long passages of that.

You need something subtle, something that won’t snag the reader’s attention but will make an impression almost subconsciously…

Rhythm!

Grisha said, Where you put the emphasis is different between waltz and zamba.

That prompted me to write: “in language--changes in accent or tone of voice emphasize meaning.”

Duh. That’s the oldest trick in the book. Just try saying this sentence three times, each time emphasizing a different word: I saw that.

Why would I bother making that note? What I really was thinking was this: What if you had someone who spoke in Waltz rhythm? And someone else who spoke Zamba? How might the different speech patterns interfere with understanding and create mayhem?

If my default speech pattern were 1-TWO-3, then, if I said to my colleague in a meeting, “Do YOU agree?” it would be a simple question from my point of view, but my colleague might hear it as a power play or an attack.

Wow!

If I wrote for Star Trek, I would plunge Captain Jean Luc Picard into a diplomatic misadventure in which two cultures on a planet are immersed in a centuries-old feud based on Waltz versus Zamba speech patterns.

Only Data (the android) would be able to resolve the dilemma, because only he would be able to separate the meaning of words from their various emotional/rhythmic colorations.

With Data serving as interpreter for both sides, the crisis is averted, the feud ended. Thanks to Data, the planet is saved! The people beg him to stay. They will make him Chief Councilor, he will rule forever!

Data declines, because of course the two cultures must overcome their differences for themselves. Tentatively, resolutely, the two cultures reach out to one another.

In the end, Data stands in the captain’s office with a sympathetic Jean Luc Picard, gazing through a window at the stars flying by, bereft because this success only points up yet again that he is not human, he will never achieve his dream of becoming so.

Jean Luc Picard, being the sexiest know-it-all prig in the galaxy, sums up the whole thing with a little Latin poetry. Unfortunately, its meaning is all wrapped up in its cadence. Data doesn’t get it. (This scene lies on the cutting room floor.)

* * *

I did no writing at the coffee shop. All I could hear were new rhythms.

Now in my spare moments I am obsessed with silly games:

Describe a scene using sentences that contain four beats, then five.

Write a dialogue, one person speaking Waltz, one Zamba.

When this man gets agitated, he speaks in syncopation. Heeeere’s J-Johnny!

This girl speaks only in 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2 with the accent rotating from 1 to 2 to 3:
Marilyn, have you seen Jerry?
Will someone please answer the phone?
Oh my God, that was great dim sum!