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This is the third part of a three-part series on writing about music.
Part one discussed the necessity of reading in order to improve one’s writing.
Part two discussed how to have interesting things to say about music.
This part discusses how to say those things.
In other words, this is about writing. Working with words is not glamorous. It is mechanical: produce, organize, edit. You are transcribing thoughts from your mind. You want to do this as accurately as possible. Think again of the transparent vessel metaphor. Words should lay bare thoughts, not obscure them. Here are 10 tips to help yours do so.
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10 TIPS FOR WRITING ABOUT MUSIC
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10. Do not write until you know what you will say.
People who think out loud are annoying. Don’t be like that on paper. Purge ellipses from your writing.
Writing is a hostile mission. The mission is to get people to listen to you. It is especially hostile on the Internet, where people use any excuse to click away. The average time per visit on this site is barely over two minutes – and that’s with an audience that considers itself thoughtful.
If you perform to thousands, and you know they’ll all leave after two minutes, you can’t afford to think out loud. You must hit hard and fast.
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9. Organize what you will say by paragraphs.
How do you hit hard and fast? You form a plan of attack. The easiest way to do so is by paragraph. Each paragraph should express a single thought. Together in sequence, the paragraphs form an argument.
Take, for example, a review of a fictional band called Pounder. (Thanks to Matt Harvey for the name.)
Pounder’s debut is the best ’80s metal album not made in the ’80s.
It captures the forward-thinking sensibility of ’80s metal at the time.
It’s also a throwback to ’80s lyrical values – which makes it timeless.
Finally, it flat-out rocks.
If each of those sentences begins a paragraph, the rest of the paragraphs practically write themselves. You need only supply supporting examples and analysis.
Note that these sentences form a logical line. A reader could get a good overview from those sentences alone. You are setting out a roadmap for the reader. This is important when you have mere minutes to make your point. A directed reader is an engaged reader.
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8. Avoid the passive voice.
“Drums were played, guitars were strummed, beer was drunk”: the passive voice is weak because it lacks actors. The strongest writing is that of action: subject-verb-object, actor-action-object. Boom-boom-boom. Don’t stop hitting.
The passive voice is also politically odious. Politicians use it to avoid taking responsibility. See Ronald Reagan: “Mistakes were made”. Don’t be like Reagan.
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7. Minimize the use of adjectives and adverbs.
Stephen King makes this point in his book On Writing. Heeding it is probably the biggest reason why my writing looks how it does.
Adjectives and adverbs are like frosting. No one wants to eat a cake that’s all frosting. Cut the fluff, and hit with nouns and verbs.
Adjectives and adverbs are the bane of metal writing. “Dark clouds darkened the gloomy sky as the desperate men of Pounder grimly prepared to do ghastly battle against myriad legions of wimps and posers”. Small wonder that I try to avoid reading about metal.
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6. Show, don’t tell.
This relates to #7. Adjectives and adverbs are often just shorthand, a way to tell without showing.
For example:
He was sad.
He soaked his beer with tears.
It’s clear which sentence is more evocative. Don’t just say that he’s sad – show it!
(Also, “Show Don’t Tell” is the first Rush song I ever heard.)
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5. If it can be cut, it should be cut.
Writing ideally has two phases before it reaches the reader: writing and editing. Once you have words on a page, someone should quality-check it. Sometimes that someone is a professional. But if you want to be a good writer, you should be a competent editor. The better your work is when it reaches an editor’s desk, the less work he/she will have to do – and the more work you will get (in a good way).
Crucial to editing is removing words – adjectives, adverbs, cutting the passive voice down to a lean, active one. If you have any doubt about a word, axe it. “All killer, no filler” applies to words like it does to music.
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4. Read your work out loud.
If you can’t/won’t do this literally, at least do so mentally.
Very few writers’ work sounds good out loud. But there’s a reason why people talk about a writer’s “voice”. Writers wield language just like speakers do. Maybe humans process reading and speech in different parts of the brain; I don’t know. But I do know that words, no matter their form, compete for people’s time and attention. People can only process so many words in a day. As a writer, you must cut through the noise and command attention.
A great way to do so is through writing that “sounds” good. In other words, have rhythm. Writing and music aren’t that different. Good music should breathe. It should have dynamics. It should have tension and release.
Likewise, don’t throw walls of text or never-ending sentences at readers. No one likes to listen to a motormouth. Break up wordy passages with short sentences. Finish paragraphs. Pay attention to the sounds of words. I’m sure many people read me just because they can understand me. I don’t talk like how I write – but I write like how someone might talk. People can get with that.
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3. Break the rules only when you know you’re doing so.
Note that #5 violates #8. I used the passive voice – and I used it on purpose. I could have used the active voice: “If you can cut it, you should cut it”. But I followed #4: “If it can be cut, it should be cut” sounds better. #4 trumped #8. When I write and edit, I do such calculations constantly. If I break a rule, I know exactly why I’m doing it. You should be able to justify the existence of every word you write.
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2. Practice, practice, practice.
Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000-hour rule (see here and here). The short version: it takes 10,000 hours of work to become a top expert at something. Most people don’t need to become top experts in order to have fulfilling experiences with things. But my glass is half-empty, and every second that I live is a second closer to death. So I want every one of my hours to go towards 10,000 hours of something.
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1. Practice, practice, practice.
I can’t stress this enough. Writing is a muscle. If you don’t work it, it grows limp. You can’t just drink yourself into delusions of grandeur and call yourself a writer. If I take even a day or two off from writing, I return to it feeling weak. (Ironically, doing this site has cut into my writing time so much that my writing has greatly suffered.) The pen (or keyboard) is an instrument, just like a guitar or piano. It won’t play itself. You must make it work for you.
I am fortunate to have had editors who’ve allowed me to be incompetent for years on their dime as I learned my craft. When you start out at anything, you will suck at it. But if someone gives you the opportunity to be bad, with the expectation that you’ll be good later – grab it, and don’t let go until you’re 10,000-hours-good.
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THAAAANK YOU…I’m an otherwise pretty intelligent guy who now just sucks at writing.
I blame message boards.
“No one wants to eat a cake that’s all frosting.”>
Speak for yourself, faggot.
Oh it was a metaphor. I get it.
King’s advice on adverbs is dead on. I read his book On Writing years ago, and I have used this advice in my professional writing since. It was a major breakthrough, even though it is simple advice.
Great article. I already know all this stuff from writing courses, and try to keep it in mind when writing, but of course I don’t always do well at it.
I in fact do write how I talk. Or how I would talk if the back-and-forth of conversation was taken out of the picture. Listening to someone who uses multiple clauses, parentheticals, and so forth is not for everyone. I am not for everyone. I kind of like it that way.
#9 – That’s what I learned from reading you Cosmo. How organized your writing is. And two, how you enjoy writing really short, concise and direct sentences.
#7 – Great point. That seems to be what 90% of metal writing is about. Silly and cheesy.
#4 – Funny you mention this. I find myself doing this more and more recently. I often imagine if a drunken Bukowski would sound good reading my shit.
Cosmo, Very interesting articles! I have a metal website and have made some reviews myself. I’m not very good in translating toughts into words and it can be frustrating sometimes to write these reviews for me. Another thing that I do to make my life tougher is to write those reviews both in french(my main language) and english, since my website is in both languages.
Since the writing structures are not the same in both languages, I try to write first in english, it practices my brain to construct ideas differently than it is used to when writing in french, that’s not an easy task but I’m progressing!
The tips you are giving about writing will be very helpful to me! Not that I want to become a professionnal writer but I do enjoy writing as a hobby and would love to get better at it. I guess it’s also time for me to continue reading On Writing, which I bought when it came out and stopped reading for an unknown reason…
Thanks again for these great articles!
These hints parallel writing in general not just about music. I’ve found over the years if you write a paragraph that could be replaced by two sentences guess which makes its point faster?
First Rush I heard was Spirit Of The Radio hit the air waves Summer of 79, helped shape a new view on what is possible with three players. Still enjoy Permanent Waves to this day.
#7 – Certainly not the case to be had in journalism, but in fictional writing if one is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft then the inverse of that rule is true.
These aren’t tips. This whole exercise has been a style guide to write about music the way you specifically write about music.
Also agree on the adjectives/adverbs point — even in fiction. They have a place, but another of King’s important points in ‘On Writing’ is to only describe enough for the reader to get a basic idea, then let their imagination fill in the details. Can be even more relevant to music, I think, since readers can actually just go and listen.
@TheWolf — I’m a big Lovecraft fan. Visited all of his haunts and his grave in Providence and read all of his fiction and many of his collections of letters. Even leading Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi says there have been countless bad stories and books written by his imitators. I don’t think Lovecraft was a master prose stylist. I do think he created a fictional universe that has captured imaginations for decades. It’s great to draw on his imagination but I think people set themselves up to fail if they imitate his style.
The same thing is true with Jack Kerouac. He hit it out of the park a few times, especially with “On The Road.” But there have been many bad books written by people trying to capture a style that he only mastered in a few instances (in addition to ‘On The Road’ he also wrote clunkers like ‘Vanity of Duluoz’).
@Jayson — The guidlines Cosmo has discussed are universal. Be specific. Show, don’t tell. Don’t overwrite. Think about the reader. Make your writing move. Use strong verbs. Strunk and White say the same thing. Feel free to ignore them but the result won’t be pretty.
Think about the experience of listening to music. You certainly know when something sounds wrong. We’ve become so accustomed to poor writing and bloat that people aren’t as discerning when it comes to prose. They should be. Most music writing is painful because writers forget the reader. They write to impress themselves.
Btw, King’s “adjectives & adverbs” remark was a thinly veiled stab at Cormac McCarthy.
FYI.
There is a point when to the point, punchy sentences can be taken too far. Hemingway is hailed as one of the greats, but there are a lot of people (myself included) who hate his style. It seems clumsy, and doesn’t flow.
Spoken like a true English teacher Cosmo. It’s damn hard to write something knowing people have said it countless times in countless interesting ways before you. Perhaps it was reading too much Lester Bangs whose rambling prose seemed to veer all over the written highway. Or perhaps studying philosophy tempered my ability for concise thoughts. OR perhaps we just don’t have the attention span as a culture anymore–we expect everything in digestible spoon fed two minute memes. It’s a combo of all three–my biggest problem though, one which you alluded to, is those damn ellipses, and when you said that, I realized all of my previous comments had them and how deep they’re entrenched in my writing.
Damn ellipses.
Jason – Yep, ellipses now usually indicate that the writer is too lazy or lacks the balls to finish a thought.
Lester Bangs had two things going for him – he was one of the first prominent music writers, and he had his own style. Being first and being original makes for much leeway when breaking “rules” – see, e.g., Venom.
10. Do not write until you know what you will say.
Only Organic Writing is Real.
cut, cut, cut. realize there’s a limit to your readers’ attention. this is the one i’ve been working on the most lately. there’s absolutely no justification for an 800 word album review. respect your readers’ time and keep it concise.
Ellipses are the bane of my existence, and my writing. Too much casual writing — emailing, commenting on blogs, and posting in forums — leads you down that path, and it’s a bitch of a habit to break.
I get what Jayson is trying to say, that this is more of a style manual than an all-around writing primer. But the advice is solid nonetheless. Keeping writing short and to the point is essential on the internet, and frequently in journalism, but not in every situation. Most of my favorite fiction authors could type for miles and make it glorious. Steven King might advocate heavy trimming, but he’s as guilty of bloated purple prose as anyone, depending which book you pick up.
Worth adding to this list: the “punch up”. Technically it falls under editing, but its almost the opposite of rule #5. If you trim a sentence down to its bones you might make a strong point in a simple way, but it can read as boring or undescriptive. “Punching up” is a screenwriting term, mostly used for dialogue, but it refers to taking a bland sentence and making it better. This is where breaking the adverb/adjective rule is worth it — the key is to be judicious. If you write something that’s awesome, don’t cut it just because it breaks one of the above rules. And if something reads boring, make it more awesome.
“See Ronald Reagan: “Mistakes were made”. Don’t be like Reagan.”
Solid advice in any circumstances, and especially apt here. I have quite enjoyed this series and hope that it ripples throughout the internet metal blog world, which is filled with awful, joy-killing hacks.
Cheers to Wash Jones!
“Keeping writing short and to the point is essential on the internet, and frequently in journalism, but not in every situation. Most of my favorite fiction authors could type for miles and make it glorious.”
Bingo!
One pretty decent way to practice the above rules is through writing assignments. Ive found that word counts are generally just long enough for you to be able to articulate whatever you are supposed to be writing about, which means that the first things that get cut is bullshit. If you have a word limit and you are 300 words over it, it means there is probably about 250 words over, and 50 “Further” “therefore” and “Perhaps’” over as well.
Also, don’t proofread while you’re drinking!
@ bowing headds
Solid advice.
I’ve written about music a LOT of different ways. I’d say this is less advice on how to write about music, and more advice on how to get people to READ what you write about music.
Cosmo, you need to start a Stryper cover band named Pounder. That is all.
Beth W. – Astute observation!
ol’ jimmy wilson – That’s the best idea I’ve heard in ages.
I will take any Rush reference I can get. This will have to do. And writing. Yeah. Me write good.
I read “On Writing Well” for school and your guide sums up the book very nicely. Writing about music is really no different than writing about anything else. You must be concise yet descriptive, informative without being boring. However for writing about music, you have to understand how each instrument is used as part of the whole . . . Not all good writers can explain the merits of “Show No Mercy” if they don’t have the ear of a musician. Thus why I will never be able to write about music: I can’t break an album down into its most fundamental parts to analyze, I can only enjoy it as a wall of sound. Now if I were to learn an instrument . .
All good advice. My own view of music writing was probably shaped too much by Lester Bangs, Chuck Eddy and Richard Meltzer. What I took away from them was trying to write like the music makes you feel, and sometimes what it makes you think about even if it’s subjective to your own memories. But that’s just what I like. In the last 20 years, there have been many good, competent writers about music in almost any city. That style gets boring, so I like to read what the writer thinks about the music, in a way that shows some honesty.
Prof. Terry D. wuold be proud of these rules (esp. #s 4 and 8–I still remember when he made me read out loud to the class some bloated paragraph in a paper I’d written about modernist literature, and the resulting surprise/shame of “God, that sounds awful–what I meant to say is buried among all these useless words” has influenced my writing ever since…). Ah, good times in Rayzor Hall.
Also, the rush reference is always appreciated.
Denis Savard – Heh, the good man called my writing “desiccated”. My middle name then was “B-”. It probably still is.
Dang i thought your blog was killer, gave me a car load of information, i never knew, thanks blogger.