井上愛の日記

Down the road I see a girl with a wedding bouquet
He left her at the altar and he went away
Her runaway fiancé's nowhere near
And now she has to face all of her fear

Let's look at one more example...read with a pause after each line. 

With breadcrumbs:

 You got a strange way of watching me
Shudder to think what you could do
But that's a "hungry salesman" look
And I won't be buyin' from you

The goal was to make each line force you to keep going. I don't know if I succeeded. Here it is before the rewrite...without breadcrumbs:

You got a way of looking at me
And I can see it in your eyes
You're insecure and desperate
Under your thin disguise

Keep writing,

SECRET #7--SECRET CLUES...THE LITTLE THINGS THAT PROVE BIG THINGS

Sweat dripped off his nose into the open tub of gasoline that was soaking carburetor parts.  His hands smelled of fuel and he breathed loudly through his nose.

With just a few chosen details, I can cause you to conclude much more than a few things.  Is he rich or poor?  Is he a detail person or a big-picture strategist?  Is he scattered or focused?  Where is he?  What is he surrounded by?  Are there people watching him?  Does he think highly of himself?  Is he experiencing some emotion?

All these questions were unanswered by me, but answered by you, using nothing but my details and your own pieced-together memories and ideas.  By planting a few details, I led you down the path to some conclusions of your own.  Your mind easily filled in the rest of the picture.

That's what happens when you choose to reveal selected details.  You have to trust some things to the mind of the person on the receiving end.

At first, this is unnerving to a writer.  We want to feel the power.  We want to tell our audience what to think and how to feel, so we can be sure they agree with us.  But you must resist this temptation.

One of the things you'll learn in Strong Songwriting is that our emotions not only respond to details...they are likely made up of details.  Our emotions are a cross between a bodily function and a mental function.  Emotions are like chemicals dumped back into the body from the brain.  They operate using the language of the 5 senses.

So when you speak in details, you get a person's emotions involved.  And that's strong medicine. 

Bent halfway over, the stop sign was flapping like a broken bird wing.  It was made of metal, but it was behaving like a dish rag on a clothesline.

When you read that, what do you conclude?  In your own mind, was the stop sign wet or dry?  About what temperature is it?  What's making it move? Air or water?  Is there a crowd watching?  Is there a camera filming?  Is there anything nearby?  What's the closest object to it?

All these conclusions are drummed up in your mind from a few details I fed you. As a writer, you need to get over trying to control your listener's life, so you can relish the control you can have over your listener's experience, just by using details in a song. 

This concludes my report, Writing Unforgettable Songs.  If you haven't read my ebook, Strong Songwriting, you need to.  It's full of examples (and a lot more in depth tips) so you can learn quickly how to write songs that make a place for themselves.  Get that here.

Also, be on the lookout because I try to send out a Strong Song Tips newsletter every week or so as I have time.

Keep writing,
Morgan Cryar

If your goal is to write songs that make people stop what they are doing and listen with rapt attention, it's really not so hard.  (I'm serious...it's not rocket science.)

The feedback I'm getting from my ebook, Strong Songwriting is of a specific variety.  I hear it over and over again...People are actually writing songs when they read it (both pros and beginners)!

Here's an email I got today, from a reader named Hazen Kent:

"First, wonderful book and thank you! I ordered it in Nov. and I have just completed MY FIRST SONG and am ready to put it out there. So that is a credit to your book! Which brings me to my question... (Her question was about Song Contests, which I'll try to cover in a future newsletter.)

WHY do I get this kind of feedback?  How is this possible (read a book and it makes you write songs)?

One of the big reasons is that there are ideas revealed in this little volume that professional songwriters just don't talk about that freely.  I'd like to share one of those right now.

WRITE WITH A CAMERA IN YOUR HAND

My 16-year-old daughter, Phoebe, is what you'd call a "camera buff."  She spent her hard-earned money on a VERY nice camera. She snaps LOTS of pictures every day.

It may not be a coincidence that she turns out to be a decent songwriter too.  (You can check that out for yourself: www.myspace.com/thevespersofficial) Callie and Phoebe are my daughters and these are their FIRST songwriting efforts.

But here's my point...if you want your songs to stand out from the churning crowd of songwriters out there, just try this ONE thing:  Write with a Camera.

I don't mean to literally carry a camera...(though that may not be a bad idea).  You don't really need a physical camera in your hand. But this one technique can make you enough of a songwriter
to buy a couple cameras.  Here's how.

1.  Get a blank paper (or Word document).  This will NOT be what you write your actual song on.  It's a "worksheet." Think of it as a painter's palette that you'll squish paint onto...except your paint is ideas and words.

2.  Now write your song idea (one sentence) at the top of the page (for instance, you might scribble:  "Song about a sweet girl who gets lots of attention from the boys, and lots of jealousy from the girls.")

Maybe you even come up with a working title: "All Turned Green"

3.  Now brainstorm and write down everything from words, phrases, ideas, emotions, story parts, character sketches, etc.  ANYTHING that could have ANYTHING to do with your song idea.

4.  Come up with a simple plot.  What happens in verse 1? What does the chorus say about that?  What happens in verse 2? What does the chorus say about THAT?  What new angle gets revealed in the bridge?

Now for the camera part...

5. Now, as you think along those events happening in the verses, go back to each event and hold a camera up to your mind's eye and look at the scene.  FORCE YOURSELF to SEE it! Ask yourself what the most important thing is that you see in that camera lense.

Zoom in on it, and write down what you see.  (Remember, this isn't the song yet...it's just what HAPPENS in the story.)

Are her hands red from hot dish water?  Are they blue with cold? Are they shaking?  Does she touch her cheek with them?  Is she biting her fingernails?  When she talks to that boy, does she
blush at all? Are her eyes steady or does she look down?

Ask yourself...what are these characters DOING while I watch?

Each scene is YOURS to make!  You write what YOU see.  Most of these details will not fit into your song...but they will FIRE YOUR SONG with reality and emotion.

Once you go through all the events you'll likely have more than one "worksheet" page.  That's ok.  They're just words.  Just paint squished onto the palette.

PICTURE AND CAPTION

The next thing you'll do is look back through these detailed mental pictures and add any senses that the camera couldn't capture.  (Sound, touch, smell, taste).  "She shivers when he walks behind her; he leans and smells her hair; etc."

You're very likely to get some NEW ideas for story twists, once you start SEEING the action unfold.  Work those out in your mind.

Now you're ready to write a song that grabs the listener by the lapels!

Start writing your song lines, using as many of the best details as you can [pictures].  Explain the feelings or meanings or thoughts when necessary [captions]

That's why I call this "Picture and Caption."

You'll show me the picture and then tell me what it means to the story (whenever an explanation is necessary).

There are a ton more tips like this inside the book.  Stop thinking about whether you want to write great songs...just do it!

Click here for the Strong Songwriting ebook!

Keep Writing,
Morgan Cryar


Strong SongWriting
849 Forest Acres Dr.
Nashville, TN
37220
US

SECRET #5--WRITE THE TRUTH, IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT!

"Three chords and the truth."  I believe that was a Willy Nelson quote, but I'm not 100% sure.  Even if you hate country music, the quote still applies.

What I believe it means is that when you write a song, it needs to smack of something real.  Does that mean you can't write things you make up?  Of course not.  But it does mean that the most important truths in your song have to get presented in such a way that they seem true. How do you do that? 

The most powerful way I know to accomplish this is to start with something I know really happened.  If I start with something from real life, it puts my mind into "true story" mode.  And I write with the flavor of truth, even if I'm making up other details for the benefit of my story.

Let's look at a few examples.  I'll write some "first lines" and then tell you the story each one came from.

My Daddy's voice trembled on the phone, he just said "she's alright"
"The doctor said it went well, but we'll know more by tonight"

I was in Michigan on business and I got the call that my daughter had fallen off her bike and gashed her upper thigh down to the main artery.  (She was just fine after some critical surgery.)  My first line above came from that very real phone call, but it was from my wife about my daughter.  The sense of reality stays intact even though I changed it to be a call from my Dad about my Mom--a call which never happened.

Here's another...

Everyone seemed so tiny
Nothing like when she was here 12 years before
She heard a child say "Miss April!"
As she toted her book sack through those double doors

I visited my old elementary school once, while I was in college.  The thing that struck me was how little everything was.  My memory was stamped with a much larger picture from my 6th grade years.  I thought of that experience to get the lines above.

Here's another one...

He dialed that girl's number for the fifteenth time
But this time he let it ring
When he heard her voice on the other end
He couldn't think of a single thing
To say

Once in college, I remember trying to get the courage to call a cute girl.  I'd dial the phone and hang up, dial and hang up.  Once she answered, I talked, but I don't remember what I said.  I just remember she turned me down for the date...

Ok, I'm not saying any of the above are hit songs...just quick first drafts, pulled at random from my failing memory.  But you have to admit that they sound real. That's because they were, and so they smelled like the truth.

Check out my ebook, Strong Songwriting by clicking here.
 
Keep writing,
Morgan Cryar


Strong SongWriting
849 Forest Acres Dr.
Nashville, TN
37220
US