How do you use different writing techniques?

[AmbiguousStoryteller]

So, there are some things I have been experimenting with: mostly musical lyrics and mystery.

I will start with the music portion.

So how do you write lyrics if you write lyrics?
I've been thinking about this as I have a few ideas for a band RP and an 8 mile style RP. So how would you write your lyrics.
Just as quotes?
Would you write them like a stanza?
Would you use some sort of symbol?

For mystery, I wonder how you control the pace and how you set out the clues for the character(s) to find.
I am struggling with this one because I sometimes have a fast pace in the movement of scenes, but sometimes I like to linger.

 

[Lady Irony]

As far as song lyrics and poetry I sometimes get whimsical or metaphoric, trying to create moods with words. Hard to explain but I don't always like to just spell things out in a plain manner.

And yes stanza's or verses.

For RP or stories it depends, I like to bring the characters to life, I like conflict and depth. I also like pace and if it is erotica than I don't like to have pages of nothing that people will most likely skim past to get to the sexy. I like to try and combine story telling and action.

I also like subtext where possible.

 

[RedRose]

Basically like Irony. Lit master here, I LOVE different styles for different writings

 

[Cloverbeast]

Outright thievery ain’t cool, but imitation can be real helpful. Artists of the doodling variety can use references, and so can we of the written word.

Got a favorite mystery novelist? Great! How do they make scenes go faster or slower? I know for action or brevity a lot of folks like to use shorter sentences to convey urgency and save more exposition for slower scenes.

Putting lyrics into a scene for emotion or whatever? Any way you want to do it is fine. I find many folk use a couple of stanzas italicized and centered in the post breaking up the paragraph.

As long as your writing partner likes it, there’s no way to go wrong. You’ll find what works for you.

 

[Trussed Maiden]

As far as pace goes, I think kinda planning the exchange can be important. Ie, the sort of ground that is covered in an exchange. In that way you'd know if you want to cover something immediately or save it 2-3 posts out, which can be thought of, if tricky to time right.

 

[Lady Irony]

I'm a big fan of old films as in 1920's through to 1950's. In those films, usually due to censorship, they weren't able to just show things like they do now or blatantly mention everything.

That has always fascinated me as in some films, they just manage to create this sense that something else is going on even though they never say or show it. In the 1953 Western "Shane" about a wandering gunslinger who stays with a homestead family, there is this vibe that the main character Shane, has the hots for the wife and the wife feels the same way. They just have this curious tension between them. But during the film they never do anything, that we see anyway. But that element of mystery is so much more powerful than knowing for sure either way.

In "Waterloo Bridge" from 1940, a young dancer takes up prostitution but that word or similar is never used at all. We never see her doing anything with any men but we know what she has been doing.

So those influences make me enjoy slow burn and just not always being so blatant or crude about everything.

Same goes for old rock n' roll lyrics, they couldn't just say "I wanna fuck you" like they do now, they came up with so many metaphors for sex and desire etc some creative, some silly or stupid. I think having some restraints makes you a better writer.

 

[Saiya]

With lyrics the great thing is there are so many techniques you can use. If you are musically inclined it can be easy for you to use a rhythm or a beat to get a flow for your words. If you are lie me... its not your specialty though so thats probably not the best way to do it.

The great part about writing is that how a person reads something varies so in many ways you can get people to read something in a more lyrical way just by emphasizing the fact it is. Using Alliteration or Rhyming words is a great way to help get your words to come off musical. Symbolism or the use of a metaphor is great as well. The use of adjectives much like when you are describing something really can help.

Its good if you know poetry to try and keep the lines flowing not overly long. If the point you are making is a long sentence make it in a way that it can be broken down in parts with each section able to deliver some piece of information you want to emphasize. Really dive into poetry and it can help a lot with the lyrical side in which you can help make your writing flow better for it and allow the reader's imagination to carry out the hard work for you.

Mysteries on the other hand... the most important thing is to set up things beforehand. You don't want to give away the mystery but having details that might seem irrelevent early on that can come out later as something to reflect on it.

For example the party might stop at some old tavern called the sleeping dog. Nothing really that noteworthy just an old location. Now they go on further and end up discovering perhaps the person whose treasure they are attempting to fine use to have a dog they adored, always running off to nap on him under a tree. Something he adored. Players could put two and two together and realize "oh that tavern wasn't it called the sleeping dog?" and from there it could start them off in a certain direction. Not the most complicated example but setting up pieces early on that hold some relevance later on whether directly or a bit more indirectly with the mystery going on is the biggest way of getting people really immersed into it.

 

[Archdemon]

I can't talk about lyrics, but I can tell you a few things about other techniques?

To make dialogue seem more natural, use colloquialisms, regional lexis, and slang. Consider removing certain parts of grammar (especially from the start of sentences), because people don't tend to talk rigidly. Try using em dash when someone's being interrupted. Consider overlapping voices to make conversations seem more natural. (e.g. Ever notice how at a dinner table, people have more than one conversation? Well, by writing dialogue that goes: Character A talks to Character B but Character C talks to Character D before Character B answers Character A, you create a very interesting round-table effect.)

''So how are you today anyway⁠—''
''Mister Jackson said I was going to get an A on the test⁠—''
''Yeah, I'm good thanks, what about you⁠—''
''Are you serious? I'm only getting B's!''

Experimenting with your prose can lead into some interesting effects. What I do personally is read books in the tense I want to write in, (usually third-person limited), and then copy certain stylistics effects I can see happening in the work. If one scene strikes me in particular, I will read it twice, then put the book aside and attempt to copy it exactly. By doing this, you force your brain to re-imagine the same effect. After trying once or twice, you essentially add it to your toolkit.

Of course, this does take work. So you have to be prepared to have a separate notebook just for this practice.

(I'll be back with more later!)

As promised:

One thing to do is pick up a celebrated book with easily-accessible prose, like Harry Potter for instance, and then see how the author writes a scene.

J.K. Rowling, for example, almost always begins her chapters with a one-two paragraph description of the state of the Hogwart's grounds. She shows how the weather has changed, hinting at what season it is (and how close the characters are to playing Quidditch) and also foreshadows whether the chapter will be light or dark in tone through the use of imagery.

If you watch Alfonzo Cuaron's The Prisoner of Azkaban, he uses the exact same effect once the viewer gets to Hogwarts. You fly over the grounds in the eyes of a swallow, which is eventually killed by the Whomping Willow. The Whomping Willow is the final destination of the movie, where the characters see Remus turn into a werewolf and Sirius drags Ron down a hole. Likewise, the swallow follows the exact same path the characters do during their journey that year. (Now that's foreshadowing. The first scene literally mirrors the climax of the movie. And the swallow shows you where you'll be going.)

The rest of her chapter is pretty much made up of dialogue and sparse active verbs. Don't believe me? Pick up a Harry Potter book and take a look! There's a lot of talking in Harry Potter and very few scenes where the characters are ever alone. The plot's always moving, shifting, like the school itself. One way Rowling achieves this is by using the four-character method. Which means there are always at least four characters in any given scene, actively pushing each other towards the story's conclusion. (Ron, Harry, Hermione, and whoever they need to interact with next; e.g Professors or Rivals.) Obviously, there's exceptions to this when the plot demands it, but in general they're very talky books.

What I'm saying is, studying other successful literature can be a great way to learn how other writers do it. J.K. followed the same formula, beat by beat, right up until the last two novels.

Btw, if you're wondering why I'm using Rowling as an example, The Sorcerer's Stone is still on the Amazon bestseller list today. That's insane. Most books, even the bestsellers, trickle off to around 5-10 downloads a day. She's still making hand over fist from a book she published in 1997. ()

One of my biggest inspirations that changed my writing personally was Hemingway. Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises is the book to help any writer clean up is/her prose. (Remember: A book's plot is irrelevant when you're studying craft, unless you're studying... well, plot. But if you're looking for how to improve your writing line by line, to the very sentences themselves, Hemingway's the man. If you want to learn how to write plot, then you'd look at someone like Rowling.)

If you want to know about any techniques specifically, I'd be happy to send you some source material/give you some advice. There's literally too much for me to go into without knowing what you want. So let me know! I can tell you about:

• Fight scenes.
• Arcs.
• Internal dialogue.
• Characterisation.
• Showing versus telling.
• The four different kinds of stories we tell ourselves.
• The hero's journey.
• Dialogue.
• Dan Harmon's story circle.

By the way, I also threw a light guide to Creative Writing up on Reddit r/Fantasy a few months back that got a few awards/a couple hundred up-votes before the mods removed it. If you want I can copy-paste you the raw text? There's some gems in there for sure!