Listen to what you write - Ten ways to develop style

100 ways to improve your writing - Gary Provost 2019

Listen to what you write
Ten ways to develop style

Writing is not a visual art any more than composing music is a visual art.

To write is to create music. The words you write make sounds, and when those sounds are in harmony, the writing will work.

So think of your writing as music. Your story might sound like the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, or it might sound like “Satisfaction.” You decide. But give it unity. It should not sound like a musical battle between the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra and the Rolling Stones.

Read aloud what you write and listen to its music. Listen for dissonance. Listen for the beat. Listen for gaps where the music leaps from sound to sound instead of flowing as it should. Listen for sour notes. Is this word a little sharp, is that one a bit flat? Listen for instruments that don’t blend well. Is there an electric guitar shrieking amid the whispers of flutes and violins? Imagine the sound of each word as an object falling onto the eardrum. Does it make a soft landing like the word ripple, or does it land hard and dig in like inexorable? Does it cut off all sound for an instant, like brutal, or does it massage the reader’s ear, like melodious?

There are no good sounds or bad sounds, just as there are no good notes or bad notes in music. It is the way in which you combine them that can make the writing succeed or fail. It’s the music that matters.