Reader Question: How to develop a sense of ‘rhythm’ in my writing?

From Adam:

I am a huge fan of Aaron Sorkin’s writing. And I feel like part of acquiring your own voice is to emulate the writing you admire (to an extent), but at some point I think it’s important to understand the nature of the tools you’re using. For instance, I believe I have an ear for dialogue. I often aim to make my dialogue “dance”, but I’m not really sure how I’m doing it. I haven’t had any formal education in language beyond high school, and I’m not really sure where to start. My instincts tell me that (Aristotle’s) Poetics, or even Rhetoric would be helpful, but I find the material dense. I’m also particularly impatient when it comes to analyzing poetry, but maybe if I had some sort of companion resource to help me understand the rhythm, I wouldn’t have such a hard time with it. Any suggestions?

Adam, you’re certainly not alone in your adoration of Aaron Sorkin’s writing. I suspect we’re all pretty much excited about this Sorkin penned project:

Re rhythm, I have four suggestions. First take Sorkin’s scripts (and other of your favorites) and type them out, page by page. I’ve read that Felix Mendelssohn hand copied J.S. Bach manuscripts and F. Scott Fitzgerald hand copied Charles Dickens’ novels. Apparently it worked for them. Why not you? Here are links to many Sorkin scripts:

A Few Good Men

The American President

Charlie Wilson’s War

The latter is a PDF. If you scout around, I’m sure you can find PDF versions of the other two.

If you want to focus on dialogue, you can go here to find transcripts of all the episodes of “The West Wing”.

The value of typing out or hand copying a great script is that the process will force you to pay attention to what’s going on with the words and sentences. And I have to believe there’s a certain amount of unconscious learning goes on as well, perhaps even a feel for the rhythm of a story. Laborious, yes, but possibly helpful.

Another suggestion: Read scripts aloud. All of it, scene description and dialogue. Pay attention to your energy as you read. Where are you up, where are you down. Note those moments, then consider the scene or sequence. What’s going on there that caused you to react the way you did? More than likely, you’ll begin to see how the writer managed the pace of the story, which is tied directly to its rhythm.

A third suggestion: Take a favorite script and do a scene-by-scene breakdown. Just what it sounds like, note each scene in order per pages. I posted for one I did for Shakespeare in Love here. The value in doing a scene-by-scene breakdown is that you can see the actual building blocks of the story — the scenes — laid out, one after the other, and start to see how the structure plays out in terms of rhythm (e.g., day scenes after nights scenes, action scenes followed by interaction scenes, cross cuts between subplots, etc).

Finally you mention poetry. One of my best longtime friends is the poet Kurt Brown. He just got an amazing review of his latest book, a collection of poems called “No Other Paradise”. For years, Kurt harangued me to start reading poetry. He sent me book after book. Finally about 6 years ago, I began reading a poem a day. It was supremely easy to do: I signed up for a daily email from The Writer’s Almanac. Each post starts off with a poem.

I didn’t read any criticism. No theory. Just a direct experience with the primary sources — the poems themselves.

Over time, I noticed some things that I thought had direct relevance to writing scene description. First that many poems take a moment — a feather floating through the sky, a cat sleeping on a porch, a rusting car by the side of the road — and delve into that moment to find a world of meaning. That has helped me in my own writing to dig more deeply into each scene I write. Second I saw how great poets can combine words to create incredible visual and emotional reactions in the reader. Not only that, a few words. They have to take such care with each word, finding just the right ones. Minimum words, maximum impact. That has become a mantra for me in terms of scene description, and one reason why I think SD is much more like poetry than prose. Finally there may be no better form of writing that relies on rhythm than poetry. Go to a poetry reading. When the author reads their poems, you really can feel the rhythm of their work.

You can go here to download audio clips of Billy Collins reading his poetry.

You can go here to download audio clips of Stephen Dunn reading his poetry.

You can go here to download audio clips of Stanley Kunitz reading his poetry.

All three are Pulitzer Prize-winning poets and some of my favorites. Listen to them. Feel the rhythm of their words.

And how about this: Maybe it’s time for you to start writing some poetry… to get the feel of rhythm that way.

For more, here are a couple of GITS posts:

Scene description as poetry

American Beauty and The Sixth Sense: Good ‘poetic’ writing

As usual, I’m sure the most excellent GITS community will have advice for you as well, Adam. I look forward to reading their comments as well.

Let’s end with a poem from my friend Kurt called “Fisherman”:

A man spends his whole life fishing in himself
for something grand. It’s like some lost lunker, big enough
to break all records. But he’s only heard rumors, myths,
vague promises of wonder. He’s only felt the shadow
of something enormous darken his life. Or has he?
Maybe it’s the shadow of other fish, greater than his,
the shadow of other men’s souls passing over him.
Each day he grabs his gear and makes his way
to the ocean. At least he’s sure of that: or is he? Is it the ocean
or the little puddle of his tears? Is this his dinghy
or the frayed boards of his ego, scoured by storm?
He shoves off, feeling the land fall away under his boots.
Soon he’s drifting under clouds, wind whispering blandishments
in his ears. It could be today: the water heaves
and settles like a chest. . . He’s not far out.
It’s all so pleasant, so comforting — the sunlight,
the waves. He’ll go back soon, thinking: “Maybe tonight.”
Night with its concealments, its shadow masking all other shadows.
Night with its privacies, its alluringly distant stars.

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