Tempo is the rhythm of your writing. To quote one of my favourite authors, Ursula K. Le Guin, "Good prose does have a stress-rhythm, subtle and complex and changing though it may be. Dull prose, clunky narrative, hard-to-read textbook stuff, lacks the rhythm that catches and drives and moves the reader's body and mind and heart. " To see what she means - read the quote out loud - her rhythm is there. The tempo that we write in is like a fingerprint. We all have our own inner song, when we release it, no one could deny it. If you are fairly well-read, you will recognize an author's writing by reading a few sentences.
"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."
"Before them rose Bree hill barring the way, a dark mass against misty stars: and under its western flank nestled a large village. Towards it they now hurried, desiring only to find a fire, and a door between them and the night."
" "Ourselves," she murmured. And retrieving some glint of faith from the grey waters, hopefully, without much help from reason, she followed the fish; the speckled, streaked and blotched; seeing in that vision beauty, power, and glory in ourselves."
Hemingway, Tolkien, and Woolf.
How does one use the idea of tempo in revising? By reading aloud. Every word. Your ear will tell you where it fails. Then go in and see why it is failing. Did you get sleepy at some point? Are you doing an info dump? Both of these will be indicated by what you hear. One of my psychotherapy teachers told his students that when the therapist felt sleepy, the client was spinning a story - not telling a truth. I think the same is true in our writing - if we aren't sure of what we are after, we will write in a plodding or frivolous fashion. Check it out and see if I'm right. I also think that your tempo, your rhythm, holds your style. And style, like your handwriting, arises out of everything you know and feel, and cannot be created, but must grow.
3 comments:
Yes! Tempo! I'm so glad you brought that one up, Jan. I think we all have a unique tempo to our writing, and knowing what it is helps make the writing better. The rhythm and cadence of what we say is a big part of the way we communicate.
This is a very useful and helpful post for me. I often have this gut feeling that something I wrote just sounds wrong or just sounds wrong, but I've never known how to explain that feeling to other people.
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