I'm going to be honest: the quality of writing in this forum, for the most part, is terrible. No, this is not a thread I made to offend our entire userbase, it's a thread to help you starting writers out, because the reason many of the writers on this board are not good is that the majority of them are new to writing altogether, or have little to no experience. This is the big guide for aspiring writers of all experiences.
Part 1 - Basics
Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: lyrics are a form of poetry. Yes, you could have a hit song with your rock band chock full of sexual innuendos and macho crap, but this forum is for the songwriters who actually want to write better poetic material, not those who want to write the next hit on the charts. The truth is, lyrics really are just poems put to music. They don't have to rhyme, they don't have to follow a specific form, they don't even have to make sense (though if they don't they won't be any good). Don't go into writing thinking there is a set "writing style" you have to follow because all that should concern a good writer are the basic poetic ideas and his/her own feelings.
Now, I suggest you learn about the fundamentals of poetry if you haven't already. From Wikipedia (this is huge, but necessary):
Quote:
Elements
Poetry consists of the author and the author's inner self. It consists of the reader and the reader's interpretation. All a poem needs to become a poem is an author and a reader.
Sound
Perhaps the most vital element of sound in poetry is rhythm. Often the rhythm of each line is arranged in a particular meter. Different types of meter played key roles in Classical, Early European, Eastern and Modern poetry. In the case of free verse, the rhythm of lines is often organized into looser units of cadence. Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore, and William Carlos Williams were three notable poets who rejected the idea that meter was a critical element of poetry, claiming it was an unnatural imposition into poetry.
Poetry in English and other modern European languages often uses rhyme. Rhyme at the end of lines is the basis of a number of common poetic forms, such as ballads, sonnets and rhyming couplets. However, the use of rhyme is not universal. Much modern poetry avoids traditional rhyme schemes. Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not use rhyme. Rhyme did not enter European poetry until the High Middle Ages, when adopted from the Arabic language. Arabs have always used rhymes extensively, most notably in their long, rhyming qasidas. Some classical poetry forms, such as Venpa of the Tamil language, had rigid grammars (to the point that they could be expressed as a context-free grammar), which ensured a rhythm. Alliteration played a key role in structuring early Germanic and English forms of poetry, alliterative verse. The alliterative patterns of early Germanic poetry and the rhyme schemes of Modern European poetry include meter as a key part of their structure, which determines when the listener expects instances of rhyme or alliteration to occur. Alliteration and rhyme, when used in poetic structures, help emphasise and define a rhythmic pattern. By contrast, the chief device of Biblical poetry in ancient Hebrew was parallelism, a rhetorical structure in which successive lines reflected each other in grammatical structure, sound structure, notional content, or all three; which lent itself to antiphonal or call-and-response performance.
Sound plays a more subtle role in free verse poetry by creating pleasing, varied patterns and emphasizing or illustrating semantic elements of the poem. Alliteration, assonance, consonance, dissonance and internal rhyme are among the ways poets use sound. Euphony refers to the musical, flowing quality of words arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way.
A Poem is a song without rhythm.
An art piece without a canvas.
Form
Poetry depends less on linguistic units of sentences and paragraphs. The structural elements are the line, couplet, strophe, stanza, and verse paragraph.
Lines may be self-contained units of sense, as in the well-known lines from William Shakespeare's Hamlet:
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
Alternatively a line may end in mid-phrase or sentence:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
this linguistic unit is completed in the next line,
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
This technique is called enjambment, and is used to create expectation, adding dynamic tension to the verse.
In many instances, the effectiveness of a poem derives from the tension between the use of linguistic and formal units. With the advent of printing, poets gained greater control over the visual presentation of their work. As a result, the use of these formal elements, and of the white space they help create, became an important part of the poet's toolbox. Modernist poetry tends to take this to an extreme, with the placement of individual lines or groups of lines on the page forming an integral part of the poem's composition. In its most extreme form, this leads to concrete poetry.
Rhetoric
Rhetorical devices such as simile and metaphor are frequently used in poetry. Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor". Since the rise of Modernism, some poets have opted for reduced use of these devices, attempting the direct presentation of things and experiences. Surrealists have pushed rhetorical devices to their limits, making frequent use of catachresis.
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These are the most basic elements of poetry; it would be wise to look up any you don't understand, because explaining them all would take forever. Understanding many of them is crucial to becoming a better writer; without the conceptualizing of these basic ideas you are equivalent to a brain surgeon without any form of medical education (that's called a simile, look it up). Using the basic tools of poetry and even writing itself (grammar, vocabulary) is imperative if you want to write anything meaningful, so at least have a firm grasp on your own language and how to use it. (It also helps to check [url=http://www.sputnikmusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=405163]ATC's other guide[/url] on some standard techniques.)
Do your research and it will definitely pay off. The best way to do this aside from looking up poetic essentials in a schoolbook is to actively read poetry (literature always helps too). Find writers you enjoy because reading and analyzing their work will allow you to understand why what they write is effective. Yes, this also includes songwriters, but it should be mentioned that the majority of songwriters have no clue what they are doing and are often times not poetic in the slightest (the more popular and generic ones usually end up utilizing the basic pitfalls I'll mention in the next section). You may feel whatever you do when hearing the song, but you'll know a good writer when you can read a set of lyrics from a song you've never heard and they have that poetic effect that a good poem can give you.
Part 2 - Pitfalls
Every new writer makes mistakes, and they usually learn from them the hard way (i.e. getting criticized quite harshly). If you are familiar with the most common mistakes beforehand, however, it is possible to avoid them. Let's run through the most common issues with new writing (this will take a while):
Clichés:
These are the big no-no. They are also very confusing to most new writers, because many do not undertsand the problem with clichés to begin with.
Clichés are, simply put, words and phrases that have been used since the beginning of poetry. They are old. They are stale. They are dull. And worst of all, they are easy to avoid.
Here's the easiest way to not use clichés: ask yourself if what you're writing is novel or really means anything. Songs/poems about broken hearts, love (or the lack thereof), or pure sadness are BORING. This is not to say your writing can't concern these things. What it means is that if you are writing something and it is only about these things that have been written by thousands of bad writers countless times before, you should take a step back and find a different approach.
Here's a basic guideline for starting out. If it sounds overly corny or cheesy, cut it. If you've heard a phrase you're using used a billion times before, cut it. Some phrases are above this if used in the right context, but chances are that if you're new to writing, you will use them wrong. Just try not too be too angsty or typical.
(continued in next post)