It's time for another instalment in our mini crash course on Voice!
We've marvelled at the lyrical blows between waring lovers, empathised with heartbreak with a song packed with pathos, and now, the rhythm's gonna get ya as we take on your tempo, or in the world of writing, your cadence.
So what does it mean, this 'cadence?'
It's essentially, the rhythm of your writing. It's whether you use long and flowing prose peppered with perfect punctuation or style your sentences with Short. Sharp. Statements, and how you mix up the two to great effect.
Along with the words you use and the tone of your writing, your natural cadence is as individual as you are.
And as a copywriter looking to emulate your voice, I need to try and match that.
How?
Well, in the words of Lennon–McCartney, We Can Work It Out.
(But before we get to that, it's time for another shameless song segue...)
We Can Work It Out is a great example of what you can do when you play with tempo.
(Enjoy John Lennon pulling faces in a blatant attempt at getting Paul to crack a smile—he's slightly successful, too!)
The track seemingly slows as it goes into the middle-eight (around the 39-second mark) and then Ringo adds emphasis to the beat of each word So, I will |ask you |once |again| as they bring the song back to the original beat.
'Gotta love the Fab Four.
The actual measured tempo of the song doesn't change, but (at George Harrison's suggestion), the time signature switches from your standard four beats to the bar to a more waltz-like three beats, which has the effect of slowing down the track.
And you can speed up and slow down your writing in a similar way.
I recently wrote a piece about the birth of my niece, and I wanted to convey a sense of long, seemingly unending spells of waiting longing for news, followed by a sudden flurry of movement and a burst of excitement.
“I’d stare out of the window, looking down on the hospital car park, transfixed by the steady stream of cars and ambulances flowing in and out.
I read every sign and every poster on the bulletin board and noticed every detail of the barren and featureless waiting room.
All the while, my caffeine-fulled imagination ran riot, filling the information vacuum with countless scenarios, each worse than the one before.
It was like waiting for a job interview, your driving test, and speaking in public combined and multiplied a thousand times.
Until…
Hang on, is that?
It was!
There was my Mam, bouncing towards us, beaming and crying, and almost skipping every step as she made her way along the long hospital corridor.
She’s here! She’s born! Everything went perfectly. Your sister’s been amazing, yes, she’s fine, she’s fine. Tired, but fine. The baby? Oh, the baby’s gorgeous! So small! And her hair? The longest blonde hair I’ve seen on a newborn, she’s precious, she’s tiny, oh just wait ‘till you see her!
The words came tumbling out, the devoted Nana, ready to step into the role she’s been waiting to fulfil since she had her babies, 30-odd years ago. ”
Just by adjusting the sentence length, playing around with punctuation, and adding few carefully chosen verbs, you can increase the energy of your words, keep the rhythm ticking over or slow the pace right down as required.
So how do you work out your cadence? Get your calculator out? Start counting words?
Nope!
The wonderful people at www.analyzemywriting.com have your back.
Here you can see the breakdown of my piece of writing quoted above:
The writing falls into four distinct camps, as I adjust the tempo:
nine of my sentences have between 2 and 5 words
one sentence has twelve words
four sentences have between 20 and 22 words
and three sentences have between 25 and 27 words
As most people write with approximately 13 words per sentence, you can see the impact of switching it up like this, and how it alteres the feel of the writing—this wasn't accidental.
There's more science to creativity than you realise.
So there you have it—lyrics, tone and tempo.
The three components that make up your writing voice.
And once you know your voice, you know how to change it to emulate somebody else's.
It's back to the words of the immortal Mr Williams...
Want me to do yours?