Viewpoint, Voice, Time Frame, and Setting
8 key points to fix your VVTS
Stepping into the world of full-time songwriting after leaving my corporate career, I quickly realised the vital importance of lyrics. More clearly than ever, I saw how it is through the words that we truly connect with listeners on a deep emotional level.
This focus on crafting lyrics that resonate emotionally is crucial for writing compelling, commercially successful songs that impact a broad audience.
One fundamental principle that underpins effective lyric writing is maintaining your viewpoint. Staying consistent within that framework is crucial for clarity and impact once you've established the perspective from which your song's story is told.
For example, imagine starting a film seeing through the eyes of one character, then suddenly switching to an overhead shot, then jumping into another character's thoughts without explanation. It would be jarring and confusing, right?
The same applies to songs. A clear, consistent viewpoint helps the listener follow the narrative, understand the emotional context, and connect more deeply with your message.
In this post, we'll explore why mastering and maintaining your viewpoint is essential for crafting compelling lyrics and how it fits into the larger process of wordsmithing. We'll delve into different facets of viewpoint and related concepts to help you ensure your songs are clear, engaging, and resonate with your audience.
Here are the key areas I'll cover:
What is Viewpoint?
Delving into Voice
Establishing Time and Place: The Foundation of Setting
The Power of Consistency: Why Maintaining Your Viewpoint Matters
Viewpoint, Storytelling, and Vivid Imagery
The Commercial Edge of Clarity
Finding Your Unique Perspective
Practice, Planning, and the Process
Let’s get cracking.
1. What is Viewpoint?
Viewpoint, also known as point of view, refers to the narrative perspective from which your story is told – essentially, the "eyes" of your story.
There are three primary viewpoints you can use in songwriting:
First Person: Uses "I" or "We". This is a very common viewpoint, especially for artists writing from their own experience or assuming a persona. It offers an intimate, internal perspective, sharing thoughts and feelings directly. Like I’m writing here!
Second Person: Uses "You". The "you" can refer to a specific person being addressed ("a particular you"), or it can be directed at the listener or a general audience ("the collective you"). Be mindful when addressing the "collective you" not to sound preachy; audiences prefer to overhear advice rather than be sermonized.
Third Person: Uses "He," "She," "They," or often refers to a group or collective entity. In this viewpoint, the narrator stands outside the story, reporting the news or observing the characters. The third person can be handy for handling subject matter with a degree of detachment or portraying characters in an unsympathetic light without the singer having to merge with them.
Choosing the right viewpoint is an early decision in the songwriting process. Noticing the point of view you're using allows you to experiment with changing pronouns to see how it affects the song's delivery and the connection you create.
2. Delving into Voice
Closely linked to viewpoint is the concept of Voice. The Voice refers to whether the singer is talking to someone ("talking voice") or merely thinking out loud ("thinking voice").
Thinking Voice: In this mode, the singer is reflecting on an experience or emotional state or mentally addressing an absent person, place, or thing. The audience is essentially privy to the singer's internal monologue or thoughts.
Talking Voice: Here, the singer is engaged in a face-to-face conversation with someone. The audience is overhearing a dialogue.
How you handle Viewpoint and Voice are intertwined. For instance,
A second-person viewpoint lyric can use either a thinking voice (mentally addressing an absent "you") or
A talking voice (addressing someone present).
Regardless of the choice, maintaining consistency in the singer's voice throughout the lyric is important. If you're writing a talking lyric, ensure the dialogue sounds consistently conversational to make it convincing.
3. Establishing Time and Place: The Foundation of Setting
Beyond who is telling the story (Viewpoint) and how they are communicating it (Voice), two other fundamental elements form the "spine" of your lyric's story: Time Frame and Setting.
Time Frame: This refers to the time the action is set – past, present, or future.
Setting: This is the place where the lyric happens – a specific or implied location.
For much of a lyric, the Time Frame and Setting usually remain constant. Story songs are an exception, where changes in time or place are not unusual, but these transitions need to be made clear to the listener.
Scene-setting is a technique that can engage the listener right from the start, introducing the character(s) and the world they inhabit. This involves establishing the point in time and the place where the song is happening, often in the first verse. Using exercises like sensory writing, focusing on details you can see, feel, taste, smell, and hear, can help you set a vivid scene. This is related to the concept of Destination Writing, which uses your senses to write creatively about a place, person, or time, helping you discover phrases and topics that become central ideas.
Vantage point is described as the moment in time from which the singer is telling the story. From this secure point, you can look back or forward in time in different sections, giving the song a clear purpose for being sung "right now" and ensuring the listener gets the full story needed to feel strongly about the message.
4. The Power of Consistency: Why Maintaining Your Viewpoint Matters
This brings us to the core principle: consistency. Once you make the four key decisions regarding your lyrics –
Viewpoint
Voice
Time Frame, and
Setting
This is sometimes referred to in Sheila Davis’s books as getting a "fix on the VVTS" and is crucial to maintaining them.
Maintaining a consistent viewpoint is described as a basic principle of good writing. The downside of inconsistency is confusion and incoherence for the listener. For instance, if your lyric starts out speaking from the third person but shifts to the first person in a later section, the audience can easily become befuddled. Similarly, inattention to the singer's voice can lead to disjointed lyrics. If anything changes within these four elements – Viewpoint, Voice, Time Frame, or Setting – you must make that change clear to the listener.
Confusing the listener is a common pitfall for early songwriters. Publishers might provide feedback like, "It's not clear who the characters are, what's happening to whom, or when it's happening". This lack of clarity makes it difficult for the listener to feel connected. The writer's success in making the listener feel like an active participant in the story, able to experience the surroundings and feelings of the main character, depends on this clarity. If you don't feel connected as a listener, clarifying the "who, when, and where" often makes that connection possible. Easy-to-follow lyrics keep your audience listening.
Overwriting, or cramming too many ideas into a song, can contribute to this lack of clarity, making the songwriter hazy about their message and the listener only mildly moved. Consistency in viewpoint, voice, time frame, and setting helps tame your ideas and weave them into the song rather than stamping them on the listener's forehead. Like a movie slowly feeding you the plot, a song should lure the listener along, rewarding them for following.
5. Viewpoint, Storytelling, and Vivid Imagery
Viewpoint is integral to storytelling in lyrics. By choosing a perspective, you define whose eyes the listener is seeing through and whose experience they are sharing. This directly impacts the effectiveness of your imagery.
Using vivid imagery and action is one of the most effective tools for creating engaging lyrics. This means using specific verbs and adjectives to paint clearer pictures and make the listener feel like an active participant in the story. Instead of telling the listener about an emotion, show them the details of the experience that convey that emotion. This technique, often called "Show, Don't Tell," makes a more meaningful connection, see more here.
A consistent viewpoint provides a stable anchor for this descriptive language. Writing from a first-person perspective, for example, allows you to describe specific moments and sensations that shape that character's unique vantage point. Destination Writing, which involves writing from the perspective of a place, person, or time using sensory details, relies heavily on establishing this specific perspective to draw the audience in. The six keys of connection – touch, taste, sight, smell, sound, movement – are the building blocks for this sensory detail.
When the listener can clearly understand who is experiencing these senses, where they are, and when it's happening, the imagery becomes much more powerful and immersive.
6. The Commercial Edge of Clarity
In commercial songwriting, clarity is paramount. Hit songs often have patterns within their content, and knowing these patterns is critical. One such pattern is focusing on a central theme or message – the "ONE BIG THING". A clear, strong central theme guides the listener through a cohesive narrative or emotional journey.
Maintaining a consistent viewpoint supports this "ONE BIG THING". It ensures that the core idea, often encapsulated in the title, is consistently developed and reflected throughout the lyric. When the lyric captures the title's essence in each section, it strengthens the overall message and makes the song easier for listeners to follow and remember.
A song with a focused central theme and a clear viewpoint is not only easier to follow but also more relatable and emotionally resonant. When listeners can connect with the core message, they are more likely to remember and appreciate the song. By keeping the listener's perspective in mind, you ensure your song is not just art but also effective communication. Commercial songwriting is ultimately about getting that "ONE BIG THING" across to the listener.
Clarity in viewpoint helps deliver this emotional punch.
7. Finding Your Unique Perspective
While adhering to principles like maintaining viewpoint might sound restrictive, it actually creates a framework within which your unique artistic voice can shine (see more here). Developing your talent involves learning technique. Songwriting tools and principles offer creative parameters. Within these parameters, you can express your ideas with an artistic voice that is as unique as you are.
Your unique voice is what can make your music stand out. This isn't necessarily about having a great singing voice, but about revealing your unique perspective through your lyrics. Great songwriting comes from openness, vulnerability, and honesty. Describing specific moments and sensations from your one-of-a-kind vantage point allows your unique voice to come through.
Interestingly, the more intimate and specific your lyrics are from your unique viewpoint, the more universal they often become. By turning your personal experiences into things that resonate with listeners, you allow them to connect their own lives to the song's emotions or themes [previous conversation]. This is the power of "Universalizing", see more here. Committing wholly to the inherent vibes and unique perspective you started with produces authentic, coherent songs with that magical resonance. Your unique perspective is invaluable.
8. Practice, Planning, and the Process
Becoming a skilled songwriter, adept at managing viewpoint and other techniques, is a journey marked by writing, recording, and releasing songs. A large part of becoming a pro-songwriter is simply the act of showing up and doing the work. Setting parameters around regular habits, such as timed writing sessions, helps growth occur.
Planning plays a significant role; a little planning goes a long, long way. When you start writing a song, outline what you want to say and keep that central idea in mind. This includes establishing the viewpoint, voice, time frame, and setting early on. Writing a short script outline covering who is singing, the viewpoint, the voice, where the singer is, and what time it is can help you make sure your song makes sense.
Understanding your own process is key. Some writers prefer to start with the chorus (a "back to front" approach - see more here), which helps ensure the whole song revolves around the central idea. Others may work through a more linear process, like the 10-Step Process described by Andrea Stolpe in her brilliant book, Popular Lyric Writing, which includes –
Destination-write
Find rhyme pairs
Choose a rhyme scheme and toggling pattern
Add prepositions and conjunctions
Choose a plot progression
Destination-write again using thought/feeling language
Look for titles and write the chorus
Write a second verse and pre-chorus
Write the bridge
Assess verbs, tense, and point of view, and conversational quality
Assessing your viewpoint is part of the final steps in refining your lyrics.
In Summary
Crafting compelling lyrics involves a delicate balance of art and strategy. Establishing and consistently maintaining your lyric's viewpoint, voice, time frame, and setting provides a clear framework for your ideas. This consistency is vital for creating lyrics that are easy for the listener to follow, understand, and connect emotionally.
Consistently maintaining your lyric's viewpoint, voice, time frame, and setting
By ensuring clarity on "who," "where," and "when", you help the listener feel like an active participant in the story, making your vivid imagery and storytelling more impactful.
This clarity also serves the "ONE BIG THING" of your song, making it more memorable and marketable. Within this structure, your unique perspective and voice can transform personal experiences into universal truths that resonate deeply. Ultimately, mastering viewpoint control is a key skill for transforming your ideas into compelling, professional lyrics.
Questions
Here are a few questions you might want to think about:
Have you clearly established your lyric's viewpoint, voice, time frame, and setting in the opening lines, and are you maintaining consistency throughout?
Are you using specific sensory details from your chosen viewpoint to "show, don't tell" and immerse the listener in the song's experience?
How does your chosen viewpoint allow your unique perspective to shine through while still making the song's core message relatable to a broad audience?
Hope this helps!
Simon.