What the Stages of Writing and Musical Tempo Have in Common

Photo credit to Manuel Nägeli on Unsplash.

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Something that not all of you may know is that in addition to being an author, I am also a string musician - I’ve played violin for over a decade now. While speeding up a piece with my chamber group recently, I thought of an analogy to writing a novel (especially with the teaching method in the Author Conservatory) that I felt inclined to share.

Now, when writing a novel or doing really anything in life, there are typically stages to the process. We get and choose our ideas, we flesh out our details, we begin to shape the story, and then we implement and edit.

When I first joined the Conservatory and learned that students would be required to go through a certain amount of stages in a certain order, I wasn’t sure what it would be like, or if I’d like it because I love writing stories 'by the seat of my pants'. But even through my short months in the program so far, I’ve found that there is a beauty in outlinting and going through the fundamentals with intentionality and constant professional feedback.

And taking it slowly, sometimes feeling frustrated and like you just want to move on, go faster, is exactly what a musician can experience with bringing up the tempo on a musical piece.

In general, musicians often start off practicing pieces slower than what the final tempo needs to be. This allows them to make sure their intonation and rhythm is correct before they launch in. Once they feel relatively confident at the slower tempo, they can bump up the metronome a little bit and then practice that much faster. And so forth, and so forth until the piece is where it should be, and the musician has a solid and firm grasp on the piece.

While they are practicing and slowly bumping the metronome up, this musician probably feels that things are going slowly - at least from time to time. The actual practice can be grueling and frustrating, and it might feel like they’re not going far. But at the end, when the piece is finished, they look back and realize just how far and fast they’ve come from the initial tempo.

Such is the case with writing, and especially with the Author Conservatory’s teaching method. It might feel daunting and frustrating to have to slowly work through the stages of concepts, character arcs, synopsis, outline, drafting, editing, but each step is taking the writer a little farther, each one is a little harder, and in the end when they have their finished book, they’ll realize just how far and soundly they’ve come.

In conclusion, I am not saying that you have to work through all the stages that I mentioned above before you start - my last novel was written completely by the seat of my pants, with not much beforehand planning involved at all. But I am saying that there is a beauty and benefit to the method of slow intentionality and building up of speed overtime. And that applies not only to writing and music, but to life in general as well.