“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”
There’s music in that line. Read it aloud and you’ll hear it. Read it aloud and you may never forget it. That’s the beauty of a well-turned phrase. It takes hold of you and captures your imagination not only because of what it says but also because of how it says it. And it’s the “how” that makes it memorable.
If you’re a literature buff, you may recognize that line as the opening sentence of Rafael Sabatini’s classic tale of adventure, Scaramouche, set at the time of the French Revolution. The line was famous once for its indelibly apt, concise, and eloquent description of the book’s protagonist, André-Louis Moreau. Today, given how little people read anything of substance, let alone classic literature … ah, well … (If you could see me now, you’d see me shaking my head in dismay!)
But I digress. Getting back to my theme …
Sabatini was a master storyteller – quite successful in his lifetime (1875–1950) – and a supremely gifted prose stylist. What’s noteworthy about that is, English wasn’t his first language. A native of Italy, born of an Italian father and an English mother, he was raised in England and chose to write in English because he believed the best tales were told in that language.
On the evidence, actually, a number of foreign-born writers who adopted English later in life proved extraordinarily expressive in it. Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim) comes to mind – as do Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita) and Isak Dinesen (the alias of Karen Blixen, famed primarily for her memoir, Out of Africa). The facility these authors had with the language is revealed in the richness, the liveliness, the playful experimentation of their prose. Theirs is writing that sings. And its musicality renders it at once compelling and unforgettable.
Certainly, other writers working in various genres and with different levels of diction exhibit a skill for writing “musical” prose. But not many. Skim just about any contemporary work of fiction or journalism and you’ll see what I mean. The writing is competent. It says what it means to say coherently and intelligently enough. Maybe it’s even emotionally engaging. What it lacks, though, is the kind of rhythm, meter, and melody that makes the message stick with you. That’s what prose styling is all about.
But is prose styling of any real value in marketing? Isn’t the kind of musicality I’m talking about better suited to poetry and fiction? Isn’t it a little too – what? – “froufrou” for copy simply meant to sell a product or service?
In a word: no. If more marketers paid attention to the musicality of their copy, they might actually make an impression on their audience that leads to more sales.
How does a writer achieve musicality?
First, you choose words not only for their denotative and connotative meanings (which should, of course, be your primary concern) but also for their length, their phonetic attributes, the number of syllables they comprise, which syllables are stressed – and how all these factors relate one word to another in a string of words.
What you’re doing is paying attention to the rhythm and meter – the “beat” – of each sentence you construct, as well as its melody, or pleasing sound (euphony). No, prose isn’t poetry. But it can produce poetic effects, which can be a great aid in reader comprehension and retention.
Take that sentence from Sabatini: “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.” Its construction is very poetic, exhibiting a marked and recurring rhythm. In metrical terms, the sentence consists of five anapestic feet and a closing iamb. That’s more than you wanted to know, right?
The point is (to state the case once again), that distinctive rhythm, that meter, that musicality is key to the sentence’s appeal and memorability.
Of course, the same considerations apply to the construction of paragraphs and pages of text. Rhythm, meter, and melody are achieved in this instance by varying sentence length and structure, mixing simple sentences – subject, verb, object – with sentences employing multiple clauses in differing patterns and featuring more-complex punctuation. Even the simplest text intended for the widest audience benefits from some measure of structural finessing on this order.
To sum it up, if you’re a marketer and you want people to pay attention to your message, if you want to motivate people to a specific action, then, by all means, pay attention to the music of your words.
