Tips for hymn writers

1) Write a chorus.

You may not think your song needs a chorus. You may be right. But someone, somewhere down the line, will decide it does. 

While the adding of choruses is particularly popular currently, the most bizarre example I can think of is the late 19th century addition of a happy jolly chorus to Alas, and did my saviour bleed, which is more of a sombre lament. Most added choruses are better than that - some are excellent. But if you want the chorus to say what you want to say, write one yourself.

Of course, if you do add a chorus, someone will decide it also needs a bridge...

2) Don't die.

The song you write will remain under copyright until 70 years after your death. So if you want to prevent people from monkeying around with your carefully thought through lyrics - sometimes ending up with a song that says something completely different than what you were trying to say - this is a simple (if impossible) solution.

Lorem Ipsum is a Good Thing

When laying out a page design, if you don't yet have the final text it's common to use a dummy text in garbled Latin, which starts "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." (hence the name).

I've just been watching a very useful tutorial video on how to do some page layout stuff in InDesign. Very useful, but the narrator had a slightly monotonous voice, and the text on the page was - for no apparent reason - Alice in Wonderland. Guess which I was paying more attention to...

Recyclable embellishments

I found this abandoned kid's craft in church - and realised that the flower embellishments are made entirely of paper, so it can go in the recycle bin. 🎉

It would be nice if more kids' craft materials were recyclable - foam and gems and plastic stickers are nice, but for throwaway crafts this kind of thing is far more environmentally friendly.

Cutest dinosaur ever

Atmosphere matters

I recently rewatched the Stargate Atlantis episode Irresponsible.

The first time I watched it, it felt odd. The climax of the story is the death of a longstanding villain. But it seemed rather perfunctory and anticlimactic, like no big deal. If you blinked you could almost have missed it. He deserved a more dramatic death than that! 

 

But I listened to the director's commentary, and it explains why the episode feels odd - the problem is the setting. 

When it was written, it was supposed to have a bit of a Western feel, and they'd intended to film it in a local wild west village. However that fell through, and they ended up with this place:

 

Not quite the same thing.

So, at the climax of the story, when our hero appears in the nick of time, he should stride down the broad dusty street under a wide open sky, for a dramatic confrontation...

 

 

...but instead he walks a few paces across the lawn in front of some picturesque cottages. 

 

By the time they get to the shooting, the background is cluttered with townsfolk, outlaws and soldiers, who can't be positioned off to the side, because there's no room, or in the distance, because there is none.

 

The director pointed out that if he'd missed he'd have shot his own team, they were so close behind!

They did their best with what they had, but in the director's own words: 

"here comes the standoff: the odd little standoff in the odd little town in the odd little square"

Of course, in reality, a villain can be killed anywhere - under the open skies of a dramatic dusty frontier town, or in a twee and claustrophobic village square. (Or be accidentally run over by a bus for that matter). 

 

But stories aren't real life. 

Interestingly, the same village was used years previously as the setting for an episode of Stargate SG-1 (Revisions). For that episode, set in a cosy little town with a sinister secret, it fitted perfectly.

Atmosphere matters.

C.S. Lewis wrote a lot about this but it's hard to find a decent quote. Here's one from Planet Narnia by Michael Ward, which quotes C.S. Lewis. (He's using the term 'romance' in the old-fashioned sense of an adventure or fantasy story.)

Again and again, in defending works of romance, Lewis argues that it is the quality or tone of the whole story that is its main attraction. The invented world of romance is conceived with this kind of qualitative richness because romancers feel the real world itself to be 'cryptic, significant, full of voices and 'the mystery of life.'' Lovers of romances go back and back to such stories in the same way that we go back to a fruit for its taste; to an air for... what? for itself; to a region for its whole atmosphere—to Donegal for its Donegality and London for its Londonness. It is notoriously difficult to put these tastes into words.'

The Caves of Steel

 

I recently reread The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. I've read it many times before, but I noticed something I hadn't seen before.

It was written in the 50s, but the story happens thousands of years in the future. All of Earth's inhabitants live cheek by jowl, enclosed in giant monolithic Cities. Everything is regulated, centralised and efficient. Food - mostly artificial yeast cultures - is rationed and eaten in huge communal dining rooms. Poor people eat nothing else, but those with higher status may earn the right to a real chicken drumstick - or even to eat at home a few times a week. Toilet and washing facilities are communal - a basin in your own home is another hard-earned privilege. Population is controlled. Houses are small, and the poorest live in grim barracks.

The reason for this? It's the only option, owing to the massive population of earth, which has now reached a whopping 8 billion!

Wait a minute. We're at 8 billion now... 

Happy New Year!

 I always like to post a song for the New Year - but this year I've got two.

They're both about how, as Christians, God uses the ups and downs of life to make us who he wants us to be.

First a sad one:

 And then a cheerier one!