Like many people, I spent my COVID quarantine listening to not one but two surprise Taylor Swift albums. Taylor has long been lauded for her storytelling ability – it’s arguably her greatest strength as a musician. Her devoted fans feel connected to her lyrics and envision themselves in the songs she sings, which are rife with everyday struggles and describe emotions we all feel or felt in our youth. As she’s matured, so have her stories and perspectives. While her albums once told stories about a scorned young woman burning pictures of her ex, they now tell stories of complicated marriages with imbalanced expressions of adoration and support. When you listen to them, it’s like stepping into the universe in which the stories exist and living them firsthand.
Writers can learn much from Taylor’s storytelling prowess. Below are three lessons.
No. 1: Let the Details do the Talking
A story must be created, as it were, brush stroke by brush stroke. The writer should strive to show the reader, rather than tell them. Small, concrete details are usually the difference between a story that works and a story that fails, or between a good piece of writing and a great piece of writing. Details inject emotion into a story and draw on the reader’s senses to bring the story to life. It’s important to note that a story does not necessarily have to have a lot of details. Certainly, writers don’t want gratuitous details that will only bore the reader. Remember: every detail should have a purpose. When implemented correctly, they will do all the legwork.
Taylor is a master at using details to bring the (in her case) listener into the story. Often, she chooses to focus on the specific rather than the vague and uses precise, matter-of-fact language (though the details do become more poetic in folklore and evermore). Check out these lyrics from Taylor’s canon, and take note of the way they provide precise imagery and emotion:
- “You got that James Dean daydream look in your eye / And I got that red lip, classic thing that you like”
- “Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze / We’re singing in the car, getting lost upstate / Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place / And I can picture it after all these days.”
- “And I was catching my breath / Floors of a cabin creaking under my step”
- “The buttons of my coat were tangled in my hair / In doctor’s-office-lighting, I didn’t tell you I was scared”
- “I do recall now the smell of the rain / Fresh on the pavement / I ran off the plane”
- “Your eyes whispered, ‘Have we met?’ / Across the room your silhouette / Starts to make its way to me”
- “Your mom’s ring in your pocket / My picture in your wallet / Your heart was glass, I dropped it”
No. 2: Consider the Power of Perspective
One of the first things a writer considers is point of view. The point of view determines whose eyes the reader experiences the story through. Choosing the appropriate point of view for your story is crucial since different points of view cause different effects on the story and on the way the reader will interpret it. Over the years, many writers have used dual or triple perspectives to build stories. One key advantage of a dual or triple perspective is that it offers variety and contrast; it can balance out a particularly unreliable narrator with a more reliable one, or it can allow two flawed narratives to complement one another. In addition, when the story is told from more than one perspective, the reader gains a greater depth of understanding and gets to enjoy connecting the dots as the story unfolds. Taylor makes use of this literary tool in her storytelling.
On folklore, we’re treated to a love triangle told through three songs: betty, cardigan and august. Each song describes the same drama from a different perspective. In betty, we get to know James, a 17-year-old high school boy who cheats on his girlfriend Betty. In august, we meet the girl James had the affair with and in cardigan, we meet an older and wiser Betty looking back on her younger self’s heartbreak. Each song conveys vastly different emotions while ultimately using the same subject material. In betty we feel remorse and regret, in august we feel disappointment and longing, and in cardigan we feel heartbreak, loss and nostalgia. Taylor again uses this literary tool on evermore in tracks dorothea and ‘tis the damn season.
No. 3: Paint a Picture Using Metaphors
One of the most effective illustrative tools in storytelling is the metaphor. Writers love metaphors because they add texture and beauty to an otherwise dry description. Taylor is one such writer. For example, in Clean, she likens the time spent healing after a breakup to sobriety. After ten months sober, she’s finally clean. A song about two criminals driving a getaway car is a metaphor for a fast-tracked relationship doomed to crash.
Ultimately, metaphors make writing more colorful, interesting and, as a result, memorable. When readers encounter a phrase or word that cannot be interpreted literally, they are given the pleasure of interpretation. If you write a factual description, then that’s the end of the line for the reader – no thought necessary. But if you use a metaphor, your readers can consider and choose from many possible meanings.
Below are a few examples of how Taylor uses metaphors in her writing:
- “You’re not my homeland anymore / So what am I defendin’ now?”
- “I’m still on that trapeze / I’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me”
- “You wear the same jewels that I gave you / As you bury me”
- “I’m a crumpled-up piece of paper lying here”
- “But I took your matches / Before fire could catch me / So don’t look now”
- “You were drivin’ the getaway car / We were flyin’, but we’d never get far”
- “The drought was the very worst / When the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst”
- “The rest of the world was black and white / But we were in screaming color”
Taylor Swift is one of many great storytellers, and there are several lessons writers can learn from her. Writers that take a page out of Taylor’s book and rely on descriptive details, powerful perspective and illustrative metaphors will enhance their storytelling skills.