sample test results

An outline is not primarily intended to display good writing or help to interest producers or collaborators; it is intended to tell the action of the story scene by scene.

The third line doesn't have enough syllables to fill all of ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM, and bad prosody is going to be the result. An easy enough fix, of course, but the point is that if the music is indeed ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM, but the lyric is only ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM...something's got to give.

Although some of the specifics vary, the basic principals of storytelling always apply whether you are writing a musical, a play, a novel, or a screenplay.

Authentic cadences consist of movement from Dominant to Tonic.

She's as vulnerable to being blown out of existence as the flame of a candle in a wind. The simile really ought to be She is the candle's FLAME in the wind because, of course, a wind can't annihilate wax...but we get the point. She is still burning brightly, despite the winds which blow against her.

Neither stranger exposition nor neighbor exposition is inherently better or worse. One is the way strangers talk to each other, the other is the way neighbors talk to each other. The one cardinal sin is to put stranger exposition into the mouth's of neighbors, such as having a character answer the phone saying 'Hello, Father, this is your eldest daughter Rebecca.' In this exaggerated form, it is obvious and laughable, but subtler versions can be equally awkward.