Pitfall Example of Pitfall Example of Fixed Pitfall Too “me” centered — where the audience can’t relate because the writer is too emotional, without enough of a story being told “I miss you / you left too soon / the tears just fall / All day I lie in a ball” “The days are long without you / They used to feel full / with you, but now / My heart is empty, the house too” Don’t be crass - writing about intimacy is very accepted, but no one wants to hear juvenile vulgarity “Stuck together / under cover / don’t wanna leave / ever” “Kissing you / and the world is gone / you and I a light, the only flame around” Failure to show how you feel (telling is obvious and unengaging) “I’m so lonely without you / My life is never gonna be / the same without ‘us’” “Walking on the street, I touch shoulders in the crowd / but none of them are yours / I’d recognize the curl of your hair / anywhere, but it ain’t here” Failure to support main theme (title) Title: A Blue-Collar Life Verse: “When my wife handed me my coffee / I asked her what she dreamed / She said in her dream she had to see / What lay beyond the hills” Title: A Blue-Collar Life Verse: “Got in my truck this morning and the engine was cold / Blew warm air into my hands so they could hold / the power of a hundred horses / stamping, tramping, hauling forces” Choosing your first “okay” lyrics “Burning bright into the night / the ironworker works / to build and craft and shift and torque / til the creature’s clean to fight” “Burning and blasting into the night / the cast-iron worker all dusted in black / soot-laden, lid-weary, burnishing bright / the creature arises ready to fight” Overly poetic or multi-layered in meaning “Her hair is as silky as a tight-woven web / to read her lies I’d need infrared / they lie buried deep, as deep as a my love / Can’t know where to go from here” “Her face masks her lies, her hair covers up / despite her dark deeds, a hold up of hearts / my love runs too deep / she has my heart chained for life”