How does storytelling change across books, movies, and music? Stephen Jay Schwartz joins Marco to discuss the art of crafting stories that resonate across mediums.
Guest: Stephen Jay Schwartz,
Website | https://www.stephenjayschwartz.com/
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast & Audio Signals Podcast
Website: https://www.marcociappelli.com
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Episode Title: The Rhythm of Storytelling: From Screenwriting to Novels with Stephen Jay Schwartz
Guest: Stephen Jay Schwartz
Short Intro: How does storytelling change across books, movies, and music? Stephen Jay Schwartz joins Marco to discuss the art of crafting stories that resonate across mediums.
Show Notes:
Storytelling is more than words on a page—it’s rhythm, structure, and emotion. In this episode of Audio Signals, Marco Ciappelli welcomes back Stephen Jay Schwartz, a novelist, screenwriter, and former director of development in Hollywood. Their conversation explores the differences between writing novels and screenplays, the challenge of adapting stories across mediums, and the musicality of language in writing.
What happens when a book becomes a movie? Many argue the book is always better, but is that really the case? Schwartz, having worked closely with directors and screenwriters, explains how the transition from text to film is often a process of distillation—finding the essence of a story and reshaping it to fit a new format. He shares insights from his experience in Hollywood, where screenplays often change hands and visions evolve. Does this creative transformation enhance the original work, or does it strip away its soul?
The discussion then shifts to a more fundamental aspect of storytelling: rhythm. Drawing from his musical background, Schwartz describes how writing, much like composing music, involves an inherent cadence. Sentences have beats, paragraphs flow with momentum, and dialogue needs a natural tempo. Whether consciously or not, every good writer crafts their prose with a certain musicality that enhances readability and engagement.
Marco and Stephen also touch on the way different minds visualize stories. Not everyone ‘sees’ scenes play out in their head while reading—some need visual prompts, while others experience narrative through an auditory lens. How does this affect the way we consume stories? With attention spans shrinking, are we losing the patience for immersive storytelling in books, gravitating instead toward visually driven media?
Before wrapping up, they pose a philosophical question: When is a story truly finished? Da Vinci reportedly never considered the Mona Lisa complete, and writers often feel similarly about their work. Does a story ever really end, or does it just reach a stopping point?
For anyone fascinated by the intersection of storytelling, film, and music, this episode offers thought-provoking insights. Tune in for a conversation that challenges assumptions about creative processes and the evolving landscape of narrative arts.
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Resources
Bio, books, and more: https://www.stephenjayschwartz.com/
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For more podcast stories from Audio Signals:
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Watch the video version on-demand on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYu0psdcllQvnJ8eHUlVX8AuyhehtexA
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Marco Ciappelli: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome everybody. This is audio signal podcast. This is, uh, Marco Ciappelli and, uh, You know me, uh, I hope unless it's the first time that you see the show or listen to the show Uh, but hopefully because not too long ago I published the first interview with my friend stephen j schwartz, which is here with us if you're watching here It is if you're listening Here it is.
Hey stephen. How are you doing?
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Hey guys, how you doing marco?
Marco Ciappelli: Well, welcome back That's what I was gonna say. They should know you by now and if they don't Don't stop this, but when you're done with this, you can go and listen to the first episode,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: it was a great conversation too.
Marco Ciappelli: I know. I had a great time and I'm going to do a little. A little bit of background here, which is if they haven't heard that it we've been knowing each other for a long time. We're connected through, uh, living in the South Bay, working at [00:01:00] coffee shops, not serving coffee, but writing or, or creating, uh, doing something creative there and, and chatting.
Sometimes in the weekend or late at night or you know, like a fantastic creative creative environment and uh, and that's why we reconnected and we're We're talking about stories and storytelling and you as a, as a storyteller. So, yeah.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah, we would, we would sit at the cafe and each do our own work. And then, you know, when we, I love, that's why I love writing in cafes and writing is such a lonely job that, that I have to do it in public among friends, you know, because otherwise yeah.
You're just, you're too isolated. So at a cafe, we would sit there and do our own work. And then, you know, I would get exhausted at a certain point. I need a break. And then Marco would, would need a break. And then we'd get up and walk outside, walk around the cafe a little bit, have a conversation, and then when we have our energy back, uh, and our purpose back, we go back to our own projects.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. And oftentimes you'll [00:02:00] have somebody else joining too. And, and, you know, it's, it's crazy to think how many times is. Just when you don't think about what you want to think about that you think about. Yeah, I made a little mess there, but I think I think I think I think I know what you're thinking.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: No, it's actually, you know, when you take a step away and you have a conversation with something else, the story is still working its way around in the back of your head.
So like the problem that you were facing when you're sitting down at the table. Um, you give it the opportunity to work in your subconscious basically, and then, and then kind of the middle of our conversation about something else, I, you know, I would say, okay, I gotta go now, because the solution has occurred in the, in the amount of time.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, yeah. Oh, those are good time. And I, and I still think about doing that is, is, is a way, is a great way to be surrounded by, it's an energy that stays in the room. I think, even if you're all looking at your [00:03:00] own screen, you're in your head. For me to know that I'm not the only one doing that it gives you kind of you share the vibe Let's put it that way very LA you're sharing the vibe.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: It's very you know, there was a cafe a big two story very large Victorian house looking cafe in Venice Santa Monica area that was around for 25 years or something called the novel cafe Oh, it's it was the best and it was just it's an era now because it's gone, but, um, I would go there. It would be open until two in the morning.
Sometimes it was open 24 hours and, um, they would let you stay for 10 or 12 hours on one single cup of coffee. And all the writers in town, whether they're screenwriters or novelists or TV writers or writing poetry or professors or whatever. Everyone would be there all the time. And, um, that was the most vibrant, exciting room to be in.
And I always would, you know, I'd find my little spot, [00:04:00] my favorite spots and write and then I'd get up and, you know, a number of different creative people would get up and take their breaks and we'd all have a conversation and the people who smoked would smoke their cigarettes and, and then we'd all go back to our seats and I could do this, you know, back in the day I could write for 12 hours, um, and, and get about six hours of good work, you know, done during that, that time.
Marco Ciappelli: And networking too, which is always a good thing to do.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah, just making friends too.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, Steve, last time we talked a little bit about your story, so we don't need to go back in there, although we can do a quick bio that you can share. We talked about your books, but there's many things that you do, and one you teach.
Uh, in the Emerson College and, and you, you have your presentations and, and, and talks about the musicality of writing and you started by also writing [00:05:00] script or editing script for For visuals, so I want this conversation today to kind of mix the different senses, kind of like a synesthesia, right? With the music and the visuals and the words and maybe what we can achieve by just writing and then if there is a different angle that is needed to look at things or if, you know, it just come out.
But let's start with that. Two minutes of Who is Stephen Jay Schwartz for those who didn't listen to the first episode and then we dive in into this topic.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Okay Sounds good. Yeah. So, um, I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had two loves, uh, as a kid growing up. I was making, making Super 8 films, um, with my buddies, um, was one of them.
And the other one was music. I played saxophone. So I had these two passions growing up. And then when it was time to go to college, I chose to go to a music school, jazz school in Texas called North Texas State [00:06:00] University. Now it's called the University of North Texas. It really kind of top tier jazz school, like a, if you ever seen the movie Whiplash, it was very much mm-hmm
Like that kind of school. And, um, I spent a year there before I realized that what I really wanted to do was make films, um. You know, I, I kind of figured I'd get to filmmaking through music because I had a head start on music, and then I realized when I was there that all my peers were really just trying to survive as musicians, and I wanted to go a different direction, so I left there.
But, you know, one of the things is that I wanted to communicate stories, and as a musician, you're communicating stories to other musicians in this in a way, you know, you're not so much to the general public, and I wanted to do it visually through words and through visuals through through film. So I left, came to California, continued my school education in film, um, uh, making films, short films and writing screenplays.
Um, again, trying to tell the full story that, that, that people can see, you know, which includes music too. And music is included in, in a, in a film experience. Um. [00:07:00] Then, uh, I, uh, ultimately, um, when I left school, I, I got a job as the assistant to a film director named Wolfgang Peterson, um, who directed, uh, Das Boot, one of my favorite films of all time for me.
Um, also directed In the Line of Fire, and Outbreak, and Air Force One, and Perfect Storm, and The Neverending Story, and a number of great films. So I started off as his assistant, then I became the story editor there, and then the director of development. So I would, I was a story guy. So I would take screenplays and help, uh, help work this re rewriting the screenplay with the writer.
I wouldn't do the rewrites, but the writer would rewrite. I would write notes. Um, and, uh, the, the script would get to a point where it can be shot. Uh, and we're working with direct the film or we would produce the film with other directors. I did that for about five years and then I left so I can continue writing.
That was about five years where I couldn't get any writing done. It's just all it's all 24 7 development work. Um, and then I uh,
Marco Ciappelli: You were getting other people writing done.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah, it was It was other people. It was [00:08:00] actually was I used to say and I read thousands of screenplays and I used to say for every Terrible script I read a vital childhood memory would disappear Cause it was just, I was stuffing so much information into my brain.
Um, it served me, you know, it was tough because I didn't get any writing done during that time. But it served me well because when I did decide to sit down and write novels, I had read thousands of thriller scripts. And so the three act structure with escalating action and, you know, with the climax and, you know, and the pacing was all there.
So I can, I wrote a novel that very much had those components. that you would see in a, in a, in an action film, maybe a thriller film, you know, um, and so that served me very well. And so by the time I wrote my first novel and I'd already written 10 feature screenplays by then, you know, it, my first novel didn't read like a first novel.
It read like a polished, you know, novel. From all that I had done for the years, you know, before that.
Marco Ciappelli: And that's what we [00:09:00] talked about on the first episode as well. So, the way I'm thinking now is this. Based on your story, your short story you just told now. There is music There is movies and there is writing, of course, as you are a writer, and it all comes together, right?
We were joking before we started recording on how often time people say, well, the book is better than the movie, because you made your own movie in your own head. Now, some people may be better than others in creating these visuals in their head. Funny story, when you connect that with music as well, is I have books.
I have read listening to music as a kid, and weird connection happened. Like if I listened to Asia, I don't know if you remember the, the band Asia? Yeah, yeah. From , you know, the eighties, back in the day. Eighties, yeah. Yeah. Back in the [00:10:00] days. I think about Dr. Jack and Mr. Hyde, the book, because I was listening to that.
So don't ask me how my brain works. Yeah. It's kind of trick the memory, right? And other times you may choose maybe a more, you know, more More efficient kind of music to go with it with the specific topic that you're reading about But hey, you know what you can hear music and when you read and you can you can imagine things and so Is there anything connected in your in your mind when you when you write?
And how you, you try to portray it. visual scene and, and, and how is it different if you're actually just writing for a book or if you're writing for an actual film?
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Well, there's, there's a big difference between writing a novel and writing a screenplay. When you're writing a [00:11:00] screenplay, you're really writing an, an outline for a director's vision.
You, you have your own vision as you write this. screenplay and the story and it's all you. It's all yours as if you were writing a novel until you sell it. Okay.
Marco Ciappelli: And then until you hand it out
Stephen Jay Schwartz: until you hand it away and then it's not yours anymore. And, um, the director, uh, is looking for something that they can Uh, look at and, and visualize.
I mean, directors have a different way of, and I, and I, I, I, I did some directing too, and I really enjoyed, I love it, but I realized ultimately I'm, I'm more of a writer than a director. Um, I, I see when I'm talking to people, I see words in my head. And when someone says something, I'm like typing it out in my head and I'm seeing a comma and I'm seeing the explanation point and I'm like, I'm like, I'm structuring it.
As I'm having a conversation with someone or listen to somebody, and that's just the way my head works, right? And directors are seeing everything visually, and I [00:12:00] had a buddy who's a film director, and I gave him an assignment for a podcast thing we did, where I gave him the first paragraph of a friend's book, and I said, how would you shoot that?
And he, he, he just kind of spilled off about 20 different shots. That came from that paragraph in his head of where, you know, where the camera would be, what he would see and, and, and how it would cut. And it was just all boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's, and I, at that moment, I thought, wow, this guy is a director.
He sees in film, he sees in cuts and editing, you know, whereas I see in, in language I see in, in, in the written word. So when you write something, I mean, I can, I, I tried to create something that was very visual. So, so that if someone's reading. My book, they'll, they'll see, they'll see the movie in their head.
Um, but, um, their, their movie is gonna look a little different than what I'm, what I'm imagining, just because there's, so, I can't write every little [00:13:00] thing, and there's no way that someone's gonna want to take all that information anyway, you know, and try to visualize it. I can. So sometimes I, I, I. I don't give a lot of information on the way a character looks.
There are some authors who really just kind of very scarce about how much information they put. Very minimalistic. And they allow the reader to create that world. Um, and so sometimes when that book then becomes a movie and it's a director's vision, the director puts it on a film, um, the, uh, the person who read the book, We'll look at that and say, God, the book was so much better than the movie possibly is because the interpreter of that book was, was that person, that viewer, that reader, and that was the filmmaker.
He created the film in his head of the book and the movie that the director made, it's not going to get anywhere close to what this individual had in his, in his mind.
Marco Ciappelli: You know, it's interesting though. It's, it's, uh, I have learned, and I don't know if you have some, some information on this, I'm assuming you do is that not everybody.
See [00:14:00] things in their head visual when when you talk to them or maybe less than other I mean you describe that you you see the word typing and I'm imagine that I could see your face and these words coming around your head with exclamation point and stuff and and I remember when we actually used to hang out together is to do a lot of design at the time and I would try to describe You know, like advertising and in that case, like, okay, so this is what we could do to represent this.
And I would say, it would, I try to explain with words what I was envisioning and some people will be like, Oh yeah, that's cool. Let's do that. Some other will be like, draw a blank and be like, wait, I, can you just give me a visual? Can you draft this for me? And I realized we don't all. Yeah, we don't all do the have the same brain.
It doesn't [00:15:00] work for everybody. Yeah, the same way. And it's amazing how then you talk to somebody that is a director and it's like, yeah, he sees the world by different angles, different shots and in different lighting. And, you know, so, and that's It's really cool because we are all kind of different, but I think that's why some people that may not have the visual when they read the book, they rather watch the movie and say, yeah, you know, that's, that's the movie.
It's
Stephen Jay Schwartz: the way you perceive, you know, perceive the world. I think there's more of that as time has gone on. There's fewer readers, fewer people are reading. Um. People want very short content. They want short content on the internet, even if it's visual. So even the movie length has gotten shortened, shortened, shortened.
Our attention span is shorter. I run into fewer and fewer people who read. And so, um, so it's so, you know, now everyone is thinking about visual and people who, [00:16:00] when I see people write today too, for the most part, there's a lot of people that just take shortcuts in the writing, but it was just, they're not, um, disciplined in their, in their writing because they don't have to be so much.
It's just. Um, it's just, it's something that's a different media
Marco Ciappelli: now, which is
Stephen Jay Schwartz: kind of depressing. I feel like I'm writing for a smaller and smaller niche group of people who really want to sit and read something. You don't want to take a whole. You know, a couple of weeks out of their life to sit down and just get lost in the story.
Most people in the U. S., at least, just don't have time for that anymore. They have to let their head go someplace. And if they maybe got a couple of hours to watch a movie, or to binge a TV series, but to sit in their own head, in their own space, and you know, and just focus on a written work. I mean, even for me, I've lost a little bit of patience for it.
I have to, I don't want to read something that isn't going to kind of really blow my [00:17:00] mind. You know, I want, I want to be very, very engaged in what I'm reading. So I want to read really good work. Um, and, uh, and that's tends to be harder and harder to find these days. But it's out there,
Marco Ciappelli: so, you know, it's also a harder is like I, I am more of an audio book kind of guy.
Now. I kind of like train my, my brain with podcast and listening when I walk the dogs. I just consume way more. You know, I have the, the biggest, uh, audio audible credit that I can get for the year. And I usually go through it. Um, you know, cause I consume so much more in that way. And, and my brain now can, um, Can read by listening and of course when I get the chance to read I I do enjoy doing that Yeah, and I and I feel like I don't know I mean, you're still committing a lot when you watch an entire TV series that you binge I mean in that in those ten hours or eight hours, you can you can hear a book you can read a book
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah, it's [00:18:00] true.
Marco Ciappelli: So
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah. Yeah. But it's different. It's a choice. Different, it's a different preference. It's a different choice for sure. And I love binging TV series too. I'm, I'm watching Silo right now and I'm loving it. Oh, and we just watched, uh, arcane, I was
Marco Ciappelli: tempted to look at that.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Good. Some good stuff. Good, good writing in Silo.
Um, also Arcane, which is an animated series based on a video game I never thought I'd get into, but, um, my kids got me into it. And then, uh. And it's just, it's really well written. The writing is exceptional. Characters are great. So, you know, when it comes down to story, story can be in anything. And, um, and I do love good animation too.
So,
Marco Ciappelli: yeah. And that's actually, um, something interesting as well. That's video gaming has become also a different way of storytelling, which is different than directing or writing a script for a movie. Um, you know, I had a guy. That he writes fantasy that his trilogy was turning into a video game And that's interesting, you know, [00:19:00] and I said, how how do you?
How do you deal with that in accepting whatever adaptation in the media you do? And he said to me, I, I just don't look at it. I just going to trust the director of the video games to kind of like what you did. Uh, you said about the director of the movie at that point, it's your vision.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah, it becomes, it becomes something else.
And, and if he's written the novel. He still has the novel, the novel's still up on the shelves. Um, and uh, if someone says, God, your video game sucked, you can say, that was not, that was not me. I have the novel, the novel's right here if you wanna read it. You know, so he still made that create, he created this, this piece that can be engaged in, you know.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. You know, while we are on it, I'll give you some example. Like, I, I'd rather read the book in general. There are some movies that never been a book before, but I, I'll give you an example. I, yeah. I love [00:20:00] Tim Burton, The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's, it's for me, it's Halloween and Christmas, which is my two favorite things and put together.
And I just love it. So that's something I watch. It's got everything.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: It's got great music. It's, it's got a great story. I listen, I listen
Marco Ciappelli: to the soundtrack any time of the year, Danny Helfman. And, and there is also a version that is made by other band, like all covers, which I also love. Okay. We have Korn.
I'm playing the three tricksters, and it's, it's pretty cool. But what I'm saying is, I'm like this year, I said, I want to see if there is a book version because I wanted to walk around and listen to it. And I did find it. It was an adaptation made by a writer, which is, I don't remember the name right now, but she's a New York bestseller writer.
And. She rewrote it and I could tell because I've seen the movie so many [00:21:00] times that she just Reinterpreted in words what the visual was and she did an amazing job like listening and the actor that is Doing the voiceover. It's amazing. He does all the voices That was a great Adaptation on my opinion other times not so good.
I give you an example, uh, ready player one Yeah, which is I love that movie because it's all about technology and virtual world when I saw the movie I was like that is not even the book It's not even it's not even the story of the book. It's you know, it's just the concept right but it became Something else.
I, I couldn't watch it, so I don't know how. Well, it's true. I
Stephen Jay Schwartz: mean, that's the way Arkane is in the sense that it came off of a video game, League of Legends, and the video game doesn't have much story, you know, it's just this, they, they, so the writer had to then create a whole new world and [00:22:00] create the story and this relationship between these two sisters and everything that makes it magical and wonderful.
Really came out of the writers for the TV series. So they, they took something that could have easily failed. And so if someone did just like a, a true, uh, uh, adaptation of the video game to film, it would be, or, you know, or TV, you know, it could be very dry and boring and nothing's going on. So they had to be completely, take the concept of the video game and turn that into something absolutely new.
And then it became, because it was so well written, became a very popular, successful series. But it's obvious, you know, concept is, you know, when, when I was working for Wolfgang Peterson, you know, we would buy a screenplay and everyone in Hollywood would do this too. Sometimes you buy a screenplay just for concept, not for this, like the screenplay could be poorly written, but the concept would be unique and interesting.
And so you'd buy that screenplay, you'd give the original screenwriter, um, an opportunity to, to, to [00:23:00] change that screenplay to the vision of the director, let's say, the development team. So you give him an opportunity to him and her to rewrite the piece based on on your notes. And if they don't accomplish that After a couple of rewrites, we would get other writers to come in and now, you know, the original writer loses the opportunity to work on his piece or her piece.
It's taken out of their hands and given to other screenwriters that can execute the story that the director wants to tell based on the concept of the screenplay that they bought.
Marco Ciappelli: See, I don't, I feel like some people are very protective of their job. And some other, they're just happy that they had the good idea that inspires someone else as when I, when I do like a creative direction and I say, here's an idea, then I can take, you know, I can tell the copywriter, uh, in the past [00:24:00] when I was doing advertising and, and say, all right, get the concept now, give me your vision, the copywriter will write something, the designer illustrator will illustrate something.
And if you start micromanaging, I feel like you're going to have something that it's just not good. I mean, I feel like everybody has a place, but some people don't want to let it go. They want to have that full control on it. And I don't know. I mean, I can think about a lot of books that turn into a movie that you realize that you have to.
It's a different media. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah. It's so different that the. Usually, the instincts of the author in that adaptation aren't really aligned with the process that is required. I mean, you've got a, you know, 350, 400 page [00:25:00] novel. It's got to become a 110 page screenplay. So, things change. They have to change to tell the story.
So, basically, the good adapter of that work has to look at what is the, what is the main thrust? What's the real kind of, ultimate story that's being told in this, in this, in this book that I cannot adapt at, you know, 400 pages. How do I turn this into the microcosm of, of, of that book? And oftentimes it means eliminating characters, combining characters, finding the real through line of the piece.
What is, what, what do we really need? What is the author really trying to tell us in the book and how do we accomplish it through visuals? And through a, you know, a shorter medium. So, um, that's, and that's what a lot, oftentimes the author will fight against that. Because they want to have everything in the book represented in the film.
And there's, there's just no way to do that. Possible it can be done as a series, if you're talking about like a ten part, you know, series. You might be able [00:26:00] to get everything in, but you're still going to have to. Make new content for it to work, uh, as a series then from a book, it, things change and you just kind of realize it's a different medium, you know,
Marco Ciappelli: I think you need to be, you need to be understanding of that because you just, you just can't, like we can go in, let's connect with the music of it, you know, like there is the soundtrack of a movie.
You write a soundtrack of a movie. We were talking about Danny Helfman for Nightmare Before Christmas, but we didn't talk about a lot of amazing Writer and composers. Yeah, John Williams,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: right?
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I was just thinking John Williams, and you know, and all the movies that he did. And I think it's also very different when you write a soundtrack, which is based on the visual that is being given to you.
It's very much different than if you write your own piece, [00:27:00] where maybe the visual is in your head. And I think it's a different, like, what is that you feed first? Do you feed the visual or do you feed the music or do you feed the words?
Stephen Jay Schwartz: That's a good question for, for those who do that. I can, I can imagine.
I mean, from my experience, I can, I can, I can guess the process they're going through, but I think it really is a combination of, I mean, to, to do. Scores that are beautiful. I'm like Randy Newman's score for the movie Avalon is beautiful music. We used to, we use one of the songs from that album, uh, from that soundtrack in my, in my wedding with my wife and I, we had a, I had a small band that, that played one of the songs.
It was so beautiful to waltz and it's just gorgeous, but you know, Randy Newman looked at the movie and then he, he created, he created something that exists beyond the movie. You know, and that when you can do that, when you can, it services the film, but it [00:28:00] exists on its own as a great. You know, musical work that's really doing everything and there's not a lot that you can take and just listen to the music separate from the movie too.
But there are guys like John Williams, you listen to the soundtrack to Star Wars and it's interesting the themes, you know, they support that each, each character has his own or her, his or her own theme. And uh, and it's, it's really brilliant.
Marco Ciappelli: It's beautiful storytelling. And then there is the soundtrack that it just goes with the movie.
Like have you ever seen those situations? It supports it. Have you ever seen those things where they're like, you know, maybe like the, like, I don't know, like a shining or Halloween or like a very scary movie where you take the sound effect and the music that tells you that something is about to happen and all of a sudden it's not scary anymore?
Yes. Right, right, right. Yeah.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah. That's when the, that's when the music is just supporting the, the, the action or something. [00:29:00] And, and it's, it's, it's important, but also music can ruin. I mean, if it's, if it's, you know, if it's poorly conceived as far as what, how it should be invisible in a sense, you know, the music should just be there and you don't even realize that you're being led along musically through a scene.
Um,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: but sometimes the music is overpowering and it's trying to do too much and it's not supporting the scene. In fact, it's, it's contrapuntal, you know, like one's counterpoint to what, and, and I've seen that in, I don't know if there's a Coppola film. I think it was the time to kill. I saw years and years ago and I heard the music and I was like this music is killing me.
It's just not supporting the film. Time to
Marco Ciappelli: kill. It's a
Stephen Jay Schwartz: time to kill the film.
Marco Ciappelli: Well, let's go into musicality. Um, I think, I mean, I love how we're freestyling and just having a conversation about creative arts in general. But when I mentioned at the beginning that you have this This, this, uh, teaching, [00:30:00] um, I think it's a lesson that you do.
Yeah, I did it. Well,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: I, this was my graduate school lecture, basically. Okay. I just go into graduate school late after I'd written my novels. I, I wanted to get an MFA so that I could teach at the university level. And so I went, went back to, to UC Riverside. They've got a phenomenal department, um, for, for writing.
Uh, and, um, and so this was my lecture that I did. I did it on the musicality of writing.
Marco Ciappelli: Right. But, but you also told me that you do use it. Regularly when you write? Well, when I write, yes, this is kind of what tell me, tell me more about that.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: So, so basically, you know, I realized that I was trying to figure out what, what made my writing different, um, uh, than other writers.
Let's say it's not, there are other writers to write this way too. If you have a musical background, I think you tend to, to, to lean on it. And, um, I, uh, my writing is really influenced by, by studying music and playing music growing up. And so I, I took a step back and tried to analyze, What was going on in my writing and I realized that when [00:31:00] I'm writing a sentence, I'm thinking about it rhythmically.
and musically, and it's not, there's no harmony, you know, or melody, but there's a rhythm to a sentence. So if you take just, if you break it all the way down to like, let's say one word, like the word piccolo piccolo, there's, there's consonants and vowels in that word and in musical terms, there's a staccato and legato, right?
So pick. Pick is like a staccato. It's got a, it's got a, you know, it's a consonant to pick right there. Olo pick. Olo is is legato Olo. So you put 'em together, you get staccato, legato, piccolo, um, and you've got kind of a musical word. So if you think about that, okay, I can use, there's plenty of words that have staccato and legato involved in.
And so if I start to string them along in a sentence, you can really do something. So the word itself, piccolo is also musically, it's a triplet. Triplet. Piccolo. That's a triplet. So, let's say you say, holding my [00:32:00] piccolo. Holding my piccolo. That's three, that's two triplets. Holding my is one triplet. Um, piccolo is the other triplet.
So now i've got holding my piccolo. You've got kind of escalating action or music rhythm Let's say escalating rhythm and now it wants to go somewhere. It wants to kind of rest So let's say if you put a word like high holding my piccolo high now I've got two triplets holding my piccolo high i'm i'm resting on a quarter note.
Um And I've, and I've got a nice little musical or rhythmic sentence holding my piccolo high. Now, if you wrote that as holding my piccolo in the air, then maybe you've got kind of a clunky sentence and you go, well, why is that a clunky sentence? Holding my piccolo in the air. It's like, it's dragging on a little bit, but if you, so when I go and I rewrite, so I've written a novel or something, I'm going to doing some rewrites.
I might see a sentence that says holding my piccolo in the air. And I, and I can say, how can I make that? sound a little bit better, a little tighter, a little more rhythmic. Well, I'll just [00:33:00] change it to holding my pick a low high. Now that's one sentence in the entire novel that you've, that you've adapted to, to something more rhythmic.
And, and it reads better. You know, these things read better. Um, another wonderful example I always love to talk about is the, is Zeevon. Song, um, uh, werewolves of London, uh, and the sentence is, um, little old lady got mutilated late last night. Little old lady got mutilated late last night. Great fucking sentence.
Okay.
Well,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: that's, that's a triplet. Little old lady got. That's two triplets, little old lady got mutilated. So that's four eighth notes mutilated late last night. And that's like, those are like eighth notes with, you know, coming off the offbeat late last night. Um, that sentence itself basically tells you how to read the sentence.
You know the musicality of the sentence you can't you can almost not read it any other way than little old [00:34:00] lady got mutilated late last night You know, you almost can't wait. You also
Marco Ciappelli: you also have the d and the t that that It's almost like using the right notes. It's
Stephen Jay Schwartz: not just notes, you've got the staccato, you've got the legato, you've got everything in that sentence.
I mean, I've always loved that sentence. I think it's a, you know, a great way to think about, you know, and that's in a song. So they're using it musically, but it's, it's rhythmically just as a sentence itself.
Marco Ciappelli: That's really cool. So people may listen to it right now and be like, God, that's a lot of work when you're like, yeah, it's a lot to think when you're when you're also trying to make sense.
And to me, you're kind of describing how and you're connected with it with the music. When you're writing, um, a song, like it's like you're, it's like songwriting in a way in your head, but it doesn't, then you don't put the music to it, but you, you put the music into the rhythm of, of the words. [00:35:00] It's kind of like poetry in a way.
It's like poetry.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah. Yeah.
Marco Ciappelli: Isn't it too complicated to think about all of that while you're writing? Well, you don't, I don't
Stephen Jay Schwartz: think about it. I, I. You just do it. Well, fortunately, you know, I've had a lot because the musical background becomes natural, but you know, and I don't, so I don't think about it generally when I'm writing, but when I come back to rewrite.
And I'm looking at a paragraph that, that, that's, that's bugging me because it's kind of clunky, then I can, so it serves well for kind of the rewrite stage, but I'm not really thinking about, okay, I've got triplets here, I've got staccato and legato, it's, it's just, that's, you know, that's the way it, it, it evolves, but if you, if you don't have that kind of background, then it's a good way to analyze your, your work and say, how can I make this paragraph up?
Um, a little more, um, energetic, um, so
Marco Ciappelli: I'm going to ask you in a pink and like, well, you familiar with the, the movie [00:36:00] Ratatouille?
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah. Yeah.
Marco Ciappelli: Okay. So everybody can cook. I use that a lot and talking about a great soundtrack, Joe Aquino there, it really makes you feel like you're in Paris half the time. So everybody can cook, but not everybody can be a five star Michelin cook.
So everybody can write, everybody can write music, everybody can play. How do you feel about that as a teacher as well?
Stephen Jay Schwartz: To you it
Marco Ciappelli: comes natural. Yeah, this, and to some people may not come. What, what you do?
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Well, it's, uh, like, you know, it's like filmmaking, directing, you know, I, I, um, uh, I can do that. If I did it more and more and more, I become a better and better, better film director, and I can maybe start to see the world the way my friend, the film director sees the world doing it enough.
So some of it [00:37:00] comes down to just doing it a lot. you know, doing your work, doing your writing over and over again, listening to people. Um, but ultimately Yeah, there's a, there's an innate sense of being able to tell, have a voice, what it comes down to is like, if you, if you have a voice as a filmmaker, director, editor, or whatever, or as a writer, um, that voice will translate into, into your expertise, I guess, um, uh, and you can't really teach voice.
Voice has to kind of be learned. It's either there, um, from the beginning or it's learned over perhaps years listening to other people's voices. So, you know, if you're a writer, you've got to read, you've got to read other people's work, you got to read great work, you got to read work that you respect, that really speaks to you.
And that you're, and then you're going to be influenced by that. You're not going to copy that. Maybe [00:38:00] early on, you might try copying it here and there, but you really just, you want to be influenced by other writers and their work and their voices. And then that will gradually, you will gradually develop your own voice.
Um, and then that is the thing that can't really be taught in a class. I can't sit there and teach someone to have a voice. I can steer them in the right direction. What do you like to read? You know, and maybe I can recommend books to read and I can explain why this is a great book to read or to listen to or whatever.
Um, and then that person might develop the ear for, for, for the voice in themselves, and then it's, at some point their work. Captures that thing that is almost unteachable, you know, and it's it's it happens in everything. I mean charlie parker when he was, you know, when he the story of charlie parker when he was a young musician and he um, and he was jamming someplace in a bar and a club and and the, you know, the The [00:39:00] band leader threw a cymbal at him, you know, told him to get the hell off stage because he couldn't do it.
And then he, he went off and he went to his grandma's woodshed and he did something, what we call woodshedding now, which is like getting your shit together and really becoming a musician. And, and he worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked for, I don't know how long, years, I guess.
And then he came back and he was Charlie Parker, you know, he had a voice.
Marco Ciappelli: Right. But also you, you got to feel where, where you're more naturally. Right. I think that the message of, of the cooking, the message of the teaching, the message of the practicing, I feel like you got to find your vocation too. Right.
I mean, talking about, you know, a style of writing and I mean, not everybody's Can be a certain kind of writer that everybody can write Maybe you're trying to go somewhere else. Maybe you're playing the wrong instrument Yeah, or if there is such a thing like, you know, I can take the guitar and [00:40:00] and screw around But if I if I sit at the piano or I take the bass, um, I think I'm better I'm still not stage material But it comes more natural to me that the read to make of it or maybe because it require more tech Technique that I don't have the guitar, you know, but whatever, you know, but, but find what, what, what comes easy maybe to you and then make that, then going this in the, in the wood shredder.
Yeah, and be and become that maybe
Stephen Jay Schwartz: it's, it's interesting because I spent so many years playing music and I'm ultimately not a very good musician, you know, it's just like, you know, I went to a jazz school and everything. But ultimately, I'm, I'm, it just wasn't the natural thing for me. There's some folks that will pick up and that's okay.
I think I found the thing that was okay. Yeah,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: it led me to the thing that I realized, Oh, I've been writing since I was a kid. And that's really the writing that where I, where I, yeah. I want to shine, [00:41:00] but it's frustrating to think I spent so many years in music and it's still like, you know, I just, it doesn't click with me, but it clicks in a different way.
It clicks in language so that I use the musical, uh, aspect in, in my writing. It's, it's interesting how it influences it.
Yeah,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: but I would still like to get on stage and really, you know, and, and be an exceptional musician, which I'm not, you know, and so I still have aspirations. I want, I bought a bass guitar, electric bass, and, and you know, as soon as I get my next novel finished, I'm gonna take lessons on the electric bass and hopefully
Marco Ciappelli: nice,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: you know, be able to go on stage someday doing that.
Marco Ciappelli: You, the reason why I went, I went there is because when you were describing the musicality of the way that you write, and, and I think for. Again, for you, it does come natural, but you also have the practice and the experience of knowing music. But then when you do write, and you go through your writing, and you [00:42:00] find a point where there is a hiccup, right?
And it doesn't flow, and you're like, alright, I gotta work on this. And you can see it. It's like if you listen to music again. And you hear a note that just shouldn't be there. It doesn't flow. You gotta change that, right? And what I'm saying is not everybody's going to hear that. No, no, not everybody's going to notice that.
Yeah, maybe sometimes we just want to be too, too perfectionist for ourself. And the average reader is not caring about that.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: That's true. I mean, you can still publish. A lot of people are self publishing and they're not going through, uh, a, the rigorous editing process that, um, that. The novelists of, you know, an earlier time, uh, in my day, and I, you know, I, I, I don't self publish, I mean, I self published some short [00:43:00] stories and poetry recently, but for the most part of my novels, I go through vetting process, which is very difficult, you know, you got to get through your agent and, you know.
I spent years writing my recent novel and then, you know, finally gave it to my agent, me thinking that it was ready to go and my agent comes back with, you know, eight pages of notes that, that require a full rewrite and a lot of rethinking and it's like, okay, so you know, you got to get outside of your own head, you got to get feedback from others around you who you respect, other writers.
other professionals. And then, you know, once I've satisfied my agent's notes with the next draft and he's once he's satisfied and sends out the industry and let's say it's purchased by a publisher, then I'm gonna have to deal with the editor's notes and the editor's notes might see a whole different blindside that me and my agent didn't see and require another, you know, three months of intense rewriting before the editor feels that it's ready to be published.
So that I go [00:44:00] through all of that. Whereas some, you know, in today's age, someone can just write their very first draft of a book and self publish it. And that's it. They're done. They're a published author. Um, It's the downside of that is that that's obviously not their best work, you know, and they'll, and they'll never learn to get to their best work, you know, except for maybe trial and error over, over many, many novels that they, that they self published, they can, they can, they can maybe get to their best work, but, but this rigorous vetting process and editing process makes you into professional, you
know,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: it slows you down, unfortunately, but you know, you're, if you're trying to write something that
Marco Ciappelli: you have a feel though, that the feedback that you get, it's like.
I see what you're saying, but this is not what I meant.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Um, it's interesting because, uh, when I was in the film industry, we, we were working with a guy named Jerry DePago, who's a wonderful screenwriter. He wrote the novel, uh, Phenomenon. I mean, not [00:45:00] the novel, the screenplay for the movie Phenomenon and, and some other things.
Um, but he, you know, he was a professional. He's good. He was in his fifties and, and he had a draft of his script and he had a meeting with the film director and the, Um, and development execs and they, um, they gave him all these notes, you know, about what, how they wanted him to change the script. And when he came back from this meeting, you know, I asked him, you know, so what, how did that go?
I, mine kind of knew that he was going to go into that kind of meeting and he said, well, it's interesting because they. They didn't give me the right direction. You know, they, they didn't see what, what I was trying to say, but the, by the fact that they had so much to say, points me in the direction that there's something that needs to change.
Right. So he said it's his job to figure out how to make it work. Based on the feedback that he got, but the feedback that he got, we're not coming from writers, you know, they're coming from people that that aren't [00:46:00] involved in that day to day process of writing story. Right. So, Gerald had to interpret what they said and try to get to what they really meant and how to then.
How to make the story change the story. So same thing when you get your notes from your agent or you get your notes from your, from your editor, sometimes they're looking at, they're looking at something that's not working right. And you guys figure out, okay, why, why is it not working for my editor? You know, this editor's done great work in the past.
Something's bugging him. He thinks it's this, but I can't really just change that. I can't take that note and change it because it, it, it, it, everything before it and everything after that note is affected by that change. So I have to interpret how to address the note and how to satisfy it. So then when he reads it again, he'll say, Oh yeah, that's not really what I was thinking, but it works.
Marco Ciappelli: Right. And I think that's, that's the key. All right, because I'm going to stop the conversation because we're at 47 minutes and I always goes by so fast and have [00:47:00] more coffee and lunch here, but we should do that in person one of these days. Yeah, but, uh, uh, because, because now I go into the question, which I don't want you to answer, but maybe, maybe would be the topic for next conversation around a few other things, but.
When is a work really finished right? You can take a painting. I know that there are well Typical example, I think Leonardo da Vinci had the Mona Lisa with him for years and years and years, even to the day that he died in France, and it was never finished for him. But, but at a certain point it was finished.
Right. And maybe there are other painters and there are other writers that they never feel like the job is done the way it's supposed to be, but I feel like Or, or a song, but my point is the main, there is a lot of different ways to do [00:48:00] a great job. And in a great job could be different, depending on, I don't know, something you read the day before, or the way you feel, or who is criticizing it, or who is your agent, or what direction you're going.
I think that's a very, very existential question for, for any artist. Yeah. When is my job done? Really? Yeah. Is it just because you have to because you have a contract that say give me three books in three years or whatever it is or
Stephen Jay Schwartz: yeah, yeah,
Marco Ciappelli: I mean, would would George Lucas go and do Star Wars the first three differently?
I don't know. I would like to ask him. I hope not, but I would like to ask him, you know, and he probably would like knowing now what he, knowing then what he knows now, but maybe, maybe it would have been worse.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah. Well, he's had plenty of opportunities to, to, to, to [00:49:00] rework the different versions of Star Wars.
And I, and I actually think his first, you know, and original first, second and third films. We're the best. I agree. As far as storytelling is concerned.
Marco Ciappelli: I agree. I agree. Um, so I think I wasn't a big fan of, uh, of the, the, the other, the following three, so,
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Nope, not at all. And, but, and you know, I can think you, you can also get lost in it.
You can get, you can lose sight. Mm-hmm . Of really what you're trying to do when you get so involved in. And when also when there's no one to say no, and there's no one to criticize, I mean, no one's going to criticize him after the success of Star Wars, you know, everything, everyone says yes. So where's the pushback?
Where's the, you know, who's going to be brave enough to go up to him and say, you know, Mr. Lucas, I think that. You know, you need, your characters need to have a stronger arc, you know, and I don't really know who this guy is. And it's like, you can either listen to that person and say, wow, thank God someone's finally giving me some feedback.
Or you can just shut that person out and say, listen, you know, who are you? [00:50:00]
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. But I think knowing that you never, and you never finish learning and you're always progressing in your, in your art, I think it's what makes you great. A great, yeah. And you
Stephen Jay Schwartz: move on, you move on to the next thing. You do have to finish something and you do have to call it done.
I mean, when the book is published and it's on the shelves, it's kind of done. You know, it's like whatever you got in there is what's in there, you know? Unless you're gonna do, it's out
Marco Ciappelli: outta the bag.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: Yeah. So then you move on to the next thing and you,
Marco Ciappelli: right. Yeah. Well that's maybe the answer, but I, I still want to talk about it more.
Yeah. In a philosophical perspective. Yeah. Uh, when we talk next time and, and maybe we'll pick something else as well. Yeah. Um. Steve, I, it was so much fun. I mean, it's going to become a Saturday morning tradition, recording and having a cup of coffee. And, uh, and, uh, I really enjoy it. I hope the audience enjoy it as well.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: We'll call it the two guys in black [00:51:00] shirts. This is, I know
Marco Ciappelli: we, we have to have a black shirt. I mean, that's kind of like when one day you decide, I don't want to decide the color anymore. I think Steve Jobs did that and a few others was like, you know, I just have a drawer full of black shirts.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: That's what I've got too.
That's all I got. It
Marco Ciappelli: works. It works on camera. You know gotta be a reason it works in theater as well. All right, cool. Uh, steven. Thank you so much I hope people are enjoying our our chats about our writing and creative work in general and and if you do let us know leave a comment and let us know if you if you have questions or if you want us to talk about something else and If you don't like it, you know, don't leave comments No, it's fine.
Stephen Jay Schwartz: You know, what we could do is we can get some comments and suggestions from the audience that we can talk about the next time we get together. Absolutely.
Marco Ciappelli: I love, I love that. Some [00:52:00] questions, um, will be great. So hopefully they will do that. They will click the subscribe button and they stay tuned on Audio Signals Podcast for more stories and more time to share with, uh, with the two black t shirt guys.
Yeah. How about that? I like it. All right, steven, thank you so much. Thank you everybody for listening until the next one