When telling a good story, form is a good thing.
Form like, for example, the three-act structure of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, or the four-movement form of Beethoven's Fifth, which is a wonderful piece of storytelling.
Now, I cannot teach you to construct good form. Because I go by feel, form is something that I feel. This is the hard way, but it is what I'm good at.
But I can tell you why form is important.
To find out what form is, look at the four movements of a Beethoven symphony. Beethoven is a wonderful storyteller, and music uses form in the same way as storytelling.
Form is not a limitation.
Not at all.
Good storytelling plays off its form like a violin bow playing off the string of the violin.
Form is how a storyteller sets up expectation in the audience, in order to fulfill the expectation, like in the happy ending in Disney's The Little Mermaid, or to defy that expectation in thrilling and wonderful ways, like the happy ending out of nowhere at the end of Pink Floyd's The Wall.
To set up, in music or storytelling, or probably just about any other art form, a form in order to create an audience expectation, is such a wonderful storytelling device.
It will set you free.
It will open up such huge possibilities.
It is not form that is limiting.
It is having no form.
You have no form, there is nothing to set up audience expectations.
There is no expectation for the storytelling to play off of.
Without that, the art is missing something.
Something vital.
Something wonderful.
Now, the form does not have to be a traditional form.
That form can be any structure, any form.
A traditional form like the classical four-movement Sonata form of a Beethoven or Mozart symphony, or the five-act structure of a Shakespeare play.
Or an entirely new form, invented specifically for the artwork.
But without any form at all, there is nothing to set up audience expectation.
You are missing something vital.
It is not form that is limiting.
It is lack of form that is limiting.
Having a form, however unconventional, is such a wonderful device for setting up audience expectations.
A good artwork plays off of its form like a violin bow playing off of the strings of the violin.
It is like a dance for two, a duet, between the artwork and the audience expectations set up by the form.
Now, I cannot teach construction of form, because I go by feel. I do not consciously construct my writing.
This is the hard way, but it is what I am good at.
But I know what good form does.
And I'm sure that this applies to any artwork, not just storytelling and music.
And one more thing: the traditional forms like four-movement Sonata form in a Beethoven symphony are not the way they are for nothing.
Sonata form may seem on the surface to be artificial, but it is not.
Sonata form is based on a very powerful, very natural emotional arc of departure and return, worked out in a very natural and organic way.
It is not abstract, artificial and passionless.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Sonata form in a Beethoven or Mozart symphony is a powerful departure and return that you can feel in your very bones.
You don't have to use traditional forms, but they work.
As emotional storytelling.
They are not traditional for nothing.
They are not abstract, artificial and passionless.
They are powerful, natural emotional story arcs.
They are something that you can feel in your bones.
I hope this helps artists out there!
I'm sure that this applies just as well to any art!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson