Page 82 - Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics - Simon Hawkins

Map 6 - Twist
The Twist is one of the most challenging Song Maps to execute successfully, but when it's done well, it is incredibly rewarding, often delivering a spectacular "WOW" moment.
There are two reasons why it's more challenging:
We need to search hard for words, phrases or plot ideas that create a compelling twist at the same time as retaining the authenticity of the idea and staying true to the genre.
If a genuine common thread can't be traced through the whole song, there is a risk the Twist could sound contrived, cheesy or just plain funny!
The Twist is great for genres that rely on a strong traditionally-crafted lyric (Country, Southern Gospel, Musicals or Jazz). Applying the Twist to genres with more conversational lyrics (Pop or Worship) would need the twist to be more subtle. However, examples of Twist exist in all genres.
The benefits of pioneering with this Map is that when the word or phrase twist arrives, it's nearly always a memorable moment for the listener and the artist alike. Perhaps the reason we don't see a lot of them is a function of how challenging they are to both find and write, as well as it being a riskier song to pitch to artists.
But I'd encourage you to persevere, because when they are delivered to an artist or A&R as a well-crafted song, they almost always get fast-tracked.
A great source of potential word twist titles is homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings), which you can find at www.homophone.com. They list wonderful sound-alike words like:
Toad/towed/toed Ayes/eyes/aes Cashing/caching
But I would be careful about using homophones unless you want to write a deliberately funny song (and there's nothing wrong with that!).
There are two types of Twist:
1. A word or phrase twist that uses either a word or phrase in more than one way (more common). 2. A plot twist that introduces a radical change in the development of the song creating a moment of
surprise that either resolves or entirely changes the meaning of what has been sung before.
I love both of these techniques because they are very clever. In this book, I am going to focus primarily on a word or phrase twist, because, even in its subtlest form, it is the most useful.