Page 26 - Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics - Simon Hawkins

Reason 5 - To banish Second Verse Curse
Second verse curse is what sometimes happens after an incredible first hour crafting a killer Chorus, a fabulous supporting first Verse and then... um... you and your co-writer hit a wall.
"Well, where shall we go in the second Verse?" your co-writer asks. But nothing comes.
You go to the restroom. Nothing's there. You get a coffee and check your writer's mailbox on your way back to the writing room, knowing deep down that when you get back to your co-writer you are likely to experience the most excruciatingly painful two hours of your week while you both bang your heads against a mile-high stone creativity block that no one can dig under, climb over or drive around.
And the brilliance of the first hour of writing seems like a distant memory. Like the creativity fairy is rubbing your nose in what life could have been like if she had continued to stay in the room. Your song goes from a potential #1 hit blockbuster to a dud in the space of the five minutes it takes you to realize you've hit the wall.
How Song Maps help
Song Maps get around that. In fact, if you have prepared for your writing session with them, your second Verse will already have been signposted. This is because they don't leave your precious writing session to chance. They allow you, even before you've started your writing session, to fast-forward to the end of the writing process to show you the impact of your song so you can manage the effective placement of ideas.
Alternatively, if you are writing a fresh idea, Song Maps enable you to refer to a range of workable alternatives for where the lyric could go, so you can maximize the emotional impact and, as a result, avoid Second Verse Curse.
As you can imagine, going into a co-write confident that there is no way the dark passenger of Second Verse Curse is going to enter the room is a brilliant feeling and significantly reduces the stress levels, especially when "writing up" with a more experienced songwriter or finally getting to write with one of your bucket list co-writers.
Similarly, if you are writing on your own, it's great to know that Second Verse Curse can never undermine all your hard work crafting Verse 1 and a killer Chorus.
Summary
In this chapter, we've covered five reasons to use Song Maps in your songwriting to transform your lyrics from flat, 2D lyrics into glorious, 3D, full-color lyrics. They will also help you make the most of your precious creative time, enable you to see the full potential of your title by looking at it in different ways, give you confidence in the writing room that you can serve your co-writers well with great writable ideas and completely banish Second Verse Curse from your writing.
The next chapter will take us a lot deeper. I'm going to give you the building blocks of Song Mapping: what exactly Song Maps look like, why we need to honor every idea and explain why the flow of ideas is important in your lyrics. I'll also introduce you to the songwriter's secret weapon (this is awesome) and the fundamental concepts that make up Song Mapping such as writable ideas and development strategies (Maps). By the end of the chapter, you will be itching to start building your bank of writable ideas for your