Lyric Writing Tip – Using Blackout Poetry In Songwriting

Today i’m sharing with you my new favourite lyric writing tip for defeating writer’s block.

We’ve all had writer’s block at some point. Staring at a blank page unable to express our ideas as words on the page.

We’ve all gone on journey’s, trying to work out how to avoid writer’s block.

Today i’m going to show you an extremely creative way of beating writer’s block

One where instead of a blank page staring you in the face, the page is full of words for you to discover your lyric. Today we’re looking at blackout poetry, and how we can use it in our songwriting.

I’m also going to give you a download of 10 pages ready for you to try your first blackout poetry lyrics. So if you want some fresh lyric writing ideas to help you beat writer block – keep reading…

The video above will show you everything you need to know, however if you would prefer, the text version below will allow you to read through the post at your own pace.

I came across blackout poetry on Instagram nearly a year ago now.

The first piece of Blackout Poetry I found by Words Of Others

It instantly struck a chord with me.

I loved the concept, it removed so many barriers of lyric writing that I was struggling with at the time.

Firstly, unlike other lyric writing tips, you didn’t even need to come up with the words, you just had to find them within the text.

Secondly, it forced you to tell a story, or part of the story in only 6 words. This art of condensing down an idea was something I had really struggled with.

I loved the idea of creating a new piece art out of an existing piece. I also loved the creative limitation that blackout poetry gives you. You only have the words that are in front of you, and you didn’t get to choose any of them, and from that you have to create something.

I then started to wonder if it could be a way to write lyrics.

So I decided to have a go.

My First Blackout Poetry Attempt – Taken from the book Little Exiles by Robert Dinsdale

My Second Blackout Poetry Attempt – Taken from the book The House Of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

I think considering these were my first few attempts I thought it was a pretty successful experiments. It helps me so much I thought it was a great lyric writing tip to share on the blog.

If you want to have a go at this lyric writing tip, here a few steps to get you started.

Pick some text to work with. When choosing your text make sure the words the author has used inspire you. Words that interest you should start to leap off the page and begin creating images in your mind. Don’t read the page through, you don’t want to be influenced by the meaning of the text, you just want to use their language. In the video I printed off a few pages from different fiction books that grabbed my attention. You’ll need something to blackout the words. This could be pen or paint. Or you could even do it digitally if you prefer. Start to write down the words on the page that stand out to you. Make sure to write them down in the order they appear on the page and try not to use more than 3 adjacent words if you can. When you have a few key words, pick one to be the focal point of your lyric and circle it. I’d suggest circling it lightly in pencil first. Experiment with eliminating parts of words, especially endings.

Next find words that go along with it to form a thought or idea. Once you have a lyric you’re happy with, simply blackout all the words you’re not using.

That’s all there is to this lyric writing tip.

If you are finding it difficult to form a lyric from a page, and it becoming frustrating. Stop working on that particular page and move onto another for a while. You can always come back to it to finish it off, or to try an alternative idea.

Now trying taking these blackout lyrics and write a song around them. See if the language in the original text has taken you somewhere you wouldn’t normally have gone.

I had great fun trying this out. It’s a great challenge, I like the creative limitation that blackout poetry gives. It forces you to use different language. This means that some of the lyrics that come out of this won’t sound natural, but even when it doesn’t I think it still forces you to experiment and to use different vocabulary which will improve your lyrics in the long term. It’s a great lyric writing tip that I’d recommended you try, especially if you’re going through writer’s block.