How to Write Song Lyrics for Plays

Whether it's a musical or part of an act, writing song lyrics is a specific job in playwriting. You'll need to write in a way that makes the most of song-writing structure and matches the theme and tone of your play. Here are some ways to effectively write song lyrics into an act or scene so that they work.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Always find character motivation. If you're writing for musicals, transitions into song are necessary. If your character is struggling to write a song (that you in reality already wrote for them) you'll need to show that in the dialogue leading up to the song lyric.

2. Choose to write out an entire song lyric or just a fragment. If your character gets interrupted in the middle of a serenade, you don't technically need a whole song, but on the other hand, if you do the work, the entire song can provide more context clues for the next scene and add to the creative process.

3. Use rhyming to clue readers that a song is being sung. You can also use prompts, but for most lyric writing, especially in musicals, a lot of the effect is in the rhyming song lines, where you can use different rhyme schemes and funny rhymes for comic effect.

4. Work with echoes. In musical writing, characters often echo each other's lyrical lines, or add their own rhyming lines. Work with "chorus" characters or main characters on stage to create good "echo or echo and response" song lyric structures.

5. Match the genre to the characters. Unless it's a parody, you're going for realism. Don't inject something that doesn't fit, and don't make your character pursue music that doesn't fit them. Again, it's best to always have the character's motivation close at hand while writing.