Sometimes you need to split a line in two

Today’s Words of Wisdom are slightly technical. They are Sometimes you need to split a line in two. Let’s start with speech. Underlying speech are feelings and thoughts we wish to communicate. Feelings, other than those of shock and surprise, grow and subside relatively slowly, which is why you need to give an audience time so that the emotions you are transmitting to them have room to grow and resonate. But our thoughts flicker along rapidly in our brains and we can think of several things each second. Each thought we communicate is reflected by a phrase in our speech: one thought, one phrase. To give an example: ‘Happy’ is a word, ‘Happy Birthday to you’ is a phrase – one thought, ‘Happy Birthday to you and your twin brother in America’ is a sentence but it’s actually two separate thoughts – ‘Happy Birthday to you … and your twin brother in America.’ Just think the two thoughts separately and you will find you put in a fraction of a beat between the two parts of the line. Try something else: try ‘Happy Birthday David and Jonathan’ as one thought – that is wishing the twins a happy birthday – and then as two thoughts – happy birthday to David and also to Jonathan. Did you feel the difference?

Sometimes in a script you’ll get a line that’s very difficult to get out. Often the reason is because the line contains more than one thought and needs to be split in order for the meaning to come across clearly. Sometimes you need to split a line in two.