Hello everyone, and welcome to another Bookish Opinion! Originally I decided to write about standalones vs. series, but as I've had several songs stuck in my head lately, and am participating in a month-long song challenge, I decided that it would be more fun to focus on something I've never tried tackling before: music and stories!
The Facts
When you look at an album and a book side by side, you wouldn't say they had anything in common. First off, albums mean songs, not words. Often music has lyrics, but still, it's an entirely different medium. While books of all sorts rely on description, character voice, and conveyed emotion (among other things) to make a point or express the meaning behind each scene, music relies on sound: notes, arrangement, vocal and/or instrumental talent. However, books and music, no matter what they look or sound like, both have two core similarities: they have an artist, and they have a story. All music has the capacity to touch someone's life, just like a well told tale. And each song always has some a story behind it all, whether that's how it came to be, or a particular feeling, scene, or situation that's focused on through it.
As I've grown as a writer and reader I've grown to realize the similar impacts of story and song. If used well, both have the potential to work together to create an even larger impression on an audience.
Music to Inspire
One way music can be used to enhance storytelling is through the authors themselves. I know several writer friends who say they listen to music, instrumental or otherwise, when crafting their own works in progress. Even those who prefer silence when writing (like me) often find it helpful to make playlists that remind us of certain characters, situations, or scenes in our stories.
Why can this be useful? Good music often helps us express certain characteristics in our writing that are hard to form on our own. While we may have a set, factual perspective, of, say, our hero, it can be hard to understand how to write from that character's view of the world. Likewise, a playlist of songs that are all centered around our villain can give us pointers on how to make them act and speak in a way that seems natural to who they are and their motivations for being the antagonist. Sometimes even the act of searching through music and recognizing which "clicks" with our story can help us gain a better understanding of the world and situations we've created.
Music to Understand
Going off of the last point, music can also be used to help us understand others' stories, and the way we tend to view theirs. Finding songs that remind us of our favorite characters or scenes help us take that perspective of them and analyze a little more why we feel that way. Beth Crowley, for example, has taken many YA novels or book series and turned a certain part of them into a song. Music that reminds us of a certain story can also give us new perspectives on the story itself, and especially the message or ideal that the particular one conveys.
This can be useful for recognizing the different types of characters, themes, and emotions that you relate to or find yourself invested in. Whether you're a writer or a reader, songs give you a way to find those things and, through that, to discover more stories that you're passionate about.
Music In Story
Music can be useful in storytelling because of its auditory nature. While it's harder to remember quotes from every book you read, lyrics set to a tune are often remembered years and years after you've originally heard them. Because of this, several writers are apt to include music, and even words set to music, as they write a particular story.
However, there are difficulties with this approach for several reasons. The chief reason I find is that your story is a story. Most of the time you simply cannot include lyrics without a tune. It just doesn't work. Unless your readers are the audience that doesn't mind bouts of poetry, most who read through a book that includes lyrics will skim through them to get back to the actual storytelling. This may be made easier if a certain piece of information or important plot point is included in the song, but mostly music in story is very hard to pull off without an actual song.
How can you include music in a story? One way is by having the lyrics of this song be only one verse (four lines or less). Another is by describing the music's notes and the emotions felt, without writing down any words. A different, more challenging way is to include the song and compose the melody, but list the lyrics and music notes in an index section.
In Short...
Music and writing are both ways to reach people with words and stories. A few ways of including the impact of music and stories together are to let songs inspire writing, to let writing inspire songs, or to write songs and directly tie them to a story.
A few years ago, I wouldn't have said that music could change my writing, or change my perspective on someone else's. Now, though, having made several playlists for my work in progress and diversifying my music tastes has led me to see that there are multiple ways that music can and does inspire and encourage me to write and read. Often the connection between music and stories is overlooked, and I hope that at least a couple members of the book community will remember it.
Thanks for letting me share this Bookish Opinion! I hope you enjoyed reading. Let me know if you have anything to add, have an example I didn't list, or just want to share your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you!
After this post, I'm going to be taking a break from this blog for a while! I'll be out of town from July 10 to the 19th, so I won't have time to update then. I will try to come back after that, however in between editing my own work in progress it may take a bit longer than expected. Thanks so much for being patient and still reading my rambles!
(The photos used were taken by Jefferson Santos, Thought Catalog, James Stamler and Fausto Sandoval of Unsplash.)
No comments:
Post a Comment