Music in fiction.

I'm not sure I understand your question, sorry: are you asking about the influence of playing music while writing, or are you asking about music being incorporated into the content somehow?

The reason I'm asking is that incorporating actual popular songs into writing is considered poor craft. (for example, How Not To Write A Novel calls this "The Commercial Break" error) It can be considered borrowing.

Robert Galbraith incorporated several songs' lyrics into Career of Evil, and frankly, it made it hard to take her seriously.


I sometimes challenge myself with writing prompts, and a few years ago I decided to write a series of short stories based on song titles from Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. As you can expect, nothing publishable came of it.


If I recall correctly, Wil Wheaton curated a Pandora song list for readers to listen to, while reading one of his short stories. I thought it was a brilliant idea.

 

I'm not sure I see why it would be poor craft? Is it also poor craft to quote poetry or the prose of other writers? Because certainly lots of authors have done that.

It can be a copyright issue, for sure, but if one's able to get permissions, I'm not sure why it's unacceptable to quote song lyrics...

 

Not a copyright issue, no. The criticism is that it's lazy writing, borrowing somebody else's prose.

And yes, lots of writers do it, some better than others. That's why I brought up Robert Galbraith. She's a best selling author, but I think this is one way she fell down in her recent book. It's a common enough problem that it got included in a book about things to watch for in one's writing.

This will have exceptions, but the reason they called it 'The Commercial Break' error is that it seems to be used when the writer figures that the song or poem captures the mood very well, so they have the characters listen to it or read it and just paste in the lyrics as part of the text for the reader to experience.

"Let's take a break from the story to read the lyrics of a hit song. Now back to the story."

 

Which makes the challenge a) find lyrics that you can use legally, b) find a reason in-story for the song to come up, and c) most importantly, make sure that the narrative keeps moving and that the reader doesn't have to wait for a hundred words for the main story to start up again.

 

Well, yes, a copyright issue, almost always. But...

Obviously an awkwardly inserted lyric (as in your final line) would be awkward. But there's a long literary tradition of using epigraphs... do you object to all epigraphs, or just when they're song lyrics?

 

I just had a crazy thought: does the fact that Google Translations are so infamously inaccurate mean that they can be copyrighted?

 

Yeh, sorry, I wasn't clear about that. What I meant was that even though it's often a copyright issue, this isn't why writing courses advise against it. Their primary concern is the craft.

I don't really object to either; my posting was to share that at least when it's plugged into the dialog, it's considered a sign there may be a problem.

Epigraphs seem different than a pause in the plot to have your characters listen/read somebody else's work.

Another example that comes to mind is Rama II, where the authors use up about ten thousand words with Shakespeare quotes. OK: I get it, that character likes Shakespeare. What? He built robots that quote Shakespeare too? And we get to hear them talk all day? Does anybody in this story have any dialogue of their own? Kill me now.

 

I have a playlist I play when I write containing some dark ambient music as it fits the story and kinda fits the "mood" I want to be in when writing...helps a lot and don't think I could write this story without it ^^

 

I use a bouquet of some of the most beautiful, dark, and heavy music genres to enhance
the mood for writing most scenes. Mainly Hybrid Orchestral, Vocalizations, Electronica
Techno, EDM, Cyber-Goth, Industrial, and all manner of Metal (and all in between).

Kinda have something for all types of moods, from mellow, dramatic, to brutal.

 

The former, of course. I'm not stealing lyrics from any song to toss them into my story. The music helps stimulate my imagination and create a sense of immersion for myself. It also helps lengthen the decrescendo of inspiration as it fades out for taking too long to write/finish the story altogether.

Shogun

 

Gotcha. Well, I suspect it depends on the writer. I have auditory-visual synesthesia, so music is never 'in the background' - sound creates visual artefacts, and it's too distracting for when I need to concentrate on writing. I actually wear earplugs when I write.

But certainly some pieces generate an imaginary scene that can inspire a story, albeit for me it's usually just a montage scene.

 

Yes. Very much. Particularly for me, symphonic metal. It's like score music or something--I don't know, but it really gets me in the mood and much of it inspires ideas and scenes as well. There's a Nightwish song that inspired at least 50% of a story I'm writing.

 

Yes! I can't write without music. I prefer instrumental music when I'm writing, though, no voice or lyrics to distract me.
The part where the lyrics inspire me comes before the writing, but yes, I've had inspiration from lyrics too, consciously and subconsciously. I'm a music lover. Music has an important place in my life. It would be strange if the lyrics had no impact in my writing, which they do.

 

I've written a number of short stories that are based on / inspired by songs--"Sometime Around Midnight" by The Airborne Toxic Event, "The World I Know" by Collective Soul, "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" by Counting Crows, among others. It's never really a direct translation of a song to prose, but pulling themes or scenarios--watching an ex leave the bar with another man, preparing to commit suicide only to change your mind at the last minute, etc--has given me prompts, essentially, for stories I've written.

I haven't done any novel-length works this way, but my very first real writing project was a 40k word novella strongly inspired by the three "characters" outlined in Rush's "Middletown Dreams."

All that said, I can't really write while listening to music--far too distracting. I'll either be singing, air drumming, or grabbing my guitar instead of putting words on the page.

 

Music has a huge influence on me. Symphony X's album, 'The Divine Wings of Tragedy' is the soundtrack to my fantasy series. WASP's 'Asylum Number 9' inspired the name of my MC. Iron Maiden's 'If Eternity should Fail' inspired the name of the series. My favorite background music is the Italian guitarist M. Wes Tagliamonte.
That said, I think what inspires us is what we choose to open ourselves up too. Not only do I listen to the music I like, but, I listen to a lot of music I see being recommended that I would normally even be aware of. I do the same thing with reading and photography.
It's all fuel for my creative fires, as I see it.
Godspeed!

 

Hello Blue,

My MC character interrupts people's emotion by hearing music swirl around her. I do have a playlist, a song for each emotion. I don't state what the song is, or put lyrics into the text (actually, 95% of the music I use has no lyrics at all), but I do describe the instruments she hears, such as the 'Beats of drums.' 'Thuds of wooden blocks.' Etc.

So yes to either question. I listen to music when I write, and I describe the instruments of the songs I am listening to.

 

Yes, I listen to music when I write, but it has to be the right music - something that fits the mood, story, setting etc. I also get inspired by music and my mind creates scenes when listening to particular songs/melodies. Though, I can also write without music. If I'm in a flow I don't pay much attention to whether music is playing or whether it's quiet (then it can even be text. Doesn't matter.).

 

Indeed. Do helps you write the best novel possible.

But to be honest, there is one small exception to what I said earlier. There is one statement I'll be using that is based off the song's lyrics, and that is, "because she knew that it was her he had came all this way to see, just to forget about life for a while".

Yeah, I can relate to this one. I prefer the instrumental while writing, as I find it to be the most stimulating. The lyrics for me are not what stimulates my creative side as a writer, but the instrumentals remind me of the particular era that I am writing in, and also remind me of a circus theme. Finding a full instrumental version of Piano Man was not easy, but I did manage to find it. Sometimes if I listen to the non-instrumental, I'm tempted to sing instead.

Interesting mechanic for your story. Thanks for sharing

Shogun

 

I've had two songs that inspired stories, although one was in an incredibly roundabout way. But I have had the idea of writing a sort of modern day Great Gatsby based on the Panic! At the Disco Song "L.A. Devotee".

As for music while I'm writing, I have an instrumental playlist that I love. Classic music, epic music (It's an actual genre. Think fantasy/adventure movie soundtracks, but just written to be written).

Although I've found the music is most important when I'm daydreaming. The daydreaming is where the story is formed, the writing is just me getting it down on paper.

 

Music works for me this way too.

 

I put together a playlist for each novel series. Movie and videogame scores that match the genre and aesthetic of the series. If I have more than one project going on, it really helps to separate them, and put myself in the mindset of the one I'm currently working on. When I released the first book of my first series, I put the link to the Spotify playlist on my blog so readers could listen to it whilst they read. Pretty sure no-one has bothered to do that though!

 

I can't write while I'm listening to music. Being a musician myself I find it very distracting. But I do often listen to something when nothing seems to be coming out. I've just started writing short stories but having been writing songs for about 20 years now, I can't help but to transpose some of my songwriting habits.

 

I can't write whilst listening to music with lyrics, because the extra words are distracting. I guess to a musician, the notes are almost like words, having a similar effect?

 

To me, they are. I get too focused on the arrangements and all the different instruments. But it's much worse when they have lyrics.

 

It funny. I do have specific sounds and images associated with a work. That said, as I write I listen to music that fits my mood. Its almost like TV to keep the kids in my head busy while daddy works. I'm a heavy metal guy, but, the kids...I've been on a Hall and Oats kick the last few days. Explain that one.