as artists have made songs from books, i presume u can do the reverse providing you dont include actual lyrics, eg either use a single song as a basis of a storyline or join several togeather. some songs would be easier to form a story with but others like lucy in teh sky with diamonds might not be, then again u have song operas like leader of the pack, big bad john, what song would u use?
I have tried thinking over it as hard as anything but I simply cannot do songfic, no matter how much I adore a song or how well it lends itself to becoming a story. I guess this might not be such a bad thing, considering the horrific (lack of) quality of most songfics out there. I'm sorry, but some character randomly crooning bits of a song at key points of a story does not mean the story has anything whatsoever to do with the song, like many online writers think it does.
It doesn't matter where you get a story idea from. Everything you build around it is what matters. My stories are not born from songs. It's just not where I derive inspiration from. If I did, thought, the titles "Riders on the Storm" and "Stairway to Heaven" might both serve.
I have done so. It's not typically where I draw my inspiration, but there are always exceptions. "Bleed (I Must Be Dreaming)," by Evanescence is a song I was lucky enough to pirate, because it is unreleased, so you probably havent heard it. It is a song Lee wrote for her dead sister. Although in reality Lee's sister died young because of an illness, I originally interpretted it as a murder story. I imagined Lee watching her sister being brutally murdered (which, with some imagination, could be a truth in itself). I took that 4 minute and 18 second song and expanded (vastly) on it; now I sit with roughly 30 chapters of a heated courtroom drama. That was the only instance from which I drafted an entire story from. Like I said, I dont draw my inspiration from songs, but I have been known to create a scene from a musical piece once or twice before. ("Twilight," by Elliott Smith and "Mother Superior," by Coheed and Cambria, specifically.) I suggest you give them all a listen; even if you dont draw inspiration from them, they're fabulous songs. We have a pop-rock ballad from Evanescence, an acoustic piece from Smith, and a small clip from an epic rock tale from C&C (who's multiple albums are all cohesively conceptual anyways). -D
(Points at siggy) Sentient 6, a song that probes my mind often (though, on itself, the song isnt quiet enough, but backed up by other sources...is nice).
Yeah, you can do that. I write a lot of my stories from songs. "Back in the System" by Saliva, " "Bird and the Worm" by the Used, etc. Latest one is "Handlebars" from Flobots. Some of the songs have really great stories contained within them. So long as you don't use the lyrics, you should be fine.
Love that song. I've never tried basing a story around a song before, but music does help to get my creative juices flowing.
There is a Japanese song I like called "Dreams." The first two words are "Forgotten Dream" if you translate it word for word. Although I don't understand the whole song, the first two words and the tone of the song inspired a story called "Land of the Forgotten Dream."
One technique I've developed for myself is creating a soundtrack for my stories. Songs evoke certain emotions and memories for us, so why not use that when writing? Sometimes I'll just sit down and throw together a 10 track playlist and see what i can come up with, or I'll put on my music (set to shuffle) and see what grabs my attention. You seem to be going for more of a direct approach, so I say go for it.
The Christmas Shoes was a song by Newsong that got a book and movie made out of it. Personally, I got a lot story ideas from Anberlin songs, although I never developed them. ' The Music Video to Paperthin Hymn by Anberlin got me thinking about a possible novel idea. The Resistance by Anberlin is giving me ideas too. The idea most based off of the lyrics of a song is something based off of Anberlin's epic song, (*Fin). The song tells 4 stories all connected by the line, patron saint of lost causes. The idea of all of us being lost causes is one which I think could be riveting is properly explored in film or novel format.
I'm working on a story now inspired by a Cat Stevens song, but like Cogito said, what I build up around it has nothing to do with the song itself. The lyrics are not in any way noted. It is not a songfic, which genre I don't like very much, having been poisoned against it by fanficiction.net. Of course, the song itself is very general. And my story has the opposite ending to the song, just because that's how the plot ended up resolving. So, I wouldn't suggest using a song as an exact plotline, though they can make great general inspiration.
I use songs for short story plots quite often. I just recently wrote one based off the song Haunted by Evanesence, and I'm actually proud of it. xD It has the same generally theme as the song (a glimpse inside of someone being stalked) but I took it to the point of stockholm syndrome, and it ended up being not that similar, but still has ties. I think music is the best inspiration for me.
ohh Haunted, that would be a good one actually I said Angel in the Sky earlier...I am actually turning that into a children's story for my Creative Writing class. Another one could work would be Carousel by Linkin Park
Any song by Plumb and 2 different songs with the same title: Beautiful Disaster - by Kelly Clarkson, and the other by Jon McLaughlin
I've never really written a story based on a song, but I have heard songs and have been inspired. The song Home by Marc Broussard, at first I thought he was saying "Disappeared in the blue" instead of "into the groove". There were a few other lyrics I was shady about, and basically I got this idea about a person who was actually some kind of half-crocodile or something and they released him back into the water. Usually though, I find lyrics that remind me of books or tv shows I like. Now that's a fun experience.
I will often rip the entire first draft of a plot directly from a song and slowly change it as it decides to change in my mind. Nightwish songs are excellent for this purpose. Mercenary is a bit more difficult as their songs are mostly obscure and symbolic, but it can easily be done. My current storyline song is Eva, by Nightwish.
