Let’s consider words and music in writing.
Sound and Fury, Full of Words and Music, Signifying, Well, What, Exactly?
Of course, our books are full of words! Otherwise, they would be picture books. And not very good picture books, to boot! Because even picture books for the newest reader will have some sort of verbiage in them.
Words and What They Do In Your Writing
I have blogged a lot about writing, including descriptive prose, etc. But I haven’t really gotten into word choice and other aspects of the very instrument we use to create books—the words themselves.
Words and Culture
How do your characters talk? Not so much what they say. But how do they say it?
Josie comes from a big Jewish family. Her sister Hayley is the most Orthodox of her siblings. So, she might lapse into Yiddish at times. Or Hebrew, because Hayley lives in what was once Tel Aviv.
Ceilidh is Irish through and through. So, when she meets Barry Marsh, he talks to her a bit in Gaelic.
In The Enigman Cave, Trixie is from London, Kentucky, whereas Jazminder is from Leeds, England. They have different expressions, different slang, and different ways of expressing everything from fear to disgust to taking a stand.
In Mettle, all the characters have potty mouths. It’s practically a requirement. In fact (by design), the first word anyone utters is an f-bomb.
The characters in Untrustworthy don’t really use contractions. As a result, reviewers have said their speech seems stilted. But that’s by design.
In the Obolonk universe, certain terms change over time. Peri might say dollars to doughnuts, whereas Josie would say mercs to doughnuts, because dollars no longer exist, and the Solar System’s unit of currency is the mercury. The phrase loses its alliteration. So, maybe I’ll change to something like mercs to muffins, so it can get its alliteration back.
In all of my works, intelligent people tend to use longer words and discuss more complex concepts.
Political Correctness or Its Lack
Not all of the talking is words of affection or pleasantries. Sometimes, there’s a sting in there.
Peri and her pal Greg trade witticisms and ironic pet names, including mook, which basically means an idiot.
In Mettle, Elise refers to Noah as a genius most of the time, and it’s often to put him in his place and remind him that he’s not the only smart person in the room. Kitty in particular is mean and definitely not PC in her insults, often using the R-word and her one use of the N-word is cut off mid-syllable.
Sweet Music in Your Works
Characters might hum or belt out show tunes. Music is important to a lot of people. For youth, it’s often a means of expression. Don’t leave it out of your storylines!
Soundtracks to Your Prose AKA YouTube is Your Friend
You will need to keep copyright in mind. Lyrics are subject to copyright. But common turns of phrase aren’t. In Respect, when Aretha Franklin sings about giving her her ‘propers’ when she gets home, there is nothing that her estate can copyright in that one word or even in that short phrase. It would be a lot like trying to copyright the letter B.
But too much wholesale copying will get you into hot water. So, if you’re thinking of starting each chapter with a stanza from a pop song, think again.
But don’t despair. There is nothing wrong with creating a playlist (like a soundtrack) for your prose. I have, and I highly recommend it. Not just to help your readers get into the storyline, but for you to get into it. During Novembers in particular, I tend to listen to at least one applicable playlist song before I start to write for the day. It gets me going!
Without further ado, here are my playlists.
Untrustworthy
The truth is that this story really just has one song. It was everywhere when I was writing the book, and parallels a lot of the action. How much was I influenced? How much of this was by design? Even I don’t know anymore.
The song? It’s Bastille’s Pompeii. It’s the only soundtrack for the prequel as well.
The Enigman Cave
I didn’t put a lot into this playlist, but I wanted to give some tunes over to Marnie’s conflicted feelings and problems. I probably won’t create a separate one for the prequel.
The Obolonk Universe
The playlist for the first Obolonks trilogy is loaded with songs either connecting to Boston or about machines or the like. I even have a playlist for its prequel, which is dominated by songs about breaking up and making up.
Time Addicts
For this story about the abuse of time travel, all the songs in the playlist are about time or are about units of time (days, etc.).
Since I wrote the prequels for both Time Addicts and Real Hub for the same NaNo, they ended up on the same playlist. The dividing line is, of course, Black 47’s Funky Ceili.
Words and Music in the Third Obolonk Trilogy
This trilogy is still in a very amorphous state (which is why I’m writing prequels these days—I need to work out the plot better), and so is the playlist.
The Real Hub of the Universe
To evoke Ceilidh’s roots, the playlist for this trilogy is dominated by Irish songs.
Words and Music in Mettle
The playlist for Mettle is all songs by groups related in some way to Boston or at least Massachusetts. A lot of these songs are directly related to chapters (although I may end up rearranging some of them). The prequel works with the same playlist.
Takeaways for Your Choices of Words and Music in Your Books
Words and music can give your stories window dressing. They can set a mood and they can subtly indicate class, education, intellect, status, and more. Now go add a few earworms to your works!
Which sounds are ringing through your prose? What’s the soundtrack to your story?
Want More of Using Words and Music and Other Background to Evoke the Senses in Writing?
If the idea of leveraging words and music in your writing resonates with you, then check out my other articles about using sense cues.
Sense Cues:
- Senses
- Scene Setting
- Set Dressing—Visual Cues in Writing
- Hairstyles and Costumes—Visual Cues in Writing
- Aroma vs Odor or Stench—Olfactory Cues in Writing
- Mixing a Score in Words and Music—Sound Cues in Writing
- Disgusting vs Delicious—Taste Cues in Writing
- Hot or Cold, Rough or Smooth, Hard or Soft—Tactile Cues in Writing