How Music Can Inspire Writing the Fun Dark Stuff

Sun, 23 Mar 2014 05:32:00 GMT

In other words, when writing dark characters, music can pretty much write the story for you. All you need to do is type it out. ;)

I'm in the middle of a rut in writing the next chapter of my Trilogy series. Been doing a lot of research and reworking of history. It's in the same category as the reworking of Norse Mythology for Stargate SG-1. The research is taking a long time, and it's fairly extensive. Have no idea yet how much of what I learn and rework will actually end up in my story.

In the meantime, I'm considering writing some short pieces, partly to get my mind back in gear about being able to write--have the time for writing. And there is a bloody universe of ideas on *what* to write.

For the last week or so, I've latched onto certain music from a TV ad and, of all things, a PC game. Both are giving me wonderfully horrible/creepy/dark ideas.

There's a lovely little ditty out there called "Kill of the Night" by Gin Wigmore (a lovely and strange name *g*). Her song is used for backdrop advertising for many TV series running on the Investigation Discovery channel. Nationwide Insurance has adopted it too, so no matter what channel I'm watching, I hear that music.

The song, which I d/l from Amazon after I hunted down the what/who of it's name/singer, has a wonderfully twisted sound. Partly old-fashioned, in that "smokey nightclub of the 40s" vein, it's got some dark lyrics which I consider fun and entertaining. The words and music spawn lots of plot bunnies in my head.

There's another piece of music that's incredibly creepy (on purpose). It's the theme music for Clint Eastwood's movie, High Plains Drifter. That's a dark tale, and the music matches. It's not a "fun" piece of dark, not like "Kill of the Night" is. But it does inspire "intensity" in whatever plot bunny scenes leak out of my brain.

The PC music isn't using a cover of High Plains Drifter. *G* But a piece of background music that plays once in a while has these high drawn-out notes that remind me of the High Plains Drifter music, specifically the parts at the beginning and ending scenes of the film where the stranger (Clint's character, who is either a ghost of the dead sheriff or the embodiment of revenge and justice) comes from the desert, appearing/disappearing like a mirage. You can see what I mean by listening to the beginning of this piece someone kindly put on Youtube: http://youtu.be/iYZwcuC0z4o

Anyways. Music always inspires me, one way or another. These "dark" pieces of music mentioned here inspire me to go to the dark side. I have before, but not to the extent where I made a reader all that uncomfortable. What I'd like to do is write a story, short or long, that makes me feel like the dark music makes me feel. The thing is, I wonder at my readership's reactions. I don't normally let opinion sway what I write, but when it comes to how dark to go, I generally keep to big nasty spiders and what not. What I need to do is go all Dexter (season one) and to hell with negative opinion. *wince*

I should go for it anyway. And then laugh at myself when the fear of backlash doesn't come and instead, I get tumbleweeds. *snort*

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How Music Can Inspire Writing the Fun Dark Stuff