Mark Hamner's Blog, page 2

Ear to Brain: Music’s Influence on Writing

As I’m about halfway through the third book in my series, I thought I’d do an entry on something I’m noticing more and more:  music’s influence on my writing.

Lately I’ve been having a lot of ideas for my books while on the treadmill in the morning (yes, I do workout – shocker, I know).  So I got to thinking:  What is it?  Is it the adrenaline rush and near-passing-out state that my out-of-shape body finds itself in that then floods my mind with ideas (“here, think about this while you’re unconscious, which you’re certainly about to be!”)  But no, I think it’s the music.  As I can’t tolerate the overlapping noise of the five or so TVs in our apartment complex’s gym yapping on top of one another, I almost always listen to my iPod as I’m “running” (quotes added because actual runners would probably consider what I do to be fast walking in a somewhat run-like posture).  And I find that the music helps me think, get unstuck, or just get better insight into my characters.

Let me give a few examples (**Spoiler Alert** I’m going to talk a bit about events that happen in The Echo Chronicles):

Let’s start off with characters.  I’ve really worked hard to make my antagonist, Craven, a complex character.  That can be challenging – as those who have read TEC can attest, the guy does some fairly awful things on a rather consistent basis.  But its important to me that I convey that, to some extent, he really does believe that what he is doing serves “the greater good.”  Like most villains, Craven doesn’t see himself as “the bad guy.”  There’s a song by Imagine Dragons called Radioactive.  If you haven’t heard it, go grab a copy and give it a listen – I’ll wait.  Okay, back?  Great.  It was a great song, right?  Well, that song, with its lyrics about waking up to a destroyed world and basically deciding to participate in the apocalypse because it’s going to happen either way, really gave me an overarching vision for the way Craven thinks.  He sees the world as broken, and he is going to fix it – by any means necessary.  Keeping that in mind, I can do my best to write him as a villain driven not be a twirl-the-mustache sense of evil, but rather by a twisted view of what’s right.

Music has also helped me get the pacing of a scene right.  At the end of book two, Empire’s Rise, there’s a scene in which we find out how twisted Craven really is.  That is, (**again, Spoiler guys**) of course, the destruction of New Boston as Trin and his friends watch, helpless.  I needed to get the tempo and emotion of that moment right, as it would inform the rest of Trin’s thoughts and feelings about Craven and what he was capable of.  I needed just the right mix of chaos, fear, and, frankly, darkness. As I was tweaking that scene, I found a version of Carmina Burana (yeah, I know, its been in everything) from Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  This version was different than any I had heard before.  It starts with the typical “epic” “Oh Fortuna!” opening, but then just stops.  The music drops away, a beat comes in, and a few voices begin to slowly march through the song – it’s almost like a dirge.  It continues this way through the first verse, then a guitar comes in and things really kick into another gear.  To me, this was perfect for how the last scene of Empire’s Rise plays out.  It goes from chaos (“What did he do?”) to darkness as Trin realizes Craven just destroyed New Boston.  This song really helped me out with making sure I got that moment right.

And I’ll conclude with one that will probably turn most of you off:  Coldplay.  That’s right, I said it.  One of Coldplay’s songs helped me get the emotional impact of a particularly gut-wrenching series of events right.  I’m going to try and respect those who are reading my series here, because this is about something that happens in the third book, which, as of this writing, isn’t out yet.  So, in book three, there is a major and personal loss.  This loss is so devastating for Trin that he contemplates giving up.  But there is a moment where hope begins to come back into the equation, and he must decide, even after this horrible thing has happened, does he keep moving forward?  I needed to be sure that when I wrote that part it packed the emotional gut punch I needed.  Listening to “Fix You” really helped me with that.  I know there are…ahem…mixed feelings on that song, but the merging (I’m trying my hardest not to use the word ‘juxtaposition’ here) of the sadness and loss of the beginning of the song with the complete turnaround at the end, when the music picks up, really helped me to figure out exactly what needed to happen – and how – to show Trin all is not lost.

So those are my thoughts on music and writing.  You’d think with all the great ideas I seem to get from the gym that I’d hop right out of bed and dash over there – but no, it’s a constant, painful struggle.  Oh well, we march on.  All that aside, I think music is a really powerful force that can influence our moods and ideas, and it has certainly helped my writing.

I’d love to hear what you guys think!

Mark



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The blog is up!

So, this is my first blog post.  Where to begin?  This blog will be an anything-goes look at my writing, including my upcoming titles, the fun and excitement (and…other things) of independent publishing, my work at growing the audience for my books…basically whatever.  I hope you all find this interesting!  Feel free to comment on any posts, ask any questions, etc.  I’d love to hear from you!

Mark