Writer's Block Daily

There are many soundtracks for recent movies I can't really see the movie working nearly so well without. The Raid comes to mind.

People who suggest soundtracks for their writing are effectively breaking character, however, and that's rarely a good thing.

Um, can you explain that last part please? I don't quite understand.

I don't see the practice of suggesting soundtracks for books as a fundamentally good or bad practice. Since they're optional in most cases, readers have the option to use them any way they like or ignore them. It's not going to ruin the story.

Well, where are you going to suggest it? In the story? Interrupting the story. And that's actually the best solution because at least they don't have to fire up their computer or switch tabs/windows to check what they should be listening to, which is actually a far more intrusive interruption.

Basically, every time you remind someone they're reading a story, you're burning suspension of disbelief. This is a way to burn through it real fast. If you want people to actually use it, then your best solution makes it unignorable; if it's ignorable than it's also very annoying to people who actually do want to use it.

edited 6th Apr '13 8:56:13 PM by Night

Are you talking about the sort of thing where characters are listening to a song on the radio and it's established what song they're listening to?

I have no life anymore.

Night, you're not making any sense.

No.

I'm discussing how exactly you'd convey to someone that your written work has a soundtrack. (Like Stephanie Myer, or innumerable authors of bad fanfics.) I said that.

Out-of-story, of course, on the author's website, or in the book's appendix.

From what I know, Stephanie Meyers never suggests a playlist in the middle of the story. In fact, here's the type of soundtrack we have been talking about for the last two pages. Besides from movie soundtracks.

Well, we're as a thread need to work on staying on the same page to avoid more confusion like this.

edited 7th Apr '13 4:57:04 AM by chihuahua0

I wouldnt touch skin tone unless it was essential to the story. It's too touchy and carries too much baggage. The thing about Rue being black in the Hunger Games is that, frankly, it doesn't affect anything, it's not important either for the plot or the other characters. It's purely a demographic marketing technique. Hence, it was ok that most readers didn't even know.

I think the reason why Rue was black was because her zone or whatever was supposed to be reminiscent of pre-Civil War slavery.

For me, Humans Are White just plain bugs the shit out of me, so I'll usually mention the skintone of all my named characters in their descriptions, even if just in passing. In particular, the Uelane are designed to not match to any Earth ethnicity or culture, and have a variety of skintones, so it's not possible to imply it by their name or cultural mannerisms. In general, I go with metals, stones, and sometimes woods for comparisons.

Ooh, those all sound like they'd be a good way to describe skin tone.

3rd person limited might make it a little easier because then you would use the skintone using the POV character, and whatever terms they would use.

Which is actually the worst method if you intend people to actually use it, as I noted...

Like I said, there is no possible way to do so that isn't going to be annoying as hell and burn suspension of disbelief fast.

If it's on the author's website and nowhere near the book then how is it a suspension of disbelief?

Because by the way they have to check the website while they're reading.

I mean, it's harder to think of a more literal "taken out of the work" than actually looking at the website to switch your playlist around with the book open in front of you or in another window.

Unless the book specifically said "please look at this website" at some point then I wouldn't imagine that would be the case? With the Smeyer playlists (God I hate that we're using that as an example, and it's all my fault) they referenced the characters listening to music but never got more specific than that. Bella listens to a CD in Twilight and the type of music is described (Pulsing and pounding, I think?) but it's only identified as a Linkin Park CD on Smeyer's website. So you would have to specifically look for the playlists.

I feel like 50 Shades did one worse. They identified specific songs and composers all the time. And yes, some of it was in the context of sex. Fuckers had sex to classical music a few times. Because I'm sure Thomas Tallis wrote his Fantasia and thought "And this is the part where they'll orgasm."

It even has a fucking classical music CD god I hate this book I'm getting so off topic.

I don't get why you're getting worked up over this as if it's going to ruin the work.

First of all, the reader can just compile the playlist beforehand using iTunes or some other music library, upload it onto an MP3 player, and put it on repeat while reading the story.

And second of all, it's optional. Even if they go with the "play this song at this moment" method, the reader is most likely someone who already read the story before and/or is a hardcore fan, so they're going to handle suspension of disbelief differently.

It's okay if you find it tacky or character-breaking, but in 99.99% of cases (with that 0.001 being multimedia), playlists for books are a supplement to change up the experience, to either be used or ignored. And that's fine.

1. The Witch Species in my 'verse is long-lived and follows the Immortal Procreation Clause.
2. They previously were significantly more advanced in magic than they are now.
3. The Immortal Procreation Clause doesn't make a whole lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective.

• Conclusion: I shall have a scientist idly speculate that their long lives are the result of the magical equivalent of genetic engineering, the techniques of which are now lost, and their fertility was lowered to keep the population growth rate under control, not unlike the genophage.

edited 7th Apr '13 5:24:21 PM by TeraChimera

Unless you make using a soundtrack part of the story itself. Leaves of Grass is filled with copious footnotes, but since you are supposed to be reading someone's journal, it works as part of the story.

I can also imagine software that would make this nearly seemless. All you need is an ereader with sound capability, and an ebook with an audio file attached to it. Once the reader reaches a certain page, the audio kicks in, using the pre-programmed soundtrack for that page. You could even offer readers optional audio packages, so that the soundtrack will match their musical preferences.

That's what I plan on doing. All my works would feature soundtracks but they'd be of the cinematic/instrumental kind not the "Here, let's have a death metal track with copious amounts of screaming for the hell of it!" kind.

Like what the well done kind of movies do, like what the well done kinds of video games do.

Actually, I would like to see how an author puts that into practice. I'm seeing it in ebook format, where music activates on a certain page, but the soundtrack is more like video game music, so it loops. Like

edited 8th Apr '13 7:20:18 AM by chihuahua0

^ It would mainly be an e-book kind of thing (user-activated music), paperback/hardcover novels would have to include the soundtrack as Feelies or sold extra/standalone. (Then you'd either have to mark in the margins when a specific track is supposed to start or you have to Mickey Mouse the entire soundtrack to the course of the book.)

You could put code on the page that could be activated by the readers smart phone. (cue "an app for that" joke)