How to add a song to a story that makes sense in context?

Let me elaborate: I've been thinking about writing a story where one of the characters it's a singer, and in a scene I want the other characters to assist to one of the singer's performance, and I wanted to write some lyics that the characters can comment on, my problem is that I've been wondering if that would make sense.

I haven't really read many stories where a character breaks into a song, and when it happens it's kinda jarring, I'm more used to reading comics that include characters singing and it's not as weird since it's a visual medium as opposed to just written text, though I do know that there are people who find it weird regardless.

Well, it sounds like you already know how to make it make sense. The issue of singing not working in text mediums is pretty hard to overcome. It's a bigger problem when it's something that's a major part of the story. If it's just there for some characterization, then it should be fine.

Huh. Tolkien is the only person I can think of offhand who does that...

Yeah, in The Lord of the Rings (and proabably The Hobbit too, but it's been a while since I've read it so I don't remember very well) characters all of the sudden start singing or reciting poetry, but there it always felt kinda offputting. The only other writer I've read that does that is George R.R. Martin in A Song of Ice and Fire, but there it's usally a few lines instead of several verses like Tolkien does, so it's not as weird since it doesn't happen very often.

I guess it would make sense if they talk about the songs within the music since my intention is to have a singer in the cast of characters, but I wanted to include lyrics for the songs, at least a few lines, the reason I'm worried is that it could be perceived as jarring to suddenly cut the narrtion with lyrics, I guess there has to be a way for it to work, after all there are stories where they cut the story to include letters or stuff like that, so there has to be a way to include a song if the scene requires one.

Yeah, The Hobbit definitely has singing— it was influenced by William Morris' novels.

Well, the answer would be obvious. The character's a singer, she asks for help with a song she's working on. It would be characterization. Just do it at a point where the narrative has slowed down, and it wouldn't be jarring.

Just show the singer actually doing a performance. Sort of like Macross Frontier, where we actually see the singers sing at concerts and performances, sometimes at the same time that fighting occurs, meaning that the singing is repurposed as background music for space battles. Instead of being jarring, it just flows together.

edited 29th Dec '13 2:10:09 PM by shiro_okami