DOES YOUR NOVEL HAVE A SOUNDTRACK?

{A ripple from my July 4th post} :

I've been told by many that they no longer watch old movies. Pity. There are some great ones out there. At least try CASABLANCA or GOLDEN EARRINGS.

My introduction as a very young boy to the world of adventure, mystery, and love was done courtesty of the weekend classic movie marathons.

It was where I first met Marlene Dietrich. I first saw her in the the movie, GOLDEN EARRINGS. On my wall of Movie Memorabilia is the framed original sheet music for the movie, autographed by Marlene.

Even though I was a very young boy, I fell in love with her portrayal of the gypsy, Lydia. Of course I imagined I was the escaped British prisoner, Ray Milland, on the run from the Nazi's in Germany. It was the first movie she made after her three year gauntlet entertaining the troops on the front lines.

Marlene came back from her three years on the front lines of WWII very much changed. She never got over the horrors she saw there. She slept for months in jeeps, on floors, even on bare dirt.

One afternoon after VE Day, she was walking through a little French village. All around her was rubble, and she couldn't understand why -- all the buildings along the street were still standing with curtains blowing frilly and snapping clean-crisp in their windows.

Then, she looked through one of the windows to see that there was nothing behind it. The fronts of the buildings were still standing, but everything behind them had been destroyed. There wasn't a single living person past the false fronts of those caricature buildings.

With her face cupped in trembling hands, she stood in front of that window, weeping silently, refusing to be comforted ...

"... for there is no comfort for the dead," she whispered.
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Ernest Hemingway also wrote this of her : "She is brave, beautiful, loyal, kind, and generous. She is never boring and is as lovely looking in the morning in a G.I. shirt, pants, and combat boots as she is at night or on the movie screen.

She has an honesty and a comic and tragic sense of life that can never let her be truly happy unless she loves. When she loves, she can joke about it -- but it is gallows humor.
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{Now back to our regularly scheduled post} :

Some things are universal and eternal : hate, terror, and love.

They are the subconscious melodies in the background of humanity's thoughts. It sounds surreal but it isn't : Mankind shares a soundtrack.

Music is the breath of humanity as a species. Anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, neurosurgeons, and psychologists attest to it. They belive the area in the brain which processes music actually gave birth to human nature.

Music predates agriculture. It existed before language. Its melodies promoted the cognitive development necessary for speech.

Americans spend more money on music than they do on prescription drugs or sex. On the average, they listen to music at least six hours a day. For many it is the breath of their daily lives.

In Sanskrit breath is called prana, the very breath of life.

That breath is filled with vibrations : the cry of a lost child, the wail of a bereaved mother, the shattering of a store window. So many sounds in a single night of terror, creating a haunting melody ... a French Quarter nocturne for a mortally wounded city. Its name?

Katrina.

I was one of its notes.

Though I have a Master's degree in Psychology and a Bachelor's degree in English education, I, like so many others, survived as best I could. And so I found myself working as a blood courier to New Orleans in order to support myself. I used that experience to aid me in writing the Noir Fantasy, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE.

With a name like that, it involves music. How could it not? Its actions centers in the French Quarter, the birth place of jazz.

It is important to the lead character, Samuel McCord, too. It is no coincidence that he owns a jazz club. A jazz club he named after his wife, Meilori. Music to him has become a remembrance of shadows, an echo of times spent with friends, and a glimpse back into a time when he was loved.

He is a monster who mourns the loss of his humanity. So much so that he nutures it in the souls of those who pass his club, lost and hungry. McCord sees life in terms of music. When he first views the flooded streets of New Orleans, he hears Bette Midler singing, "I think It's Going To Rain Today" ...

... especially the refrain "human kindness is overflowing."

He championed the tragic jazz legend, Billie Holiday. His wife's favorite song was Billie's "You Go To My Head." He hears it throughout the novel. And when he is facing his death before overwhelming odds, he once again hears that song before murmuring the one name he promised himself would be the last on his lips :

"Meilori."

And why is all this important to you as a writer?

What is the musical score to your novel? Every good book has one : stirring, haunting, light with laughter, or heavy with sorrow --

or all of the above. The music of your novel is the heart of your novel. And the heart of your novel is your pitch to the agent.

Think of the image on the posters for the past five movies you saw. It evoked a sense of the story to the movie. If you could look into the past, it would have been the essence of the pitch to the studio heads for the movie itself.

Like every good melody, the structure of your novel is comprised of two intertwining themes :

A) The physical goal of your hero ... what she/he wants.
B) The spiritual goal of your hero ... what she/he needs.

The A theme is what attracts the agent/reader to your story. The B theme is what keeps them there, what brings them back to re-read it again and again, making your novel a classic ... and a bestseller. Why not work to make your novel one of the great ones?

Music is all about transformation. You are not quite the same after hearing a good song. A good novel is about the same thing : transformation. Your hero has emerged transformed at the end of your novel, taking your reader into the process.

It all comes down to that one moment of faith : when your hero takes that leap into the darkness, not knowing if he will survive -- only knowing he would not be able to live with himself if he did not make the attempt.
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