Posts Tagged Snowdonia
The Undercover Soundtrack – Louise Marley
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on April 15, 2015
Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative process – perhaps to tap into a character, populate a mysterious place, or explore the depths in a pivotal moment. This week’s post is by romantic comedy and romantic suspense writer Louise Marley @LouiseMarley
Soundtrack by Robbie Williams, Alesha Dixon, Pulp, Little Boots, Eliza Doolittle, Damian Marley
I’ve always been good at blocking out any distracting noise, whether I’m writing or reading. The distraction of silence is another matter, particularly if I’ve become stuck writing a scene, but I’ve learned to work around this by playing music.
It took me a while to realise the music I chose influenced my writing. I was listening to whatever was in the charts, but the music didn’t always fit the scene I was trying to create and would sometimes take me right out of it. So I got into the habit of creating playlists.
Nemesis, my most recent novel, starts with a flashback to 1998. Natalie is 15 and furious because her parents have forbidden her to go to the carnival. So she’s watching from her bedroom window, hoping to see enough to pretend she was there. Instead she spots her sister, Sarah, sneaking out to meet a man waiting in the shadows. It’s the last time Natalie will see Sarah alive. A quick way for me to take the reader back to 1998 was to reference Robbie William’s Let Me Entertain You, but the song is also about rebellion and infidelity, and these became Sarah’s motivations for running away.
Music also helps me develop my characters by providing them their own ‘theme tune’. Natalie’s became Knockdown by Alesha Dixon. This song, as the title suggests, is about a girl realising that no matter how many times you get knocked down, you have to pick yourself up and carry on. Natalie’s mother neglects her, her father is a violent bully and her sister was murdered. Despite all this Natalie works hard, educates herself and now has a successful career as a thriller writer. She feels it’s the perfect time to finally find out who killed her sister – by using herself as bait.
Understandably Natalie’s boyfriend, Simon, thinks she’s insane to put herself in such a dangerous situation. His character was inspired by Common People by Pulp (the song is also playing when they first meet, back in 1998). The track is really about a rich girl who wants to play at being poor but I twisted the meaning to create Simon, who is one of those people who is never happy with his own life. He hates being one of the ‘common people’. He wants to be rich and successful, and he blames everyone else for the fact he isn’t. Simon is jealous of Natalie’s friend because she lives in a castle, he hates another character because he got the job he wanted, and he’s even bitter about Natalie having the more successful career:
Look at everything you’ve achieved, all those books you’ve sold, the millions you’ve made. But while you’re living up here in your ivory tower, do you ever consider the rest of us? Do you ever think about what it must be like to be me, stuck at that bloody school forever and never progressing, all because of my relationship with you?’
As well as ‘theme tunes’, music helps me work out the characters’ relationships to each other. Remedy by Little Boots, with its line about dancing with the enemy, inspired the relationship between Natalie and Bryn – the man the police suspect of killing Sarah. Bryn’s cousin disappeared the same time Sarah died and he’s convinced the two incidents are connected. Natalie can’t make up her mind as to whether she thinks he’s guilty or innocent.
Despite the police warning her off, Natalie agrees to work with Bryn but, as they follow up one false lead after another, the body of another young woman is found in identical circumstances to Sarah. Natalie is devastated.
She was so small, so slight – so young. I was the one who started this. It should have been me.’
Natalie has spent years trying to bring her sister’s murderer to justice. She’s so used to bouncing back from all those knockdowns she hardly notices them anymore, but this is one knockdown there’s no getting up from. Go Home by Eliza Doolittle, about a girl who is in denial about being in trouble, helped me get into Natalie’s head at this point, revealing why she feels she has to finally give up on this obsession.
Natalie might have given up on her sister’s murderer but unfortunately he hasn’t given up on her.
There was no one there; of course there wasn’t. The front door had remained locked and the chain was even in place. She was spooking herself.
Then the music started.’
I don’t mention the track by name but inside my head it was All Night by Damian Marley, about a man exasperated by his girlfriend. I had the idea that anyone would feel freaked out by music echoing throughout an empty apartment in the middle of the night, wouldn’t they?
Unless they were a writer, in which case it might just kick-start their imagination.
Louise Marley writes romantic comedy and romantic suspense, and sometimes she mixes the two. She lives in Wales, surrounded by fields of sheep, and has a beautiful view of Snowdon from her window. Her first published novel was Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which was a finalist in Poolbeg’s ‘Write a Bestseller’ competition. She has also written articles for the Irish press and short stories for UK women’s magazines such as Take a Break and My Weekly. Nemesis is available here. Her website is here, her blog is here. She tweets as @LouiseMarley.
The Undercover Soundtrack – Jan Ruth
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on August 28, 2013
‘It began as a buffer to domestic chaos’
Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths. This week’s post is by contemporary romance author Jan Ruth @JanRuthAuthor
Soundtrack by Enigma, Sarah Brightman, Kings of Leon, Clannad, Morrissey, Craig Armstrong, Roxy Music
Music and books; possibly the best combination for legitimate daydreaming. Loosely speaking I’m in the ‘romantic genre’. I always balk at this description, it is so restricting and has been my downfall in the past when submitting to agents and so on. ‘It’s… not quite romance is it? And why are you writing it from the male point of view half the time?’ Well, like my musical muse, I like to mix it up a little. From the emotional scenes, from the windswept Celtic landscapes (Enigma, Clannad, Craig Armstrong, Sarah Brightman); to the drama of arson, relationship conflict and fast cars, (Morrissey, Kings of Leon).
I think I began using headphones as a buffer to block out those bloodcurdling screams of children playing nicely, or of husband making a noisy clatter in the kitchen (all devised to make me feel guilty for sitting at the typewriter). Of course, as this process developed, I began to get choosy as to the exact soundtrack. When I began to write Wild Water I used Roxy Music as a shameless buffer to domestic chaos. Don’t laugh, this was 25 years ago and it was the only cassette that worked in the machine. I’d like to make a point here that Bryan Ferry has nothing to do with my fiction, and in no way has he influenced the story but his crooning voice and the sheer volume was a combination which worked for me at the time, and in fact led to a whole new area of inspiration.
Now of course, I am so much more sophisticated, with my tiny earpieces and my subscription to Spotify.
I can drift into a trance merely be selecting the required track and outside noise does not penetrate my concentration. I am distracted instead now by the internet. I received an email once from my husband, who was apparently, standing on the doorstep holding his finger on the doorbell and clearly very cross indeed as he had forgotten his keys, and was I DEAF?
Hypnosis
I find music a rich source of inspiration. I can listen to the same track and get back into a scene, almost like hypnosis. If I had to pick one single artist it would have to be Enigma. My story settings are Celtic; not that I write in a historical genre but all my settings are rooted in Snowdonia. Someone once described my backgrounds as separate characters in their own right – and I find Enigma dovetails very nicely into this concept with their spiritual chanting and long instrumental pieces which, although described as ‘new-age’, cross frequently into other genres, much like my writing!
I live in the perfect landscape for love. The endless complications of relationships form the basis of my stories and I think the challenge as a writer is to bring a fresh perspective to what can only be described as the well-worked themes of romance; although I do like to throw in the odd spot of domestic violence and arson, so maybe not your average visit to North Wales.
Are lyrics distracting? I tend to prefer instrumental pieces but then Sarah Brightman’s Gothic album Symphony has been a rich source of visualisation for me too; dramatic and haunting, her vocals are awe inspiring. Midnight Sky was very influenced by this album. The dark track Sanvean fitted the bereaved mood of the main male protagonist perfectly. I think I listened to it more than 200 times, and I still get goosebumps from the intro. Her mix doesn’t suit all scenarios though, and if I’m writing from a male viewpoint I am frequently drawn to The Kings of Leon – who isn’t? A rock buzz can be very helpful for fight scenes or maybe driving fast cars in an agitated state. The problem with this one is that frequently, it is me who is driving a not-very-fast-car, in an agitated state. Playing my ‘writing music’ in the car brings heaps of trouble; as soon as I step away from the keyboard and drive begrudgingly to the supermarket, I am besieged with ideas and snippets of astounding dialogue, all of which I try to remember or scribble down on the shopping list as I browse the shelves and yes, I usually end up scowling at the top ten paperbacks in there too.
My work in progress is about a 50-year-old clown of a man with a fixation for Morrissey. In the book, his fixation adds to the downfall of his marriage.
…For less than a minute she’d glared at his carefully guarded face, then suddenly made a lunge for his old guitar and slung it through the open bedroom window. Some of his Morrissey records followed, shimmering like black Frisbees down the garden.
That was the last straw, and she knew it.
My husband loathes Morrissey too…
Jan Ruth has written three full length novels; Wild Water, Midnight Sky and White Horizon, plus a collection of short stories, The Long and The Short Of It. She is a regular contributor to North Wales Yes magazine and is currently writing her fourth novel, Silver Rain. Find Jan on Facebook, Twitter and her website.
‘It began as a buffer to domestic chaos…’ – Jan Ruth
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on August 27, 2013
My guest this week began using music as a sanctuary in a busy, rumbustious house. But she soon found that the music was having its own inspirational influence. For her unconventional romance novels she finds rich emotions in the music of Enya, Enigma and Clannad, which also complement the settings of her native Snowdonia. A bereaved character was embodied by an album from Sarah Brightman; a male protagonist was found in The Kings of Leon. Wait – a romance novel with a male protagonist? Well, I told you she was unconventional. She is Jan Ruth and she’ll be here tomorrow with her Undercover Soundtrack.