A Song that Helped Inspire Never To Live
One afternoon I was down in the barn cleaning stalls with my Ipod playing. I’ve heard that many writers get their best ideas when they’re in the shower. Not me. I get mine when I’m mucking out stalls. :)
A song came on that day. I can’t remember what one, but I hope I can find it someday. All I remember is that it had a crazy intense orchestral/violin intro. And as happens whenever I listen to music, a scene started playing in my mind. That was what became the beginning of Never To Live. The story kept growing from there.
Now, I have always thought a lot about the bad life stories I heard others share, and how it took them a long time to realize they didn’t have to let their past shape who they were. Those stories affected me deeply and stayed with me. I found myself writing that type of character into my world. A character who was told she was horrible and who had horrible life experiences, yet she wanted to be something different than what she was told she would be and had already become.
Originally, when that one song first came on, I thought this story was going to be very different from what it became. At first it was a very typical fantasy story, then the MC, Elwyn, became who she is now. And that’s when the song “Set Me Free” by Casting Crowns became the main score of inspiration behind Never To Live.
“Set Me Free” shifted the story to what it is now. The similarities between the man in the beginning of the song and of Elwyn throughout Never To Live are quite strong, though portrayed in different manners. As time went on I even started thinking of “Set Me Free” as Never To Live’s theme song. I don’t know if the story would have turned out the way it did without its influence.
Have you ever had a song become the “theme song” of something you were writing or had a song influence a story of yours?
Just B. Jordan is an award-winning author of fantasy and sci-fi. She graduated high school a year early and received her first publishing contract at the age of 18. To Ashes We Run is her most recent novel. Find it here.
Miriam
I know exactly what you mean. I learnt the piece Schubert’s Impromptu Op142 no2 on the piano and it has become my ‘theme tune’. There’s a beautiful tragic majesty about it, that I’d love to be able to transfer to my writing. It’s a piece that almost is a story on is own.
I’m looking forward to reading Never To Live now.
Just B. Jordan
That is a beautiful piece. “Tragic majesty” describes it so well. I can see how it became your “theme tune”. Very touching.