The Soundtrack: Choosing your song
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Soundtrack: Choosing your song |
| Creator: | Laura |
| Date(s): | December 7, 2001 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | songfic |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | The Soundtrack: Choosing your song |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Soundtrack: Choosing your song is an essay posted to "The Soundtrack" by Laura in December 2001.
"The Soundtrack" was the name of the author's regular column at Fanfiction.net.
"So, I'm Laura, and I'm a songfic addict. I love songfics. I hate writing them, but I love reading them. Unfortunately, in my travels I've come across three different types of songfics. The Good. The bad. The downright painful."
Excerpts
So you wanna write a songfic? Good. There can never be enough songfics... if they're written well. One of the hardest parts of writing a songfic is choosing a song. With some stories, it's obvious. You hear the song and you KNOW it was written about someone. (ex. "To the moon and Back" by: Savage Garden can easily be interpretated as about B'Elanna Torres of Star Trek: Voyager) But other times it can be harder. You have a vague idea of what you want to write, and white type of song you need... but you're not sure.
The first thing you should remember when choosing a song, is to listen to the lyrics, not the actual music. Readers will only see the lyrics, and if they've heard the song they might put the music to it, but chances are they'll just read the lyrics off the page.
My advice, is to make sure the song you choose is at least semi well known. I'm sure "Automatic" By Collapsis is an excellent song (Actually, I KNOW it is) But how many of you reading this column even know what that song's about? How about if I showed you some lyrics? [lyrics]
How many other songfics using that song are already written?
There's a lot of songs like that. They're good for songfics and people use them to death. Off the top of my head I can think of a few examples:
Last Kiss by Pearl Jam
Dear Diary by Britney Spears
Anything by N'Sync or the Backstreet Boys
Private Emotion by Ricky Martin
Always by Bon Jovi
The list goes on and on. That's not to say that those songs shouldn't be used in songfics. Just be wary that it's been done. And try to make it original. Nobody wants to read the same stories over and over again.
Well, you've chosen your song, you've decided it'll work, you don't think the song's been done to death... and you're ready to write your songfic!
Well, nearly...
There's just one more thing you should consider. Are the lyrics predictable? An example of this little problem is the song Last Kiss by Pearl Jam (Or the original... I forget who it's by) Anyone who sees in your summary "A songfic to "Last Kiss" about Bill and Jenny" will know immediately that There will probably be a car crash and someone will probably die.
Why read the fic if you know that already?
Granted, it's probably an excellent story, filled with angst, drama, romance... but no suspense. Be careful that your song doesn't give too much of your story away before you write it.
So, you've chosen your song, decided it works, it's not overdone and doesn't reveal too much plot. Are you ready to write your songfic yet?
Yup!
Get that pen scrawling, get those fingers typing, work that imagination, and write the best songfic of your life! I dare you! *winks*