I recently started drumming with an original band, as opposed to the
cover bands I've been in before. It got me thinking about all the
parallels we can draw between creating music and writing fiction.
It's crucial to understand your influences.
When I auditioned for my band, right off the bat I was asked about my
influences. The guitarist and main songwriter loves Black Sabbath
while I come from the Slayer branch of metal titans, though we both
have Megadeath and Pantera in common. What do I mostly listen to?
What do I practice to? How does my jazz training alter my approach?
And so on.
Bands are music crowdsourced. Each member brings in their own string
of influences and, to make unity, you have to agree on who the key
influences are.
This involves being fully aware of your own influences, which is
harder than it sounds. And it's just as crucial with writing as with
being in a band. What genres do you love, which specific writers?
Even if they're outside your genre, the writers that you absorb and
think about every day will change your approach to storytelling.
It would be cool to say that you're completely original and spinning
pure fiction out of the air. But in the real world that doesn't work.
As a writer you're a reader and everything you read influences you.
All your passions and hobbies, your friends and family (and the kind
of things they talk about and stories they tell) will influence your
writing.
It's vital to know your influences so you don't accidentally
plagiarize, but also so you're aware of the kind of novel you want to
create – and to understand where the heck your novel came from once you've created it.
Some people have more talent than others but practice matters.
If you start off great, you'll get better with practice. If you start
off rubbish, you'll still get better with practice (provided you're
not just repeating the same mistakes again and again, which is easier
to spot in music than in writing).
The thing that I have to remind myself a lot is that your output
matters. You can be the best band in the world and no one will know
if you don't leave the garage. If you never finish that beloved
manuscript, no one else can ever enjoy it.
This sounds obvious but I have to remind myself of it every day when
I want to keep doing rewrite after rewrite on a romance novel that's
taken me years.
When it's done right, it looks effortless.
I've always wanted to read a first draft of my favorite authors
because I find it impossible to even imagine how their novels could
have been different, they are so superbly well-crafted and complete.
Of course there were many decisions made along the way, many possible
ways the story could have gone, countless drafts and revisions and
edits.
With stories you work it through on your own then get input from
friends and beta readers and eventually editors. With a band, quite
often you're composing your songs as a team so you get the input
right up front.
But either way, you're looking at an immense amount of work and
complex decisions which boil down to one finished product. If you've
created that story or that track correctly, it's going to sound
natural and completely effortless.
Which sounds depressing, until you consider the alternative...
If you get it wrong, everyone's a critic.
Doesn't matter that they're not a musician or a writer, just like it
doesn't matter that most people yelling at sports teams would get
steamrollered if they walked onto that field. Whether you're in a
band or writing a book, you'll meet plenty of criticism.
No one can see the hours you put in to get there.
Other writers can acknowledge the effort it takes and can understand
the months or years put into something that might be read in a few
hours or a day. But a lot of non-writers have trouble seeing it.
In a band, nothing matters but the minutes on stage. That's all the
audience can see: your finished product, a few minutes to show for
the hours of practice, not to mention the years of learning your
instrument.
It's the same with a book. Unless you wow the reader with the book they pick up (or the first pages of the book, or the blurb...) then they won't know or care how long it took you to write it.
It doesn't matter how much work you put in if it's not someone's cup
of tea.
People won't be fans of your band just because you practice all the
time. People probably aren't going to like your novel any better just
because it took a long time to write.
And, like anything else, even if you love it then it's no guarantee
anyone else will. Everybody's different. I think my band are awesome,
but if you don't like 80's heavy metal then you probably won't like
us. I think Pride And Prejudice
is pretty near perfect but that
doesn't mean my thriller-loving neighbor will.
We do it because we love it.
Sure, it's possible my band will be the new Metallica. It's possible
your novel will be a bestseller. It's possible we'll get recognition
and money.
Possible, but not probable.
Luckily that's not why we do it. We don't join garage bands or write
novels solely because we want to get rich. Maybe some people do, and
that's cool for them. But the problem with money as a motive is
that when there isn't money, there's no motivation. Statistically
your first novel won't be a success – it won't get published, and
if you self-publish it won't make more than $500. Your band won't get
talent spotted and signed on the first night.
It takes work to keep writing books and keep practicing music. If
you're lucky then that work might lead to financial success, but
that's a lot of what if's and slim chances.
For most of us, we're doing this
because we love it. Not every minute of
it, sure. There are days I have to force my hands onto my computer
keyboard and days I struggle not to just drop my drum sticks and walk
away.
Often, if I push through it, those
bad days will get better when I let go of the world and get invested
in the flow of story or rhythm. But still, it's not easy to keep at
it day after day after day. A lot of kids learn instruments, but how
many keep playing as adults? That's because it's hard to keep at it.
But what gets us through is the end goal. All of this practicing and
writing will mean that the song or the novel will slot together as a
finished whole, something of which to be proud.
And, sure, we'd all like to be famous and successful. Not necessarily
for the money, but because we believe in the product. Our novel will
add something to literature, our band has good songs that might get stuck in your head and, at the least,
will contribute to the local scene.
What we're creating is something we believe in. It's worth the
effort.
