Finding the Story in a Song

I fell in love with country music late in life even though I grew up with it.  I remember an 8 track tape my parents loved (note they loved it, not me).  I couldn't tell you who the singer was, but I can still sing most of the songs..."Roll muddy river, roll on muddy river, roll onnnnn.  I've got a notion you'll go to the ocean..."  I grew up and forgot about country for a while.  It was my parents' music, so it couldn't be cool.

But then I started watching country videos and was hooked all over again.  I discovered that country songs could tell an entire story in under four minutes.  Tim McGraw's, Don't Take the Girl.  Travis Tritt's Tell Me I was Dreaming...heck that whole trilogy.  (And as someone who loves writing trilogies and series, I love that he did a trilogy of songs!)

When I started writing, I discovered that sometimes it wasn't the songs telling A STORY...it was a song telling MY STORY.  The biggest example was Keri Noble's Piece of My Heart.  There was no video with it, but I played that song hundreds of times as I wrote Same Time Next Summer.  That song fit the mood of the book, and it fit the story.  To this day, whenever it plays on my iPod, I'm immediately back on that beach in Ohio with my characters.

This month, the final book in my A Valley Ridge Wedding trilogy is out.  I so loved writing A Walk Down the Aisle. In the first two books in the trilogy (You Are Invited... and April Showers) readers met Sophie and Colton, a seemingly perfect couple.  But here's the thing, no one is perfect.  No relationship is perfect.  But I think that sometimes we shine even brighter because of our imperfections.  More than that, I think relationships are stronger when people have to work at them.

The book was on the shelf when I bought a copy of Lady Antebellum's new album, Golden.  It's awesome (that's not a shocker...love them!).  And as I listened, I heard the title song, Golden and realized, they were singing my book.  If you replaced the word Witchita with Valley Ridge it would be perfect.  You can almost see the book's hero, Colton, a farmer, walking through his fields and reveling at a sunset.  You know that he keeps Sophie close to his heart and in his dreams.  What he has to learn in the book is to accept her flaws...no not only accept them, but treasure them.

Listen to the song as you read the book.  If you've already read it, listen and let me know if you think it's as perfect a fit as I do.   I'm anxious to see if anyone else finds the story in the song.  Have you ever read a book and had it remind you of a song, or vice versa??

Holly

PS On a totally unrelated note, I have a short story that's free today for Kindle.

The Magic of Storytelling - Joanne Rock

During a recent writing snap in a local Starbucks, I fell into conversation with a man curious about my flying fingers and my AlphaSmart. He gave me a nice compliment after hearing what I did for a living. Toasting me with his coffee cup on the way out the door, he said, “Wow! I love storytellers!”

Well, I liked that sentiment. To be described as a “storyteller” was a special treat for me, since I quite like storytellers too. I tend to think of storytellers as people who relate stories orally. They draw their audience in with the same techniques ancient cultures used when they shared tales around a campfire. Hearing a story was often a shared event, and the task of the telling was given to someone who could create magic with words to hold their audience spellbound.

Chances are you know someone who can do this. Who in your life tells stories with flare? Someone in your family or in your office? It’s the person who can find an interesting anecdote about most anything, the person who can read an audience so that they spice up the details for some listeners, and play up the humor for others.

My dad is like this. I’ve heard the story of how he and his childhood friend Freddy tried to fix an old rowboat that washed up on the shore of the river near my dad’s house. I could summarize the highlights in a sentence or two. The plot isn’t the point. It’s the fun of how they get there, the details of two WWII-era kids whipping up something out of nothing, using hot tar pilfered off nearby asphalt to patch the cracks in a hopelessly cracked vessel.

It’s a story I don’t get tired of. And while I’ve never felt like the kind of storyteller who can hold a live audience captive, I like to think I inherited a bit of dad’s magic applied to paper.

One of my favorite descriptions of what a storyteller does comes at the end of the gorgeous book, Women Who Run with the Wolves. Author and cantadora Clarissa Pinkola Estes explains, “Whenever a fairy tale is told, it becomes night. No matter where the dwelling, no matter the time, the telling of tales causes a starry sky and a white moon to creep from the eaves and hover over the heads of the listeners.” Beautiful, isn’t? I love storytellers.

***Is there a story a friend tells that you know by heart... and you still enjoy hearing? How about a book that was read out loud to you as a child that still brings you pleasure to hear or to tell aloud? (All in favor of Goodnight Moon??) I'll giveaway a signed copy of one of my 2009 releases -- winner's choice-- to one random poster this week.***

Truth in Family Stories - Michelle Styles

Family stories fascinate me. I love hearing them and getting snippets of history. However, with my family, I am always aware of the tendency to embroider.
As my father used to say -- never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. And one of the great things for me is try unpick the truth from the story. What actually happened? Sometimes, it is downplayed, or sometimes exaggerated. And the reasons for both are fascinating.
One of the great collections of family stories are the Icelandic sagas. They were meant to entertain and educate. Besides being good stories, they do contain an element of truth about what happened. But how much truth? How much legend? And what are the reasons behind it.
It is a subject that fascinates me, and I think sometimes people are far too quick to say -- oh that did not happen. I think it is fun to look for the truth behind the myth. And yes, I do have a certain fondness for Indiana Jones. Until Dr. Heinrich Schliemann discovered the remains of what he claimed was Troy, many of the ancient cities were assumed to be more myth than anything. Then you had Sir Arthur Evans who discovered Knossos and the Minoan civilisation. How much of the story of King Minos is myth and legend? The remains of the truth were in the legend.
When I started to write Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife, I wanted to explore the connection between truth and legend in family stories. The heroine, Sela, knows or thinks she knows that most of the stories about her father are legend and distorted beyond all recognition. After their hall falls to her ex-husband, Sela discovers the sometimes uncomfortable truth that perhaps the stories were not as distorted and far fetched as she first thought.
Have you ever heard a family story that you thought was a legend only to discover it was in fact the truth or a dark mirror of the truth?
To celebrate the UK publication of the paperback edition of Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife, I am having a contest for Totebag readers. VWUW is the second book in my Viken series. You can read an extract here. What I would like to know is the year in which story takes place and where. Send the answer to me with Totebag June Contest in the email. The winner will get a signed copy of the Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife (or if you already have it, another from my backlist). I will draw the winner on 14 June.

** Update: Nicole Price's name was the first out the hat. I have contacted Nicole to ask if she wnats VWUW or another book of mine. Many thanks to all who entered.**