On Giant’s Shoulders: The Power of Music in Writing

Music has always been very important to my writing.

I finished my first novel, Gatekeeper I: The Finding, in one all-night writing session powered by instant oatmeal, Easy Mac, and U2’s Unforgettable Fire album on repeat – particularly the song “Bad”. I finally sorted out the true ending of Gatekeeper III: The Keeping (my outlining journal contains several previous, discarded versions of the climax and epilogue) on a 10-mile run listening to “Save Me” by Muse over and over and over again. That song still encapsulates the trilogy for me; if my wildest dreams ever come true and the Gatekeeper tales are turned into films, I want “Save Me” to play underneath the trailer. (I have it all mapped out in my head, shot for shot. James Broadbent is Dr. Barney, James McAvoy – with slight aging makeup – is Uncle Hugh, and Gary Oldman is Mr. Sigward of Sigward’s Books. If you have any ideas about who could be Mr. Diggs* or Henry Truman**, I’m open to suggestions.)

The right music can envelop me in the atmosphere of the story, helping me process plot problems and providing insight into character emotions. Ergo, I was very grateful during my first listen-thru of the Future of Forestry album Awakened to the Sound, for I knew within seconds that I had found my background music for The Ancient.

The first track is entitled “On Giant’s Shoulders”. Give it a listen. Go on; I’ll wait.

The album has pride of place on my running playlist currently, and almost every track has proved helpful as I’ve run all over my new hometown and thought about The Ancient. But this first track has worked its way deeply into the theme and language of the story. As proof, I give you this tidbit from the first chapter, wherein the narrator’s boss has just told him to stick to his job and stop “chasing giants”:

We don’t have to chase the giants. They’re already here – they always have been, and they always will be. We can ignore them and be crushed by them; or, we can try to cut them off at the knees to make them more “manageable”, and continue our heedless trudging into oblivion; or, we can embrace them – climb onto their shoulders – behold the echoing vastness – and LEAP.

This image gripped me tightly the first time I heard the song, and I’ve returned to it several times throughout the tale so far. It expresses much of what I wanted this book to be about in the first place – the message I described in last week’s post, Myth Matters: the importance of myth, the need for Story, and the peril of letting past regrets or future fears overshadow our present.

In her spiritual/authorial autobiography, The Rock that Is Higher (mentioned in my recent vision-casting post, Easy Rhymes & Trashy Romances), Madeleine L’Engle defines myth thusly: 

“…of course I am using myth in its ancient meaning – that which was true, that which is true, that which will be true, that strange truth which is as elusive as home.”

Later in the book, she addresses the transcendent power of truth, distinguishing it from the narrow limitations of fact. A story doesn’t have to be factual – it doesn’t have to have *literally* happened – in order to be true.

The characters in The Ancient are caught in this tension, struggling not only to discover truth, but to preserve it, cultivate it, and share it with a starving, fact-blinded world. Through a rediscovery of myth-as-truth, they seek to climb upon the giants’ shoulders and leap into the unknown, borne of wings of wonder. Will they stumble in the ascent? Will they be pulled down from the heights and crushed by those who fear both the giants and all who love them? Or will they succeed, their leap forging a way for all the truth-seekers who come after them?

You’ll have to read to find out, friends.

Guess I’ll go listen to some more Future of Forestry and, in hope and faith, resume my own slow, stumbling climb.

*While writing this, I had the most brilliant thought: Hugh Jackman as Mr. Diggs! Thoughts???

**Ooohhh! And what about Jeremy Irons as Henry Truman????