One of the questions often asked of writers is about the other writers who influenced them. It’s as if we think if we know that writers A, B, and C influenced writer D, we can create the formula for the next great writer. It is rarely that simple.
One of the keys to being a good writer, as Stephen King noted in his book on the subject, is to read a lot. But while I’d like to say that some of my favorite writers, such as say Steinbeck, might have somehow wormed their way into the pages of my own works, I can’t easily see that influence.
Instead, it’s the work of my favorite musicians that I recognize in my writing.
I grew up on older country music, a genre that is criticized, sometimes rightly, for overuse of cliches, corny lyrics, and false nostalgia. But musicians know better, regardless of genre. A quote I’ve seen alternately attributed to both Charlie Parker and Ray Charles, when asked about their interest in country music: “listen to the stories.”
Two of my favorites became Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson. Haggard, born just down the road, to a dust bowl Okie family like mine, taught me the power of observation. There are many examples, such as when he wrote the song “Big City” in 1981. His longtime friend and bus driver, Dean Holloway, made an offhand comment, “I’m tired of this dirty old city,” as they were pulling into a gig one day and Hag was off and running, generating a #1 song in a few minutes, one he gave his friend half credit for.
This wasn’t the only example. Years earlier, a similar comment by Haggard’s second wife, Bonnie Owens, led to the song “Today, I started Loving You Again,” one of the most covered in music history.
Haggard and Kristofferson seemed to be competing at one point, as they both combined stories that were in the news in ways listeners might not have connected themselves. In 2003, Haggard released the song “That’s the News,” noting the cavalier way the media covered the Laci Peterson murder and the ongoing war in Iraq.
Kristofferson would take it further, with an even more poignant connection of the same two events. Describing both in heartbreaking detail, he drew the conclusion that even the almighty would be disgusted by our actions:
Broken babies, broken homes
Broken hearted people dying every day
How’d this happen? What went wrong?
Don’t blame God I swear to God I heard him say:
Not in my name, not on my ground
I want nothing but the ending of the war
No more killing. Or it’s over
And the mystery won’t matter anymore
If Haggard taught me about the power—and necessity—of observation, Kristofferson showed me that, as a writer, you don’t need to—and probably shouldn’t—tell the whole story. Leave some for the reader to fill in themselves. Consider what might be my favorite of his hundreds of great songs: “Jody and the Kid.” A simple story song with three verses, no chorus, and the same tagline at the end of each verse.
But what happens in the story? Specifically, what happens to the woman in the story who disappears between the second and third verses? Is the narrator divorced, widowed, something else? People who write about the song always seem to know, but the song itself doesn’t say. Every listener gets to fill in their own version, depending on what is meaningful to them. And it’s different for each of them. The action takes place in between the verses. As a writer, you need to learn that it is not only acceptable, but sometimes necessary, to leave a portion to the imagination of your readers.
As I got serious about fiction writing in 2013, these lessons would come back to me. I had an idea for a short story called People Like That, about a man worried that his young daughter, growing up in relative privilege, will never understand things that were important to him. Somehow Haggard worked his way into the narrative, through a bit of backstory I hadn’t initially planned, and the resolution, initially unimagined, became obvious to me.
I began my first novel that same year and I found music filtering its way into the story. Early in the book, one character is in a grocery store and hears James McMurtry singing “Walk Between the Raindrops,” over the store speakers. Later in the book, as that character’s story arc comes to a close, she finds herself in the same store, and the song playing is Ruthie Foster with “Set Fire to the Rain.” (As I was writing, I didn’t know Adele had written the song.) It worked for the story to utilize two songs, each referencing rain, at different points in the novel, involving the same character. The character’s journey had changed, but I couldn’t tell you how the songs show you that. The choice was barely a conscious one.
At other times, I imagined the novel being made into a movie, unlikely given the sales figures, but if it ever were, and I were in charge of the soundtrack, I knew exactly which songs would be playing over certain scenes. I didn’t mention the songs, but I suspect, and hope, that their running through my head as I was writing might trigger something for the reader, though in all likelihood, if that something is a song, it might be a different one, and that’s OK.
A couple of years after that novel was published, I returned to the short story, realizing these characters had more to say. There was something pulling me, about the importance of, and difficulty of, personal change. In a few months, I had seven more stories, written from the perspective of five characters. People Like That was now a novella.
Music remained a theme, through the occasional mention. There is nostalgia, not all of it false, but who knows, that’s up to the characters, and I don’t own them. The mention of Haggard in the first story became a minor recurring theme and the last story takes place in 2016, around the time Haggard died. In that story, as the characters take turns choosing what music to listen to on a road trip, each coming from their own place, time, class, background, and culture, I came to recognize music as simultaneously the signifier of each of those things and a unifier as well. Music, like literature, is about creating and furthering empathy. As someone once said, “Listen to the stories.”
Kristofferson’s lesson was with me in the writing as well as there was a year, sometimes two, between most of the stories. Early readers would ask me if there was more coming, surely this wasn’t it. There likely is more, but it’s their job to fill it in, not mine. What happened in the time between the stories is no longer any of my business.
Shortly after People Like That was published in 2020, my wife passed after a long illness. As I began work on a memoir of my experience of caregiving, I found music was key to our own story. Rebecca was a talented musician, and though she would struggle as her disease progressed, performing became a touchstone, whether at church or at a local college talent show. The concerts we attended became progression markers as well, and the songs chosen for her memorial service were based on her personality, her sense of childish wonder and playfulness.
It was a year to the day after my wife passed when I returned to fiction. A short story idea had occurred to me, one featuring the disconnection we all felt during the pandemic. Music became the touchpoint, the mechanism by which the main character is brought, kicking and screaming, back in touch with some aspect of his humanity while separated from his fellow humans by both circumstance and choice.
I don’t know what will happen to that story. Maybe it will be published someday; maybe only a few friends will see it. Ultimately, that’s not up to me. My job was to write it. The rest is up to others and as a writer, I have had to learn that I don’t get to tell the whole story.
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