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RE: The Spark + Unbewusstes - Finish The Story Contest - Week #66 @bananafish
It occurs to me now that a short story I wrote had to be me subconsciously seeking to emulate the voice of that Silverberg story. Now, to remember the story...
Well, that took some digging! It was 3 months ago, for another @banafish contest. You commented on the narrator:
(Germans in that story, and in the latest, with Karl the android: I see now that yet another German keeps popping from my head in response to a story prompt.)
OF COURSE I didn't achieve the narrative voice that Silverberg does, least of all in the THE DYBBUK OF MAZEL TOV IV, but when I read something I love, I find myself trying to channel that kind of voice in my own writing. Whenever someone says my purple prose stories remind them of Joyce Carol Oates it's time I try harder to be aware of "appropriating" someone else's voice.
https://steemit.com/tellastorytome/@carolkean/the-visionaires-contest-entry-for-tell-a-story-to-me-the-known-future
I haven't done that in prose, that I know of, although others could probably pick out a lot of my influences if well read.
But I've definitely done that in songwriting, and although sometimes done as homage, I often don't even realize it until after the fact.
The human mind is fascinating in its intricacies.
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Indeed! And I was never conscious of trying to sound like a favorite author whenever I did, and - ironically, or not - when I waxed the most purple, I was chanelling Ardyth Kennelly's Good Morning, Young Lady, a book I dearly loved from age 12 til now, and continue to re-read, even though maybe ten people on the planet agree with me that it's a great story (a Cinderella tale set in the Old West). Kennelly used Deep POV before I'd ever heard of the term. And she trotted out the one-word paragraphs (drama, drama?) at exactly the right time.
The hyperlink above takes you to my book review, in which - coincidentally - I mentioned The Sea Wolf.
Okay, this is a book and author with which I'm entirely unfamiliar, but I like the premise already. I'll have to check it out.
My go-to book that I've loved since childhood, and still re-read, is "A Wrinkle in Time," which I have no doubt you know well.
I still want to see the film they made from it a few years back.
I didn't know' until shortly before they started filming, that the book is actually the first in a trilogy, so one of these days I have to get the other two volumes.
Then I'll disappear for a couple of days. ;-)
Funny though, since we now know that babies can hear in the womb, and my parents were both immersed in music, it has occurred to me that copyright law in music is especially problematic.
In theory at least, songwriters may well include snippets of music they quite literally heard in the womb, which naturally they would have no memory of ever hearing.
An interesting conundrum.
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Wow - wow - wow - what an insight!!!!
I've vaguely thought along these lines as a reader, having "heard" a certain voice, a certain cadence, and my own writing unconsciously "informed" by someone else's influence. This -
babies can hear in the womb
and your parents were both immersed in music, and
it has occurred to me that copyright law in music is especially problematic.
I hear what you mean... see what you mean... Eric Carmen's "All By Myself," though, was a conscious nod to Rachmaninoff. But how often does a familiar riff show up, like Pat Metheny's train song. I keep hearing "Queen Bee, Chasing me" (a playground jumping rope song he must have heard at recess)
Others may not hear it, but I do, starting at 55 seconds in.
Nope, not familiar with it.
And that's the year I started in first grade, so you'd think I would have.
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Interesting, but I've also never heard "Queen bee chasing me," at least not that I recall.
Maybe it was a regional thing.
So many songs have intentional nods to favorite composers, and sometimes, the homage is what makes the song for me.
Case in point is "Toward the Blue Horizon," by Riverside, when guitarist Piotr Grudzienski breaks into into the opening riff from Porcupine Tree's "Blind House," acknowledging their early influence on the band, and on him.
And Steven Wilson, lead man and primary (often sole) songwriter of Porcupine Tree, has frequently referenced earlier works, from artists as diverse as King Crimson, Dead Can Dance and Prince.
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