Songfic meme
So dashakay just posted a very interesting fic writing meme, and I told her I'd give my detailed response to it here.
Have you ever had a story that was inspired by a particular song?
1. Pick one of your favorite stories. A link would be awesome, but at the very least, tell us the title and the fandom.
2. Choose a song or songs associated with your story.
3. Why do you associate this song with the story? Tell us the tale of the song and your story. If it's relevant, feel free to quote lyrics or your own story.
Yes, I have written a story inspired by a particular song.
1. The story is On Dark Roads, an X-Files fic that I first posted for xf_santa this past year but that I had started to write several months before I even signed up.
2. The song is "Headlights on Dark Roads", by Snow Patrol. I love Snow Patrol and often listen to them while I'm writing, but this was the first time a song of theirs directly inspired me to start a story.
3. Why do I associate this song with the story? Well, it started out - as I mention in the author's notes of the story - with these intriguing lyrics from the song:
My tongue is lost, so I can't tell you
Please just see it in my eyes.
It made me think about how much has been made in the fic world of how well Mulder and Scully communicate even without words. And it even comes up in the show, though not as explicitly as some fic writers might address it. ;) Heh.
Anyway, I was originally going to try to come up with a situation in which our heroes were in some situation in which they could not talk, but still had to communicate with each other in order to survive in whatever dangerous situation they had found themselves. With that idea in mind, I wrote the first three or four paragraphs of what became "On Dark Roads."
Then, I read a fic on Gossamer in which Mulder was injured on a case and ended up not being able to speak ("Speechless" by Anjou), and decided I didn't need to try to reinvent the wheel. My story languished for a while until I got my xf_santa prompt. I ended up changing it around to the pre-colonization fic that it now is.
I guess those are the only lyrics that really specifically inspired any of the story. Although the mood of the song does seem to fit the mood of the story, I think.