‘… between church and folk sessions, I am twenty-three going on
fifty-three.’
How Many Wrongs make a Mr Right?
Music has always rooted, focussed, healed and energised me. So it was
only natural that the main character in my debut novel, Melissa, would be a
similar, funny-old mix: chart-dance fan, choir-girl, reluctant performer,
harmoniser and, latterly, folk-singer. I used music, what Melissa is listening
to, and where, as a way of showing her development and maturity across the
chapters.
As the book opens, Melissa has just moved house, and as the reader
you already get the idea that she was at a stage in her life where she really
needed to move on. I wanted to create a sense of that point in your twenties
when you are finally leaving your teens behind, and Melissa’s ill-health has
definitely caused some Arrested Development – no, not the band!
Caption: Altogether now: ‘Aaaaaa-aaaahm, ahm everyday people.’
With the physical move, it’s almost as if Melissa’s life splits into
two distinct halves: town to city, bar work to office work, new friends to old.
But the music was always going to be a constant, which helped enormously,
because it meant I could make sure Melissa was still the same person, despite
all the changes to her situation.
Writing about music threw up some problems at first. There were a few
‘real’ songs I had in mind, but in order to avoid potential copyright issues, I
changed band names, song titles and lyrics. An example, at the risk of getting
into trouble: the band Vertical Horizon became Horizontal Tower. I did use some
lines from ‘She Moved Through the Fair’ (a traditional folk song) and ‘Just as
I Am’ (a very old hymn) because I was fairly sure there would be no existing
copyright! And I used a line from a song I’d written myself, attributing it to
another character who is a songwriter.
Caption: My song words notebook: the equivalent of the family recipe
book.
Music permeates even the central theme of ‘looking for love’ when
Melissa meets and falls for James, and muses:
‘If
he says he likes Queen or heavy metal I’m not saying it’s not going to work out
between us, but ideally he’ll like some kind of obscure pop bands that are
melodic but not too charty. And he
won’t judge me when he finds out I like chart dance music. And ABBA. And ...
well, actually, let’s not go there.’
Later on in the book, Melissa still wants to go clubbing: when she
hears some of the old tunes, when she has a drink in her. Of course she still
listens to ABBA, every now and again. But she’s taken up folk music as well –
as a way of meeting some musical people in her new home in Edinburgh.
‘… the
atmosphere created by the music? The picking of a guitar, a strong voice, a
quiet but determined one, others joining in the chorus. It spins a uniting web
of sound around us. The unseen guest of honour is song itself; the alchemy of
music, words and rhyme is intoxicating.’
The folk session scenes are the opposite of ‘loosely based’ on real
life, but fortunately my folky friends were amused, rather than enraged, by
being immortalised in these pieces. My friend David even came to the launch of
my book, and actually sang ‘Tie’, the ‘satirical song about the drudgery of
work’ that Melissa hears at a session.
Caption: ‘and he is wearing
a tie, to boost his integrity … David at my launch.’
I knew I’d pitched it right when a reader asked if I could include a
list of all the songs I had mentioned throughout the book. Of course, I had to
confess that I had made most of the song titles and bands up! But it was proof
that I had done what I set out to do. I spent so much time drafting and
redrafting with my headphones on, iTunes playing song after song in
alphabetical order, it seemed absolutely right that the music had seeped right
through each page.
How Many Wrongs make a Mr Right? is available from the following
outlets, and from Amazon as a paperback.
Stella Hervey
Birrell was born but not bred in a market town in Fife, Scotland, just before
the winter of discontent in 1978. Writing success came early when at the age of
13 she won the Class Prize in the National Bible Society of Scotland's Annual
Competition, with her poem 'Mary's Donkey.'
After various distractions such as an Open University degree, marriage, several
years working as a Committee Clerk, and children, Stella began writing in
earnest in the early hours of the morning and during naptimes. Her first novel,
How Many Wrongs make a Mr Right? was published by Crooked Cat books in 2016.
Stella writes a weekly wordpress blog about her tinylife, and regularly guests
on bookblogs. Other short pieces have been published, (or are coming soon) in
The Guardian, The Ropes Journal, East Lothian Life, the Lies, Dreaming podcast,
The Dangerous Woman Project, From the Lighthouse, and a collection of writing
about the island of Unst. She
blogs at atinylife140 tweets at @atinylife140 and can
be found on Facebook here. Stella
lives in an East Lothian rural idyll with her cats, husband, and children. In
that order.
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