Tutorial: Making Up Songs For Your Story

[LightningTopaz]

Tutorial--Making Up Songs for Your Story (Or, How I Make Songs for Brock and Kissa to Sing)

If you're curious as to how I make the songs that Brock and Kissa perform, a lot of them come from here: The Ballad-O-Matic.

A typical output from this generator looks like this:

An uplifting ballad sung by an alto accompanied by a harp and a fiddle about a wild animal, a treacherous demi-god, and a demon. There are seven verses

So how do I turn something like that into something realistic?

When generating songs for Brock and Kissa to sing, I have a few rules in mind when I run the generator:

--It needs to be sung by either a tenor (Brock), a soprano (Kissa), or both (Brock and Kissa together)

--It should be accompanied by one instrument only (unless I'm writing a scene where another instrumentalist is present)

--The instrument in question should be something Brock can play (which fortunately, is 90% of the instrumental possibilities). Usually, I look for "tenor/soprano backed by a harp", but if something accompanied by a drum, a flute (technically a whistle), a fiddle, or a lute comes up, I consider it. If there is no instrument or singer type specified, I just assume Brock will sing it while backed by a random instrument

--The elements of the song need to be able to form a coherent storyline (so nothing that would not appear in my world or make sense in my world)

So, having said that, let's assume that on one run of the generator, you get the following:

A bawdy ballad sung by a tenor accompanied by a lute about a mirror, a snake, and a cruel jester. It has been banned in certain areas.

Sounds like Dragon Quest 8, doesn't it?

One you have a coherent storyline (for our example, we'll disregard the bawdy description and say that an Ekans sees a jester about to take an enchanted scepter, so it warns the royal family and hides behind a mirror seconds before it gets zapped, making the curse hit the jester and saves the kingdom), it's time to think up a title. For our example, we will call it "A Reflection of a Curse"

Also consider any extra information the generator gives you--in our example, the reason why "A Reflection of a Curse" has been banned in certain areas is because of the graphic descriptions of damage and being cursed before the Ekans gets there.

If you really want to get creative, make up some lyrics to your masterpiece.

Happy song-generating! If you come up with any cool ideas, let me know and they may appear in a tale of Yoso.