Over the weekend I went to a performance of Brahms, Webern and Berg (and I’d never heard of the second two composers, so you can see I’m no classical music afficionado) put on by the WA Symphony Orchestra. It’s something we do occasionally, in the cheap seats hanging over the back of the orchestra, because even though I don’t know much about classical music, it always seems to give me a creative boost.

So there I was last night, mid-Brahms I think, watching the percussionist closely because I’m always intrigued by the idea of them missing their cue when they have so little to do for bar after bar, and my daydreaming took me into blogging and fiction writing territory. And here are the results:

#1: Melody is more important than bells and whistles

I’m no expert in classical music. That’s okay, because most people who read my future novels will be no experts in writing fiction either. They just know what they like, the same way that I know what I like when I’m listening to music.

The orchestra started out with two shorter pieces by Anton Webern and Alban Berg. For both of these, there were three members of the orchestra needed to man all the percussion instruments. And they were kept pretty busy – here a triangle, there a cymbal, and then all those different drums with different sticks and – well, here my technical knowledge fails me and I can’t explain much more. Put it this way, my fascination with watching the percussionists was well-exercised during this first half.

After the interval, they played Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in D. Two of the percussionists were able to go home. There was just one guy left, sitting at the big drums, and not having too much to do. And both my husband and I agreed that this half was incredibly different to the first – much more focused on melody, much more tuneful, and without all these constant interruptions from crashing cymbals or tinkling triangles.

I figure it’s the same in fiction writing. You actually want most of your words to blend in together, to follow an arc of a storyline and to sound beautiful together, without any odd bits popping in to distract the flow of the reader. Too many bells and whistles – which might be unusual words or a change of style – probably don’t make for a very melodic novel.

#2: Some gaps are compelling, too many gaps are irritating

I just finished a fantastic novel – The Secret Scriptureby Sebastian Barry – and I admired how there were a few intriguing gaps in the story that were only closed right in the last pages. What’s more, the plot was so cleverly constructed that the reader didn’t even really know that these knowledge gaps were so important. In a word, this novel was utterly compelling.

At the symphony performance, the Webern and Berg pieces were both played before the interval. But between the two pieces, a bunch of musicians must have got up and left. In all the confusion of clapping and everyone standing and sitting again, I didn’t see it happen, and it wasn’t until the Berg piece was underway that I noticed there was an empty chair next to one of the flautists. And then an empty chair next to one of the violinists, and so on, until I was distracted enough to count six empty spots. Of course, I wondered then if any of them had been empty during the first piece. I don’t know. After the interval, they were able to rearrange things better and although there were fewer musicians for the Brahms symphony, there were no gaps in the orchestra at all. I was grateful, because those gaps had really irritated me.

And those are the kind of gaps you find in bad fiction. When the writer tells you nearly nothing about a character, or suddenly mentions the character’s father’s job as though you’re already supposed to know about it, and you scurry back through the previous pages to check if you’ve forgotten some important detail. For me there’s probably nothing worse than a book that has so many gaps in it I no longer know what I’m supposed to know and what I haven’t been told yet. Pretty much any book where you have to check back a few pages because you don’t understand something falls into this category. So like in Barry’s Secret Scripture, the right amount of gaps makes a heartily compelling story, but too many leads to irritated readers (and symphony-goers).

#3: Similar is good, same is numbing

One thing that always impresses me about the WA Symphony Orchestra is that they look the part – yet there’s no uniform. Sure, the men wear pretty much identical suits, but that’s the nature of men’s clothing anyhow. But take a look at the women, and you’ll see that although every one of them is wearing an elegant black outfit, they’re all different. They get to express their individual personalities through the kind of black outfit they choose – a frilly black blouse, a lacy black dress, or black trousers with a shimmery black top – yet they all fit in together because they’re united by a common colour and an evening-wear kind of look. Really, I think it looks great.

I have trouble doing this with characters when I write – trouble, that is, in giving them the similarities they need to other people or professions, in effect the element of stereotype they need so that readers can identify with them – but still giving them the differences they need to be individual, compelling characters. I’m not even sure how I can fix this, but recognising that I want to do this better is surely a good start.

Creatively divergent = an inspiration

Remember I wrote about being creatively divergent – that is, getting involved in creative undertakings that were quite different to writing in order to get more creative input for fiction? Well, going to a classical music concert definitely works here. Is it right-brain stuff – the music opens up the right brain and forces me to think creatively – or just the inspiration of watching talented people do something they’re passionate about – I’m not sure, but it definitely helps me to be creative in other areas. So that’s something I’ll be doing again in the future. Along with getting along to some more good foreign films (I don’t find Hollywood-style films give me much of a creative boost, sorry!) and some more art gallery visits, I think.

Anyone have some other creative outings that are their favourite for inspiring them? Please give us all some tips in the comments.