The Music of Novels
Novels are like a piece of music. I’ve noticed that when I think about a novel and when I think about a piece of music I think about them the same way. A few days ago, I wrote about the Moment of Hope . I’ve noticed that when a soloist sings an arrangement that builds and builds and builds, followed by a resolution, the audience always claps, right there in the middle of the song. It’s just like the Moment of Hope , but the similarities don’t end there. Music builds to a crescendo like a novel builds to a climax. Music speeds up and slows down, as does the pace of a novel. Music may have many instruments or only a few, just as a novel may have a lot going on or very little. Music may be calm and peaceful or loud and violent. A novel may be like relaxing in a hammock on a summer day or like battling a stormy sea in the middle of winter. And as with music, we may move from one to the other and back again. Some novels are serene from start to finish. They’ll fluctuate some, but like simil...