Simon Batsman is the author of the Sarsen series, an epic high fantasy series that transports readers to a mythical realm on the brink of destruction.
From a young age, Simon’s creative outlet was writing, though not in the form of literature. Songwriting, instead, was Simon’s main passion as he emulated his favourite artists with a guitar or piano, composing a vast catalogue of music over a period of nearly 20 years. When living in Oxford, he became a regular fixture at several small venues across the city and nearby towns, sitting behind a piano and entertaining Friday night audiences with an electric set of popular covers and impassioned originals.
This passion for music shines through in The Curiosities of Perciville Harper and In the Heart of a Soulless Vessel. Read on to find out more about Simon’s musical influence and the significance of songs in fantasy stories…
Simon Says…
“Music and storytelling share a long and impassioned history, from the chronicling of epic events in Greek poetry, to modern pop stars sharing the tales of their latest love affairs. Those with a good ear might even argue that a piece of music, bare of any lyrics at all, can tell as compelling a story as any whimsical ballad.
Of course, this relationship between music and storytelling flows both ways, and it stands to reason that songs can serve as a powerful narrative device in a novel, whether as a tool for sprinkling in a little backstory or delivering a cryptic message to the reader.
The fantasy genre in particular, since Tolkien himself created Middle Earth, is brimming with music, and a plethora of novels have taken to song. A deep chorus of dwarves; a lute-playing bard in a seedy tavern; an enchanted hat.
To my mind, a well-crafted song performed at the right time in a story can add texture and culture to the fantasy world in front of me, often saying so much with very few words. One verse of a song can reveal more about a character’s grief than an entire chapter. One chorus can tell me everything I need to know about the upcoming festivities, instead of a lengthy paragraph trying to explain it all.
In the same stroke, however, a poorly-crafted song can feel claggy and distracting, pulling me out of the story as I turn the phrases over in my mouth to make sense of the rhythm. It’s very easy to hear the upbeat when a vocalist is singing to you. It’s very hard to read it when you simply do not know the tune.
I consider myself a songwriter first, an author second. Consequently, when I wrote my upcoming Sarsen Series, inspired by the many fantasy books that have come before, it only seemed natural to me that I should include a song or two.
This form of writing required a different approach to what I’d been used to previously. Sure, I could sit at the piano and figure out the melody properly, but I was hardly going to print the sheet music so that my readers could follow the tune.
Instead, the lyrics needed to be written in a way that would allow the reader to create the tune for themselves, and a lot of that comes down to the way that it flows.
Naturally, rhyming can greatly aid the flow of a written song, and there’s no shame in using a simple rhyming couplet. The classic AABB, so pure and catchy that it has served poetry since the days of Shakespeare, and is just as impactful today. A recent example comes from Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes…
“Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes
And when again they open, the sun will rise.”
Admittedly, I did find it a little difficult to figure out the meter in the above verse. It’s the use of the word ‘and’ which seems to throw me off on both occasions. Perhaps my approach might be somewhat simplistic, but had I written it, I may have chosen to phrase it like this:
“Lay down your head; close your sleepy eyes,
For when they open, the sun will rise.”
Despite this, I really enjoy the way Suzanne Collins writes, and the songs throughout The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes are so poignant and enticing that the irregular phrasing doesn’t detract from the beauty of the words themselves. The slightly jarring rhythm may even have been intended in order to pull the reader up by half a pace and have them reflect on the lyrics for a moment.
Another thing I love about songwriting is the opportunity to really play around with language. A well-crafted half-rhyme can be so cunning that, whenever I read or hear them, I feel just a teensy bit more admiration for the song’s composer.
This short excerpt from a little-known magic-infused children’s book is a great example of a half-rhyme where the author could so easily have shoehorned-in a full rhyme, but instead chose to write something far more interesting…
“You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all.”
For me, this song is seamless. The rhythm is easy to pick up, despite the upbeat on ‘For’; it tells a great story, and the alternating rhyming structure really helps it to flow.
These were just a couple of examples of fantasy book songs, and I hope I’ve shed a little light on the artistry and considerations that often go into composing them. Writing a song to include in a novel is no mean feat and, whether you’re an author or a reader, I wonder if the next time you come across one, you might appreciate it even more for what it is.
If, dear reader, you have made it to the end of this blog post, then I offer you my whole-hearted thanks and welcome you to read a short song of my own from my upcoming novel The Curiosities of Perciville Harper. It is the first of two novels, coming out in September 2024, the sequel of which will follow in May 2025. It’s full of magic, humour, twists and turns, and of course, one or two songs…”
“Twas the rocks, indeed, the bow concedes,
a sleeping captain, lost at sea.
‘Til Myrish fishmen, strong of head,
did save the elves of Rosensted”
Visit Simon Batsman’s website to find out more about his work!
