Many authors have done it. Stephenie Meyer credited bands Muse, My Chemical Romance, and Linkin Park for certain song lyrics that contributed to plotlines in her books Twilight and New Moon.
So how, exactly, do you do it?
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to use lyrics in your plot structure. You do, however, need a pen, a CD that you like, and some paper.
For some authors, they're the perspective ones that want to dig deep and discover a hidden meaning to even lyrics like I cried/I died/Goodbye. For them, the tears may have been not saline, but maybe blood...? Maybe when they hear "I died", they must've thought that the character died socially, or felt like they couldn't live life anymore with all their heart and concentration on it. And some authors try to think, "Well, who are they saying Goodbye to? Why are they saying goodbye? Where are they going? When is this going to happen in the story/plot?"
Ya' see? And you thought that the character just cried, died, and said goodbye in some random letter.
[NOTE: I made up those three lines myself. I didn't take them out of any song. If I had, then I would've told ya'll.]
Or take, for instance, this Muse song:
I think im drowning
Asphyxiating
I wanna break the spell
That you've created
You're something beautiful
A contradiction
I wanna play the game
I want the friction
You will be
The death of me
Yeah, you will be
The death of me
Bury it
I won't let you bury it
I won't let you smother it
I won't let you murder it
What do you think when you look at the lyrics? Do you think of a character that's suffering? Are they going through heartbreak? Maybe they think of that contradicting character as a challenge, as a "game they wanna play".
Stephenie Meyer uses these few phrases as one of the main characters has an inner conflict. A typical paranormal romance/vampire-loves-human type of plotline. Maybe you can go deeper.
There's tons of different plotlines that just jump out of song lyrics. Again, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to derive multiple meanings out of song lyrics, nor do you HAVE to be simple and surface-seeing. If you ever see lyrics that look like they can contribute to your story or a possible story, then go for it.
--Serena.
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