Music of L: Lord of the Rings

TGIF, blogosphere. Today, I'm dedicating an entire letter to one album instead of three artists or songs. This album is my go-to writing music even though it's a bit too familiar and has sometimes pulled me out of the writing flow when certain songs come on. Overall, though, it's the perfect music to get me lost in my WIP world.

Source

L is for The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King--The Complete Recordings. Yup, the entire soundtrack, both discs. All 53 tracks. No worries, I'm not posting all the videos here. Promise.

From the opening track, "Roots and Beginnings" to the creepy mega-spider track, "Shelob's Lair", Howard Shore truly put together an amazing album of music. Here are some of my favorite, though I'm not sure sometimes if it's the music that I like, or the part of the move it represents.

1. "The Sacrifice of Faramir" (This might really be my favorite sub-plot in the movie. Faramir did everything for his father's love and it still wasn't enough.)
2. "The Houses of Healing"
3. "The Fellowship Reunited"
4. "The Tomb of the Stewards"

Those are all very good selections, but there is one track that makes me stop writing and restart the track so I can hear the entire thing again. I think "The Lighting of the Beacons" is one of the more inspiring and stirring pieces of music in a movie. And yes, that even goes up against the Theme from Field of Dreams and some other truly amazing pieces of music.

So, here's that track. On the album, it's just over 9 minutes but here, this video is less than 3. I remember watching this in the theater and being BLOWN AWAY with the cinematography. Just how far apart were the two lands that it took through the night and until the next morning to get the message over to Gondor? Or does no one else think about things like this? 

How about you? What's your all-time favorite movie soundtrack? Do you own any of the LOTR movie soundtracks?

Character arcs

Rumor has it that your characters are supposed to grow over the course of your story. Great, something else to keep track of. As of my incessant use of commas and prepositional phrases weren't enough!

All jokes aside, developing your character's arc is harder than it sounds. I've been thinking a lot about the LoTR and Star Wars series for their treatment of the Hero's Journey, compliments of Joseph Campbell. Information about the Hero's Journey can be found here.

Once familiar with the concept, you see it everywhere. Disney movies, Star Wars, LoTR, and what I feel is one of the better examples, Homer's Odyssey.

Bringing it back down a notch since I'm nowhere near Lucas, Tolkein, or freaking Homer (!) in my writing chops, I have been paying close attention to incorporating elements of the the Hero's Journey in my current wip. The tricky part is to do it so it's not so glaringly obvious.

Look at the Call to Action followed by the Refusal of the Call. Your hero learns what needs to be done and declines. No thanks, they say. And then they list all the reasons they can't do it. Usually, those reasons include being physically too small because really, who doesn't love a good underdog story?

The whole idea of the Hero's Journey is fascinating. If you're working on an adventure story, it will help organize your events and will hopefully engage your reader to keep going, eager to see how your main character comes out on the other side.

Or if you're a nerd like me, keep a list of the steps handy while watching The Fellowship of the Ring and tell me you don't laugh at Step 4: Crossing the first threshold when Sam and Frodo physically stop to point out they're leaving the Shire. Nicely done, Peter Jackson.

No? You don't laugh? Never mind then. I'm just a dork. Carry on.

You tell me--how do you treat a character arc? What does that mean to you?