Character Theme Songs: Reg

A friend of mine, Jenn Burke, has a series of posts called ‘Audibly Inspiring’. I find her choices interesting and, well, inspiring. We have similar tastes in music, but differ enough to find new musical crushes in one another’s playlists. After reading back through a few of her posts, I decided to start my own collection of musical musings.

(This ramble may or may not be related to the fact I recently figured out how to link YouTube videos to my posts.)

A lot of writers find music inspiring. I know I do. Oddly, though, I don’t often listen to music while I’m writing. I used to. Back in the fan fiction days (I say that as if they were sooo long ago, when really, they’re not; I posted a story just last month), I listened to a lot of music while I wrote. It seemed a natural part of the process and I often chose artists and songs that inspired the character I planned to write that day.

I did not write Less Than Perfect under any musical inspiration. But, afterwards, when asked if Reg had a theme song, I felt really bad that he didn’t! And it seemed as if I’d done one of my characters a great disservice by not loving him enough to give him one, to have even thought about giving him one. I put a lot of thought into what he looked like, after all.

Want a peek? You know you do.

Model Ben Hill served as inspiration for Reg. Lovely, isn’t he? (If you’re not attracted to men, you need not answer that. I’ll understand.)

I chose Mr. Hill to represent Reg because he had the sort of face I imagined Reg might have: good looking, but not so absolutely stunning he seemed unreal. He needed to be ‘less than perfect’. To me, this is the face of a man who looks like, well, a man. He might care about what colour his shirt is, but he’s not going to spend all day dithering in his closet. He’s forgotten to shave for a week or more, but it’s the apocalypse. There are more important things to think about than personal grooming. Still,  he has an over all clean-cut sort of look about him. And he smells nice. All forest-y.

So, when choosing a theme song for Reg, I took his looks into account. This gave me an excuse to scroll through my (not creepy) collection of photos references. I also thought about what sort of man he is and here is where I got my first hint of what his song might be. He’s a reluctant hero.

I love writing reluctant heroes. I agree that some of us are born heroes. We have a driving need to serve and protect. I say that as if I’m one of the few, the proud… I think when push came to shove, I’d stand up and fight, okay? Anyway, back to my reluctant heroes. We have those who are born, and then, we have those who are made. The folks who who will stand up and fight, not because they have to, or not necessarily because they believe in a cause, but because it’s the right thing to do. Because they want to protect something important to them. It might be something small and selfish, but more usually it’s an ideal, one they might not even be able to articulate. Am I making sense? They fight because they have to. But lack of choice does not mean lack of conscience. Once involved, they become invested.

Reg is one of these men and he shares this trait with a lot of my heroes. So when it came to choosing a song for him, I picked the same one I use for my Warden, Aedan Cousland: “Superman (It’s not Easy)” by Five for Fighting.

This is a beautiful song. Listening to it has reduced me to tears on several occasions. It’s annoying when I’m driving. But, I think that regardless of reference–mine, yours or the artist’s–this is a song many of us can relate to.

The story does not end there, though. Characters should be mutable, in my opinion. Even after you set them down on paper you can discover new facets. I recently stumbled across another song that I thought suited Reg very well. It’s a more cynical take than I had imagined for him, but the earnest soulfulness of the melody really seemed to speak for him.

Ironically, it’s the theme song for the video game Borderlands 2: “Short Change Hero” by The Heavy.

Okay, that’s it for Reg, so far, but the search for music that inspires the voices in my head is an ongoing thing. Even characters who no longer get written still pluck at my thoughts and, now and again, I collect a new song for them. I have playlists over on YouTube devoted to each one. Yes, this means I’ll be writing more Musical Muse posts 😀 Enjoy!