Miracle in July
The Miracle in July is a fiction blog that incorporates music and images into its text in an interesting way. Rather than just including images in the text body, Michelle Anderson hides the images behind links, allowing the reader a sense of exploration and discovery. More importantly, however, her use of music is unique: she places links in the narrative that begin or change the background music to enhance the mood of the story.
Sometimes this technique proves awkward, as when she includes the name of the song to link in the text, which often has the same effect as having characters recite the title of a movie . It does, however, reveal some interesting ways that this could be done very effectively. Music could pace the narrative—that is, it could be used to demonstrate the passage of story-time or to exaggerate inconsistencies between story time and real time.
Starting a song just as you begin a long and detailed description of a brief encounter which actually takes very little story-time (narratological deceleration), and trying to time it so that the clip ends as you finish reading the passage, could be used to good effect. Everyone will read at different speeds, but I can’t image more than several seconds of difference.
Subscribe 