PROJECT: whole dystopia
// Experimental Formatwhole dystopia is a science-fiction action mystery filled with heavy comedy, a roller-coaster romance, occasional horror, and reader-synchronized diegetic music that allows the reader and characters to hear the same recordings as selected events unfold.
The novel is completely readable without music. Without it, the novel remains a science-fiction action mystery with heavy comedy, a roller-coaster romance, and some horror for flavor. That is a normal genre.
I added... Something.
// How It WorksI call it experimental reader-synchronized diegetic music. During carefully selected moments, a specific recording begins playing as the fictional event unfolds. The character hears it. The people surrounding the character hear it. The reader is invited—but never required—to play that same recording at the same moment.
During those scenes, sections of the recording are integrated into the pacing, movement, atmosphere, and structure of my signature writing style.
// Experimental FrameworkI may have unintentionally developed an experimental scientific research framework on audience manipu—, I mean, "intended" audience-response generation through music psychology paired with a controlled narrative environment.
// Working HypothesisAfter the reader understands the main character’s backstory, emotional state, and controlled environment, the synchronized recording influences a controlled emotional, perceptual, interpretive, decision-making, or behavioral response that closely resembles the main character’s emotions, perceptions, decisions, or behavior.
What a ████ mouthful.
It is not a scientific research paper. It is just a sci-fi adventure novel with a perfectly normal number of synchronized recordings. It is built so that you do not even need to listen to them. Doing so merely provides an… interesting experience.
Diegetic Music
Diegetic music is music that originates within a fictional world. The characters inside that world can hear it too.
whole dystopia combines diegetic music with a science-fiction action mystery containing heavy comedy, romance, and occasional horror.
I am combining these elements in a format I have not encountered elsewhere.
Think About This
Music can influence your emotions, perceptions, decisions, and behavior.
Your response to music is subjective. It is shaped by your opinions, environment, experiences, expectations, associations, and perspective.
Novels can also influence your emotions, perceptions, decisions, and behavior.
Your response to literature is equally subjective and shaped by many of the same factors.
Because we all have different experiences, we develop different tastes and associations with music. We may judge a song before hearing it simply because of the person who suggested it, the song’s title, the artist’s name, or what we already believe about its genre.
In the same way, we judge books by their covers. I made the cover of my website and book colorless.
whole dystopia uses reader-synchronized music inside a controlled narrative environment. The main character is exposed to that environment. Not by choice. You’re exposed to the narrative environment of the characters. By choice.
What effect does that have?
Two Questions
- What happens when you are exposed to the main character’s controlled narrative environment before a music cue begins?
- What happens when you and the main character hear the same recording during the same fictional event?
By combining music-integrated fiction with diegetic music, I can generate an intended audience response through music psychology paired with my signature writing style.
The idea is similar to how a skilled DJ controls the energy of a room through tempo, sequencing, contrast, anticipation, escalation, and release.
A reader who understands a character’s history, emotional state, and narrative environment can be guided toward a response resembling the character’s when both encounter the same recording during the same fictional event.
The story establishes the controlled narrative environment.
The synchronized recording applies the pressure.
How It Was Constructed
The music cues were not added after the story was written.
Many scenes were drafted, tested, cut, extended, and rewritten while I listened repeatedly to the exact recordings named in the novel. I didn’t select when the song played; the scene did. During these moments, the scenes played in my head on replay while I captured them as best as I could, then I repeatedly rewrote the scenes while listening to the songs.
I studied each recording: where it builds tension, changes direction, becomes chaotic, grows quiet, delivers a major emotional hit, or begins to lose the energy required by the scene.
Every person reads at a different speed, so the experience is not intended to function like frame-perfect synchronization in a film. It was designed for readers with different natural reading speeds.
The literature and music instead move through corresponding emotional sections.
- A playful passage meets a playful section of music.
- Deliberately shaped sections of prose correspond with sections of musical movement.
- A musical escalation accompanies a narrative escalation.
- A sudden change in the recording prepares the reader for a change inside the scene.
The recordings are therefore not simply a playlist placed beside the novel. They are part of its construction.
The literature provides the scenes and events, the characters, actions, enviornments and ideas. The recording influences the pacing, scale, tension, humor, and emotional meaning. It's like a spicy seasoning. An added flavor.
How to Experience It
- If you see a music cue, you can choose if you want to listen.
- Begin each recording when instructed, or keep reading without it, your choice.
- Continue reading naturally.
- Do not rush to reach a particular moment.
- Read at your normal pace.
- Read without overthinking the music in the background.
- If listening to the music in the background influences your reading pace, let it.
The Controlled Response
Insufficient data.
Beta testing is required.
I believe I can influence a reader to enjoy a recording in a manner similar to how music becomes meaningful during a favorite movie, television series, or video game.
The controlled narrative environment paired with the synchronized recording is designed to produce a controlled reader-response effect.
If I can influence a reader to enjoy a song because the main character enjoys it, then the opposite should also be possible. Narrative context could influence a reader to dislike, resist, or become irritated by a recording alongside the character.
That is not the goal.
The goal is for you to love the novel—not develop a personal grudge against the author and his suspiciously complicated soundtrack.
Still…
It is an interesting thought.
Like I said, the novel is entirely readable without the music.
However... If you are interested in using the music while reading, click below.
Intended Effect