The Colours of Literature

J-WO posted a very interesting blog on a Sci-Fi/Fantasy site that I frequent about how colour interweaves and infers it's way into various art forms, especially in novels. Click on the title above to read her article. My response to her blog is currently at the very bottom under the avatar "The Alamo Avenger," but I'll post it here as well for vanity's sake.


First of all, I completely agree with the idea that you're trying to paint on my mind. I, too, believe in the colour of literature (yes, I live stateside, but for some reason have always preferred the alt spelling of words such as color....)

I have for a long time seen music in colour, ie, the notes of a guitarist's solo igniting a streaming eruption of slashes and dots of various colours in my mind. But lately I have translated this to literature as well. Though perhaps not in such a literal sense as you refer to. I am currently trying to get a sci-fi novel published, and I doubt that anyone could go through it with a fine tooth comb (or even a comb made of vampire teeth) and find any specific description or theme of colours from scene to scene or chapter to chapter.

However, I tend to think more abstractly, and in doing so I feel that my book has already been a success even if it never gets published because when I began I literally had an entire orchestral concert in my head that was beating to get out. And by completing that novel I have laid out that concert, albeit in the form of words. Not only did I accomplish what I set out to do by the end of the novel, but in completing the mosaic I found pictures in it I never could have imagined were there.

Perhaps one day others will have the opportunity to see it was well. Some may only see the overlying plot composition, but for those who look closer they will see the threads of that music and maybe, just maybe see the coloured notes in between the words and the concert that they perform.