Better Fiction: The Blog

I woke up early this Saturday morning and, unable to get back to sleep, I decided to get on the computer and download a song. One song in particular had my interest. It had been bumping around in the back of my head for years, and now was the time to do something about it. I sought out "Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World" by Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole, found it, bought and downloaded it, and that's when the frustration began.

It was the right song by the right artist, but when I played the clip at Amazon, something didn't seem right. It sounded lower than I remembered. I couldn't be sure, as it had been a while since I last heard the song. Before I bought it, I searched out the full song on the Internet and heard the same song I was playing on the clip. I searched for other artists' versions of the song, but they certainly were not what I was remembering.

I finally decided that my memory was playing tricks on me. I bought, downloaded, and played the song. Only then (why then I don't know) was I certain that this was not the version of the song that had so enchanted me. It wasn't even close.

I did another search and discovered the problem. At Amazon, the song is available as recorded on the album "Unforgettable". The version of the song I know and love is by the same artist but from his album "Facing Future". Two versions of the same song made up of rehashed lyrics, sung by the same artist. One I never would have thought twice about, the other I can't get out of my mind.

After the frustration wore off, I began contemplating the implications of this as a writer. The changes between the songs are minor. The one I love is sung in more of a haunting falsetto and the song returns to the opening "Over the Rainbow" chorus instead of ending on "What a Wonderful World". That's about it, but those differences mean everything.

Iz's experimentation with the song presents dramatically emotional results. Emotional connections like that are what drive great works of literature as well. I want to learn how to transform my own works from merely good to something beyond, something that contains that spark that separates the good from the great and the great from the classic.

One of the greatest hindrances we may have as writers is our attachment to what we have written. Do we have the courage to take a piece we've just polished, something that has already gone through all the rewrites and is ready to go out the door, and try imagine doing it another way...to find some small magical difference that could turn the story into something greater than it was before?

That can be a hard thing to do, but with my latest project, I will take that extra step. I will rethink and reconsider, and, most probably, the story will begin the submission rounds without any dramatic, fate-altering change. On the other hand, just maybe, that special something will happen.

Anything Iz possible.

Wade Ogletree

Edit: See "Feedback" for a comment from Iz's producer, Jon de Mello, and more insight into the two versions of this song.