(no subject)

[meretia]

I was never particularly interested in writing about vampires even before the market got flooded with them, but long story short, I have this short story forming in the back of my mind about a vampire who supervises the late shift at a university research library's archive and is also the kind of perky dork who collects master's degrees mostly for fun and does her document scanning while rocking out to Pat Benatar and laughing out loud at the stupid little jokes she makes to herself about the names on the records she's digitizing.

I know that the protagonist is a student worker in the archive, and I have the first and one of the last scenes and the basic framework of the plot sketched out in my head. A group of well, basically Mennonite-style vampires--they live in their own isolated rural community without anything that's developed since the 19th century--show up with something they claim they'll donate to the archive if she can convince them it'll be in good hands. What they actually want is something already in the archive that they very much shouldn't have.

The scene I had in mind that the protagonist and vampboss had figured out what these guys were actually up to and go back at some point after the archive has closed. They were exactly right, and the visiting vamps are there. And in the course of trying to figure out how to work this thing called a com-pu-ter or open the folding shelves, they've managed to
turn on her music so that basically everyone's sneaking around the office in the dark with "Everybody Lay Down" blaring over the computer's speakers.

But then I started hearing "Thriller" on the radio all the time because apparently Halloween starts in mid-September now, and I'm really tempted to use that song instead (since she'd totally have that one on her computer too), with the POV character tossing off something to the effect of "oh, of course it's this one." But I'm concerned that the humor might seem a little forced or corny, or might spoil the mood of the scene.

It's just the tiny, most niggling detail but it's bugging me so much. Do you think it makes much difference to the story which I go with?

Comments

[theoretical_cat]

Personally, I'd probably dodge the corn and have a comment along the lines of "Well, at least it's not 'Thriller.'" I think it would work either way, though. If one song choice is enough to make the reader give up on your story, I think maybe they would not have gotten far enough along to even find that part.

[ar]

"Thriller" would be way too on-the-nose for my tastes. Of course, a lot of urban fantasy is too on-the-nose for my tastes in general, so my opinion might be an outlier.

[zana16]

Probably a little much, yeah. But your story sounds awesome!

[supermouse]

I think your instincts are right and Thriller would be a bit corny. If you've got a cartoony sort of feel going to the story, where there are flashes of gratuitous silliness here and there, then I'd say use it. Or conversely, if the story is dead, dead serious, heavy and angsty in tone and this would shine out by contrast, then I'd say use it - although with that outline I do not think this is the case. If not, then go with your original choice.