This thesis gives readers an opportunity to explore the special relationship that exists between music and literature. Specifically, it confronts this question: 'How can fiction writers employ musical ideas in the construction of their stories and novels?' In so doing this thesis lays out what artists, critics and philosophers have had to say about the relationship between music and literature, and, after setting up the historical context and defining some terms, it shows how musical concepts have been employed in the construction ofnovels by Thomas Mann, Fyodor Dostoevsl'Y and Michael OndaaUe. Importantly, the thesis identifies some musical ideas in these works that the critical community has not yet identified, and offers a more useful definition ofsome musicoliterary terms (such as leitmotif) than have been employed in the past. Towards the end of this work readers will be introduced to the soon-to-be-published novel Some Interludes YVith Charles Mingus, by Paul Meyer, and they will learn how the author ofthis novel has used musical ideas to shape his writing as well.