How To Use Music To Better Your Writing Process
The art of the playlist.
If you’ve ever found yourself listening to a sombre song, staring out of the window of a car/train/plane, pretending that you’re in a music video clip, you’ll understand that it’s possible for a particular song to create a story in your mind that you have little control over.
Your subconscious takes the words, the tune, the beat and the general vibe, and creates its own world in your imagination. This whole process requires very little effort from you.
One of the best things I ever did for my writing was to create a playlist specifically for my writing. A playlist called ‘Songs to write to’.
Simple? Yes. Effective? Hell yes.
This tactic can work whether you have a specific novel in mind, or if you’re just trying to figure one out.
Whether you listen to the songs whilst you’re brainstorming, doing character development and plotting out scenes, or you choose to listen whilst you’re actually writing the novel, a well-crafted playlist can make the writing process a hell of a lot easier.
My ‘Songs to write to’ playlist is pretty hodge-podge, but these are the types of songs that make the cut:
- Songs that help me visualise a scene
- Songs that instil a certain emotion
- Songs that make me think of certain parts of my novel without being prompted
- Songs that help me get into the mind-frame of my characters
- Songs that inspire my creativity in general
Many of us visualise our stories similar to the way we watch movie scenes. We’re visual by nature and visualising certain parts of our story as a scene in a film can help us flesh out the plot.
A song that you can imagine accompanying the scene will help you encapsultate the scene’s emotion/feeling. The right song has the potential to help you write a scene at a rapid fire pace.
If you’re writing a scene that requires an emotion that you can’t conjure yourself, a song can help push you down the right path. If you’re feeling energetic and blissful, but you’re writing a sombre, depressing scene, a slow, sad song can fix your mindset for the scene at hand.
When it comes to creating these playlists, you can do several things -
- ALL SONGS — Have one playlist full of any song that you hear which trigger your creativity
- SPECIFIC MOODS — Create playlists based off particular moods (sombre/upbeat/angry/vengeful)
- SPECIFIC PROJECTS — Create playlists for each of your projects (horror/romance/comedy)
- SPECIFIC CHARACTERS — Create playlists pertaining to specific characters to get into their mindset (think to yourself, what would be on his/her playlist)
Playlists can be instrumental (no pun intended) in your writing process. They can inspire creativity and trigger certain storylines you might not have thought of otherwise. They can dig up emotions and help you envision a scene more vividly. They can help you hop into the mind of a character and feel what they’re feeling. Certain songs can create excitement, sadness, anticipation, and impending doom.
Whether it’s Spotify, Apple Music or something in-between, these music wonderlands hold a bank of untapped inspiration and creative fuel, like your very own writing cheat-sheet for around $12 a month!
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