Do you listen to music when you write? Or do you imagine a soundtrack to go with your story, as if it were a movie?
I’ve been contemplating the relationship of music and writing – two different expressions of creativity – and the connections that are sometimes made between the two. In our world of movies and television as forms of storytelling, mood music has become a common reference point for the imaginative mind.
Periodically in writing groups online, someone will survey preferences among writers for listening to music while writing. I’ve always been one who preferred to write in silence, but favourite musical genres or mood music appear to be generally popular, though I’m far from alone in my quiet world-building universe.
Once in a while someone will even include a playlist in a novel, expressing that these are the songs they would recommend as the story plays out through the video medium of imagination. It screams outamateur, yet I can appreciate the associations the writer has established between the suggested music and the unfolding story.
There are a couple of problems with the idea of suggesting a playlist for a novel. The biggest one is that musical taste is subjective. The songs that the writer chooses may be in a musical genre that the reader doesn’t like. The unfamiliarity of at least some songs would be more distracting than enhancing of the story. Quite honestly, in the occasional instances I’ve seen such a playlist, I’ve either ignored it or listened to a couple of songs on YouTube and rejected it completely.
Despite that, I sometimes find familiar songs playing in my head when writing. The most notable instance was when I was first conceptualising the spirit of The Dance in the first book of my Goblin series, Dance of the Goblins. A dramatic piece of music that I had encountered at an ice skating show repeated through my head. It was totally inappropriate for a ‘soundtrack’ for that setting, but the drama and tempo of the music spoke to me and added to the intensity of the concept, taking The Dance deeply into a Shamanic expression of connection to the Earth and nature magic.
Conversely, in my upcoming time and space travel farce, The Chase for Choronzon, I refer to both popular and lesser known songs in the pub between the worlds where a random playlist is always in force, ranging across musical genres dramatically. This works because the randomness of the tracks is the point of that aspect of the story.
Writing about music is another kettle of fish entirely. In books like The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux or Anne Rice’s Cry to Heaven, music plays an integral part of the story, yet the writer must get the idea of music across within a silent medium. While I had some degree of this involved in describing the drumming and ethereal flute music of my goblin world, these stories required a full expression of operatic music for an audience who would only include a small percentage of opera fans. What a challenge!
Music crops up in a lot of stories that might otherwise not be largely about the music itself. For example, a reference to a band or two that the main characters might be going to see. In some books, actual bands might be mentioned like in Shanna Lauffey’s Time Shifters series where a time traveller often attends concerts in the past, obviously having researched dates, even playlists, of gigs that actually occurred. In other stories, imaginary bands are mentioned. How often have you been in conversation and someone makes a reference, followed by, “That would be a great name for a band!”
As a writer, those references can easily show up in a story, if only in passing. In some stories, like Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, the imaginary band itself can even be the main focus of the plot.
What is your relationship with music in reference to your writing? Do you listen while you play? Have you written anything based on music? Do you ‘hear’ songs in your mind while you write? Please tell us in the comments!
Jaq D Hawkins
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Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Reblogged this on Ann Writes Inspiration and commented:
As a matter of fact, many of my story ideas come from the melodies I hear in my head. These melodies may not be familiar to me, as ones that I know and love, but I often times find myself making up words to go along with them or humming them on the porch. I listen to classical music or film scores when I’m writing, though sometimes there are songs by my favorite artist(s) that I have to play over and over again just to keep the creative juices going.
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Many thanks for sharing, Ann 😃
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I get a lot of inspiration from lines in songs. Too many really, I’ll never live long enough to finish all the projects in my files!
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We are discussing this in my Goodreads book group – all writers – and some prefer silence but others like to have music playing. I listen to music as I write sometimes, but the music tends to be inspiring soundtracks from movies and games or classical – nothing with lyrics unless I need something specific for a scene. Favourites are: Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, Assassin’s Creed soundtracks. [I’m saving this as I plan to do a series of music themed posts in April.]
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Everyone responds differently. I tune out music or get distracted by it, both when reading and when writing.
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This is in line with my thinking when I have called my albums of the symphonies etc I have composed ‘Quests’, because I maintain that the music is akin to experiencing a fantasy quest adventure, and the books I write would equate with the musical movements.
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This brings the other side of the coin into the discussion. I love classical music and if I’m relaxing listening to music, a story might well form within the movements. I’ll have to go stalk your blog and see if that leads me to some of your music. 😉
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My side bar gives access to one of the albums, and if you would like a sample of the final stages of a quest, this link plays the final two movements of my Second Symphony:
The first movement is rather gloomy and portentous.
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Thank you! I’ve always been impressed by the ability to write music, especially complicated stuff like a symphony.
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One finds that if the same sort of application is applied that would go into writing a novel, it is surprisingly easy!
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I’m so intrigued by the random playlist you talk about from your book! If this pub is between worlds, would some songs be completely unknown to one or the other? What aspects of the music would be similar and what aspects would be totally different in the different worlds?? This is such a cool idea, and overall an interesting post on how music and writing can relate!
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Looking back at the first chapter, “strange ethereal music” is playing as the protagonists enter the bar, then soon after Beethoven’s 9th symphony is mentioned. Further mentions within the plot include a Roy Orbison love song, Davis Bowie’s Starman, and other references either to specific well-known songs or artists or to a style of music completely different from whatever the last track was.
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Okay, interesting!! Thanks for sharing!
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Reblogged this on Sue Vincent's Daily Echo.
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Thanks for sharing, Sue 🤗❤️🤗
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My pleasure, Chris ❤ 🙂
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Thank you for the reblog!
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My pleasure, Jaq.
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While I write my detective novels, I like to listen to classic old jazz by artists like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Oscar Peterson. There’s something about that music that fit’s the black and white, smoky world of the detective genre.
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I can see how that would fit as mood music!
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I’m a soundtrack guy, myself. Has to be music in my head, but not in my ears.
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Do you mean you listen to a soundtrack in your head as you write or as you read?
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Something like that. I look to write with music in the words (so to speak), and need to have something like a melody in my mind to achieve that.
A clumsy explanation., but something of that sort is the way I work best.
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