Writing Update: Music and Stories

What songs do you like to listen to while writing?

Today, I must have spent about 5 hours writing only to finish two chapters: one for "The Place Between Nowhere: Revelation" and one for "The Rise of The Game Lord" while listening to pop song on youtube.

It was a bit awkward writing a funeral scene with one of my characters giving a eulogy while listening to the song "Get him back" by Olivia Rodrigo and "Blank space" by Taylor Swift but luckily it didn't seem to impact my writing to much. I will say it is more ideal to have the songs you're listening to match the scene of your story that you're currently writing but any author can tell you that. For example, I love to listen to the song "Dandelions" by Ruth B while I am writing an emotionally sweet or bitter sweet moment, like a character noticing how beautiful his love interest is with her hair down or an equivalent scene.

Listening to music while writing is especially helpful because it forcefully puts your state of mind in whatever mood the song was meant to portray, and frankly, I weaponize this trick to make my character's emotions feel more authentic. An important skill that I have honestly only used properly once The Place Between Nowhere: Blank was published. I had listened to the same Lindy Striling track several times over while writing The Place Between Nowhere: Blank which had helped but now, rereading my novel, I definitely see areas where I could lean into Mars's emotions more. Nonetheless, Mars and her ability to express and process her emotions is still a nice place to start the series, because it allows for Mars's character to develop throughout the story.

All of this is to say, that I find that listening to music while writing my stories are a great way to capture emotion, because a song will prompt me to feel sad, angry, whimsical, et cetera, even when I don't feel that particular way without listening to music. Listening to music has lead to plots and opportunities for the use of various literary devices that otherwise wouldn't have risen had I wrote the story in silence.