Wednesday, February 10, 2016

The Writing Circle: Character Playlists

Hello lovelies! I wanted to talk about writing today since I want to get into writing once more this year and actually participate in NaNoWriMo. I have a story I started writing last year that I want to delve into more since I was really passionate about it. But today is not the day to talk about book ideas and plot arcs.

Today is the day to talk about characters and their playlists. But more importantly, do you as a writer make playlists for characters?

There are just some songs that I listen to sometimes and I just go "Oh that's totally ___'s song!" and mentally add that to their playlist. When I make playlists and I start playing them, it helps me write in the mindset of their character. This is a bit difficult when I'm writing a third person kind of novel, but most of the time I'm pretty okay with it! I love how certain music makes me feel a certain atmosphere and when I write about characters, I need music. Music is like a personality fingerprint. Even if someone listens to all kinds of music, it tells a lot about what they're personality is.

If I want to make a character badass (or at least they feel badass), then I usually have songs that have a high BPM or they tend to hype me up for a work out. If I want a character to come across as regal, I play certain classical music. I sometimes have music that people wouldn't think that character listening to. It all adds to their personality and it's so fun to discover songs and just automatically connect it to a character I've created.

Sometimes I don't even create a playlist. I just have an "anthem" for that character. A song they listen to all the time.

What about you? Do you have a certain playlist or song associated to your characters?