Creating Your Novel's Soundtrack

Recently I have been looking around for new music to listen to while writing. I seem to get extremely distracted by music with lyrics, so that is all saved for inspiration time when I am plotting or creating characters (more on that in upcoming post). When it comes down to the hard core writing, I have to go with instrumental. Occasionally that can get distracting as I must resist the urge to squeal in delight and call my sister over to listen to something I found. When this does occur, I like to switch to nature sounds and listen to thunderstorms. But, must of the time I can in fact listen to instrumental no problem.

Above all, the best instrumental music for me to listen to is movie soundtracks

These are always fun and exciting. There are lots of intense and dramatic songs through these, perfect for noveling.

A few of my favorites are, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, How to Train Your Dragon, Jane Eyre, Frozen, Ratatouille, Star Wars, and Up. Which I just saw the movie that came out this past weekend, The Giver, which of course I had to find the soundtrack for, and it has now become a large favorite of mine.



 

Setting the Mood with Playlists

Creating a playlist for your novel is a whole lot of fun. You can set a song for each scene and go through the playlist for inspiration. But what happens when you are writing an emotional scene and suddenly a action packed song starts playing and scares the epic feels away? That's when you organize songs in this form.

When I know I will be writing a sad scene, I look through the list of songs I have for that category and play them while I write:

1. Anakin's Dream, Star Wars Episode III
2.  Happiness and Pain, The Giver
3. A Thorough Education, Jane Eyre
4. The Breaking of the Fellowship, The Fellowship of the Ring
5. Conceal don't Feel, Frozen
6. Stuff We Did, Up

Moving on to action scenes, there are lots of different songs for this:

1. Prince Caspian Flees, Prince Caspian
2. Capturing Jonas, The Giver
3. The Battle, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
4. Dragons Den, How to Train your Dragon

Or maybe a joyful scene, these are my favorite:

1. Rosebud, The Giver
2. The Great Thaw, Frozen
3. Only the Beginning of an Adventure, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
4. New Tail, How to Train Your Dragon
5. The Fellowship Reunited, The Return of the King
6. Concerning Hobbits, The Fellowship of the Ring

I think you get the idea. Some times the more exciting songs in playlist distract me, so I tend to stick with all the soft songs. Besides movie soundtracks, other instrumental pieces are great.

I have created playlist for each category using Spotify, a wonderful tool
for finding music. They have nearly every movie soundtrack available, (Besides The Desolation of Smaug <sobs> which I keep waiting for.) but they get most of the playlist super fast. The Giver movie just hit theaters and the soundtrack is available on Spotify.

So get on Spotify and check out some of your favorite soundtracks. Mix them up and make your playlist. Or you could check out my account and find the ones I created: kidsstuffnews


What are some of your favorite movie soundtracks? Can you write with or without music with lyrics? Love to hear from you all!

-Melody

photo credit: aloshbennett via photopin cc