Music Sets the Tone

This blog post originally appeared on All About Romance.

Music is one of the most important elements in my writing process. And the music that inspires the stories of my characters differs vastly from one book to the next. I’m not sure why this is so. It just is. While other authors might not experience this, for me, music sets the tone and the pace, making my characters move.

When I began to write my debut time travel romance The Prophecy, the music that enlivened my characters changed throughout the story. In The Prophecy, one of my favorite scenes is where my hero Greylen comes home and is reunited with his love Gwen. The song “You and Me” by Lifehouse is what I listened to while writing it. While of course the lyrics are important, there’s something beside them. The rhythm of that specific music opened up that courtyard reunion scene for me into an entire world.  And “Your Body Is a Wonderland” by John Mayer played in my mind while I wrote about the days Greylen and Gwen spend together while Greylen recovers from injuries, and Gwen recovers from the fear of almost losing him. Yes, there too, it was partly about the lyrics—if you know this couple, they’re very intimate—but in this case that song and that music—the tone and beat—created the atmosphere for what Greylen describes as “some of the most incredible days he and Gwen would have together.” That idyllic feeling made the writing come very easily to me.

In my new romance novel, Never Say Goodbye, I had a similar experience with “Such a Simple Thing” by Ray Lamontagne. While my book’s couple Alexander and Amanda never actually break up or disappoint each other as one might think from listening to this song, the song’s haunting beauty mirrors, in my mind, how Alexander feels as he struggles with Amanda’s amnesia and their resulting interrupted love. And “One” by U2 carried Alexander and Amanda through the chapters towards the end of their story. It’s funny, but I just listened to that song again, and with the first notes, it brought me right back to those moments!

I’m working on my third book now, and I can’t tell you how exciting it is to hear a song on the radio that’s ‘it’ for my characters. It’s thrilling as I add it to my new playlist, press play, and my muse comes to life.