Unprompted Prompt: Character Soundtracks

[penfold_x]

When you are writing, or thinking about stories/backstories, do you use certain songs or artists? Perhaps they are helpful to get 'in the right headspace', or set a mood?

When I'm writing, or just thinking about a character's story or conflicts, I sometimes listen to certain songs that I've found, for one reason or another, match up with an element of the character's story, or one of his/her relationships. I'm curious if anyone else does this, and if so, what they're listening to.

Comments

[seta-suzume.livejournal.com]

I usually listen to music when I write and eventually if I'm working on the same story (or same characters) long enough something starts to stand out to me as 'going with' a particular topic/character(s).

my 'tapes' on 8tracks are pretty much all samples of music I've listened to while writing. I probably listened to the same stuff over and over while writing the long fics about Mags more than any other project, ha ha. I'd really get sort of in the zone.

In general, I listen a lot to The Decemberists, but while writing about my own characters, as opposed to the THG stuff, I've also been pretty partial to Steely Dan.

[lorata.livejournal.com]

When I'm actually writing I only listen to instrumentals, usually orchestral soundtracks. Movies and modern video games are very good for this, though I do have the Game of Thrones soundtrack for dramatic moments.

I do have character songs, though, I just don't listen to them when I'm writing. I also am not great at keeping track of songs (azelmaroark has so many I can't keep up) but let me try to remember a couple --

- "Whataya Want From Me?" (Adam Lambert) - Claudius
- "On Top of the World" (Imagine Dragons) - happy mentor song (but primarily mentor Misha in the Victor Lene AUs)
- "It's Time" (Imagine Dragons) - Devon
- "F*ckin' Perfect" (Pink) - Mentor Misha
- "I Almost Do" (Taylor Swift) - Brutus & Frigga, married-to-Odin universe
- "Perfect" (Simple Plan and Alanis Morissette, respectively) - Alec
- "Hear Me" (Imagine Dragons) - general D1F song
- "Help I'm Alive" (Metric) - another D1F song
- "Shattered" (Trading Yesterday) - victors & mentors song
- "Bleeding Out" (Imagine Dragons) - Clove & Cato

BONUS:
- "Demons" (Imagine Dragons) - Every Victor Ever, according to tumblr, and it's really funny to see people get possessive over it (it's a generic Victor song guys, just let it go)

[claddagh.livejournal.com]

I just tried to post, but I didn't notice that it logged me out. Instead of mentioning it so I could fix it, LJ posted it as anonymous.

My default for focus and clearing my head is exercise. Survey the project, then go clear my head with some exercise. I prefer quiet. If I play music, I start dancing or singing to it. I don't filter distractions well.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

I have a Hunger Games playlist of pushing 400 songs that I listen to when I'm writing THG. Some are for more specific characters than others, but some are just pretty general for the world of Panem and the Games. I also have some soundtracks that I put together for the longer fics. The music is all across the board, from instrumentals to indie to rock to country (and that's saying something, since I'm not a big country music fan), but they all help to get me in the mood or even to remember snippets that I compose in my head when driving to or from work. If you want to hear any of them, just hit up my 8tracks page.

[kawuli.livejournal.com]

I made a post to store some of mine here: http://kawuli.livejournal.com/11921.html

Those are mostly character songs. (Oh and I should add Taylor Swift's "State of Grace" for happy Sara/Rokia).

Sometimes I listen to that kind of stuff when writing, but not always. Sometimes random whatever, sometimes nothing at all. When I'm writing d9 I tend to listen to Godspeed You Black Emperor or Explosions in the Sky depending if I want apocalyptic or just wide open spaces.

(and I'm not sure WHAT kind of music goes with invasions of superintelligent octopi XD)