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Do you use music in any way to help you write particular characters?


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All the time, I always listen to music when writing anything. When writing for one of my longest serving characters, a Klingon warrior by the name of MorteQ, I listen to a lot of Star Trek battle themes. When writing superhero characters, I listen to a lot of Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Danny Elfman etc. If I were to write fantasy characters, I'd probably find myself listening to the soundtracks from LOTR and the Hobbit. It pays to find music that fits your material well.

 

Music inspires and encourages and can certainly bring out the best in people. It's certainly added a shine to my admittedly average level of writing skill, especially when I'm writing with others or replying to posts/threads/logs

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I am the type that makes playlists for characters, and when I hear songs on the radio, I get all smiley and think about specific RPs or characters. 

 

I usually have one song that I relate to each character the most, and if I'm low on Muse, I'll listen to it to get rolling. 

 

I rarely base characters off songs, but I certainly have based plots off of them. (Country is my jive, so often they're quite narrative...)

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I have character playlists. They include songs that I feel describe the character, songs that the character likes, songs that the character feels describes a mood they get in a lot.

 

I actually post them wherever. Funnily enough not all of my characters are inspired from music but some of them there are song that I'm like "WTF am I listening to right now!?"

 

Here are two of my longest Character playlists:

 

 

 

 

(And I now know officially that IPS supports spotify embeds... so happy right now)

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Oh I guess I do have character playlists! @Morrigan do you listen to those playlists as you write those characters? Or they just like...an added bonus? Because I can't actually write to my character playlists, I find them highly distracting. They definitely get me in the right mood for that character though if I feel my muse is lacking! Like, I'll do something else and put on that playlist to get my character juices flowing, then turn it off to write posts for that character.

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Yes and no? I have very specific times that I can write when I'm listening to things. They are extremely rare and I take them. Normally lyrics and words and music distract me so I actually have to pause the music, write the post then continue @Sage.

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Sometimes I write with music and its inspiring.  Other times it just ends up being distracting and then I have to pause it to write.

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16 hours ago, Tia said:

I listen to music when writing cause it helps me motivate and gets me into the writing though I use it also for graphic making and browsing through the web. :)

 

Oh, I forgot about listening to music while making graphics - my goal is to one day design a signature or layout inspired by a character-inspiring song. Music relaxes me so much.

 

15 hours ago, ohsith said:

All the time, I always listen to music when writing anything. When writing for one of my longest serving characters, a Klingon warrior by the name of MorteQ, I listen to a lot of Star Trek battle themes. When writing superhero characters, I listen to a lot of Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Danny Elfman etc. If I were to write fantasy characters, I'd probably find myself listening to the soundtracks from LOTR and the Hobbit. It pays to find music that fits your material well.

 

Music inspires and encourages and can certainly bring out the best in people. It's certainly added a shine to my admittedly average level of writing skill, especially when I'm writing with others or replying to posts/threads/logs

 

Nice! When I write Marvel, I listen to Marvel scores sometimes. Hans Zimmer is on my list for score music - helps that he did several Marvel ones. I also find that writing with music seems like my writing skill gets a nice little boost, I suppose because of the ways the words flow as lyrics, or because I'm writing words to the music.

 

14 hours ago, Thyme said:

I am the type that makes playlists for characters, and when I hear songs on the radio, I get all smiley and think about specific RPs or characters. 

 

I usually have one song that I relate to each character the most, and if I'm low on Muse, I'll listen to it to get rolling. 

 

I rarely base characters off songs, but I certainly have based plots off of them. (Country is my jive, so often they're quite narrative...)

 

I have the exact same feeling when music like that comes on the radio! I don't listen to it often (I go through I'm Feeling Lucky on Google Play Music a lot though) but when I do and there's that perfect song... That's a nice way of doing it, having that one song that can spark your muse the best.

 

14 hours ago, Morrigan said:

I have character playlists. They include songs that I feel describe the character, songs that the character likes, songs that the character feels describes a mood they get in a lot.

 

I actually post them wherever. Funnily enough not all of my characters are inspired from music but some of them there are song that I'm like "WTF am I listening to right now!?"

 

Ooh, nice playlists. I haven't used Spotify (I've used both 8tracks and Google Play Music for playlist needs, when not just written down). I have a few songs where it's like "uh..." because either it's not a song I'm keen on but it fits the character too well, or it's a little 'heavy' I suppose.

 

8 hours ago, KARA BELLA said:

Sometimes I write with music and its inspiring.  Other times it just ends up being distracting and then I have to pause it to write.

 

I guess it depends on the situation, whether you want to have it in the background or if it's just going to take your focus off. Like if you're going to start procrastinating because you can't pick the perfect song or so on?

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Instrumental music fuels me, OR silence. However every so often I'll get inspired by some lyrics and it will spur into some kind of insane plotting. Recently did a plot with a friend where we took a bit of inspiration from Tevye's "FOR LIFE" from Fiddler on the Roof and spurred it into this hilarious marriage agreement where one character trades their daughter for a goat... yeah it got insane and carried away, but it was definitely inspired by music.

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I’ve generally always had a playlist made for each character and would turn it on a good while before writing the character to get into ‘their’ mood. 

 

However there is one character of mine that I have to have complete silence to write. It’s weird since his personality is the basics of most personalities though his past is deep and constantly on his mind so I find myself repeating his thoughts all the time. You would think I would have a playlist of more depressing or sad songs for him but no I must have complete silence. No background noise, no tv, no talking, nothing. It makes getting time to write him very hard but he’s always the most fun to write once I do find time and get started. 

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I can never write without music! Video game OSTs, film tracks, random oldies.

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I struggle so much writing without music. It's like there's part of my brain that's just a runaway chattery squirrel with a nonexistent attention span. So I'm trying to write and that squirrel is just chattering away (Oh what's that that looks cool did you check to see if you got a new message let's look at another post ooh let's play FF14 wonder if there's anything good on tv check for messages again did we look at that that was cool let's look at it again) and I cannot focus. Music gives the squirrel something to latch on to and lets me actually focus on what I'm writing. The music choice doesn't matter. I've used white noise before (rainymood.com was my go-to for the longest time). I just need something to keep the squirrel occupied.

 

It helps me with driving, too, which my brother does NOT understand.

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On 11/9/2017 at 8:33 AM, webs said:

 

Same! I think I've made three characters purely due to particular songs, all different types of music of course. Do you have any examples? I have one based off of a song (I think #Selfie by The Chainsmokers) where the character is a self-obsessed model-type. 

 

 

Yeah, sure! I have some examples. So I based my character Shadow on the song "Rules" by Jayme Dee. Specifically the lines:

 

 You say you know love, but you are just reflecting words you hear
No iron in your veins could give you any sense of pain or fear
It's just another lie, it's just another calculation

And when the power's out, we're just another old sensation 

 

He's not a robot or anything (the song makes me think of a robot though) he's an incubus and science experiment and it's understandable for the person who falls for him to wonder if he's even capable of love or if he's just parroting the actions of those around him. 

 

Then my character Greggory was inspired by the song "Meet Me In The Woods" by Lord Huron. He's a werewolf hunter that became a werewolf so...

 

I took a little journey to the unknown
And I come back changed, I can feel it in my bones
I fucked with the forces that our eyes can't see
Now the darkness got a hold on me
Holy darkness got a hold on me
 
How long, baby, have I been away?
Oh, it feels like ages though you say it's only days
There ain't language for the things I've seen, yeah
And the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams
The truth is stranger than all my dreams
Holy darkness got a hold on me
 
Lastly (for now) my character Junai was created with the song "Everything's Alright" by Laura Shigihara. Like the character from the video game this song came from, my character is not quite all there. He is severely emotionally stunted, unable to properly express his real feelings with words, though he does try with actions.  
 
Why do my words
Always lose their meaning?
What I feel, what I say
There's such a rift between them
He said, "I can't
Really seem to read you. "
I just stood there
Never know what I should do
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I can listen to music in between posts to inspire me for threads. Two Steps From Hell never fails. :P

 

But when I'm writing I cannot concentrate when there's any kind of noise, whether it's music or background or some idiot hammering a wall. Need total silence or I can't concentrate, dunno why it's only a recent thing in the last year or so.

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On 11/11/2017 at 12:19 AM, Denethorii said:

Instrumental music fuels me, OR silence. However every so often I'll get inspired by some lyrics and it will spur into some kind of insane plotting. Recently did a plot with a friend where we took a bit of inspiration from Tevye's "FOR LIFE" from Fiddler on the Roof and spurred it into this hilarious marriage agreement where one character trades their daughter for a goat... yeah it got insane and carried away, but it was definitely inspired by music.

 

Oh, nice! The fact that it could spawn such an amusing roleplay / plot is great.

 

On 11/11/2017 at 6:43 AM, isoldehn said:

I’ve generally always had a playlist made for each character and would turn it on a good while before writing the character to get into ‘their’ mood. 

 

However there is one character of mine that I have to have complete silence to write. It’s weird since his personality is the basics of most personalities though his past is deep and constantly on his mind so I find myself repeating his thoughts all the time. You would think I would have a playlist of more depressing or sad songs for him but no I must have complete silence. No background noise, no tv, no talking, nothing. It makes getting time to write him very hard but he’s always the most fun to write once I do find time and get started. 

 

I think that makes complete sense that, to get into one character, you need that silence, because it helps you get into his mindframe. I have some days when I'll listen to music and imagine scenes with that as background music, like in a movie, which helps me explore the characters' thought patterns. But I can't be distracted, so this usually happens when I'm travelling somewhere and can close my eyes.

 

On 15/11/2017 at 12:16 PM, Blackjack Bart said:

I can never write without music! Video game OSTs, film tracks, random oldies.

 

Which video game OSTs do you find you listen to a lot? Some of my favourites are Devil May Cry (2013), Resident Evil 7, and Prey (2017) - missing some, but those I've listened to recently.

 

On 15/11/2017 at 10:43 PM, Kittenmitten said:

I struggle so much writing without music. It's like there's part of my brain that's just a runaway chattery squirrel with a nonexistent attention span. So I'm trying to write and that squirrel is just chattering away (Oh what's that that looks cool did you check to see if you got a new message let's look at another post ooh let's play FF14 wonder if there's anything good on tv check for messages again did we look at that that was cool let's look at it again) and I cannot focus. Music gives the squirrel something to latch on to and lets me actually focus on what I'm writing. The music choice doesn't matter. I've used white noise before (rainymood.com was my go-to for the longest time). I just need something to keep the squirrel occupied.

 

It helps me with driving, too, which my brother does NOT understand.

 

So much yes - I'm the same. Music can focus me on something. Not always what I want to focus on (I just turned music on to write and then I ended up replying to this) but it stops the procrastination, making me feel productive even if it's not what I needed to immediately work on. The squirrel is a perfect analogy for it.

 

On 16/11/2017 at 1:21 AM, Zozma said:

 

Yeah, sure! I have some examples. So I based my character Shadow on the song "Rules" by Jayme Dee.

 

He's not a robot or anything (the song makes me think of a robot though) he's an incubus and science experiment and it's understandable for the person who falls for him to wonder if he's even capable of love or if he's just parroting the actions of those around him. 

 

Then my character Greggory was inspired by the song "Meet Me In The Woods" by Lord Huron. He's a werewolf hunter that became a werewolf so...

 
Lastly (for now) my character Junai was created with the song "Everything's Alright" by Laura Shigihara. Like the character from the video game this song came from, my character is not quite all there. He is severely emotionally stunted, unable to properly express his real feelings with words, though he does try with actions.  

 

Very nice examples and songs! The characters all seem interesting (from just those descriptions) - particularly the werewolf hunter becoming a werewolf, the lyrics REALLY fit nicely.

 

7 hours ago, Honorem said:

I can listen to music in between posts to inspire me for threads. Two Steps From Hell never fails. :P

 

But when I'm writing I cannot concentrate when there's any kind of noise, whether it's music or background or some idiot hammering a wall. Need total silence or I can't concentrate, dunno why it's only a recent thing in the last year or so.

 

Two Steps From Hell ♥ I used to listen to them constantly when writing one storyline, because it played out like a movie and, well, TSFH used for trailer music is love. Interesting though, that you have to listen between posts yet it still does inspire you!

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Sunny:  I tend to use music to get into the 'headspace' of my characters - a rough, 'bad' character might need some hard rock or gangster rap, but an intelligent, refined character would be able to use Bach, or something like that.

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