Fiction Writing: Using Music to Fight Writer's Block

Music inspires creativity and emotion, two essential elements of good fiction writing. Let music be your inspiration as you write your short story or novel! Here are a few tips on how to use music to aid your writing process and help ward off writer's block.

Writing Fiction with Music: What Won't Provide Inspiration

Musical inspiration isn't necessarily going to be found in your favorite songs, especially if you enjoy singing along. Find music that you enjoy but that can also fade into the background. Lyrics aren't necessarily important, so don't concentrate on finding a song with a story that matches the one you're writing. You'll get too caught up in listening to the music. DO find music that fits the mood of the scene you're writing.

Writing Fiction with Music: How to Find the Mood of the Genre

Are you writing horror, science fiction, romance, western?

Music is a perfect tool for setting the mood of a story. As a personal challenge, find a musical genre that seems to fit your story genre. To do this, think of what emotions are connected to the story. Then, think of what music causes the same emotional reaction. Tense, dramatic scenes might call for heavy metal, while dramatic description might require a bit of the blues. Think of movies or television shows you've seen that are similar to the storyline you're writing. How do their soundtracks aid in setting the mood?

Perhaps you've concluded that the only music you enjoy is too cheerful to fit the emotion behind your writing. Then it might be time for you go outside your comfort zone. It you're writing a depressing scene, there's nothing wrong with feeling depressed: if you have an emotional reaction to your writing, your readers will as well. So, feel free to play Johnny Cash's "Hurt" while your character contemplates how his decisions have destroyed lives or Nina Simone's "Strange Fruit" as you describe the tragedy of human nature.

Use music to put yourself into an emotional state. Then write using that emotion. Your readers will connect to the resulting scene, even if they never hear the inspiration.

Writing Fiction with Music: When Stumped, Challenge Yourself with Music

All fiction writers sometimes finds themselves down with a case of the writer's blues. Stomp out writer's block by presenting yourself with a challenge, and use music for inspiration. There are several ways to include music in a writing challenge.

One of my favorite challenges is to create a short music play list and draw inspiration from each song on the list, whether for the plot, setting, mood, or characters. If you must, shuffle your music player and tell yourself that the first song that plays will be what you base your character on. This song will be the theme of their life or tell the story of their past. Perhaps the second song will tell the storyline, the third the setting. If you combine these elements, you'll have an original work. More importantly, you will have cured your writer's block by thinking outside the box.

Writing Fiction With Music: Block Out the Real World

There's one absolutely fail-safe way of using music to your advantage when you're writing. Music always works as a way to block out the rest of the world. Writing can be hard when you can hear the sounds of dishes being washed in another room or your neighbor watching television. So, use headphones and escape the responsibilities of the real world during your writing time, and get inspired as you do!

Music can be a wonderful source of inspiration for fiction writers and a powerful tool for tackling writer's block. Find out what genre of music suits your taste and your writing style and create multiple play lists for different stories or types of scenes. This way you'll not be tempted to search your music every time you sit down to write. Instead, you can simply click on one play list and disappear into your own little world, the perfect place for imaginative fiction.