Several times on the blog, I have recommended creating one or more writing playlists to inspire you while brainstorming and writing your book. So this week I decided we should dive deep into how exactly to make one of these writing playlists. I know that some writers need absolute silence to write and consider music to be a huge distraction. But for the rest of us, it can help to provide the right atmosphere to get us into the writing groove.
I definitely fall into the latter category. In my opinion, music improves any task, be it washing dishes, drawing, or—of course—writing. Nothing is able to send me down into the depths of my story faster than music. Though it can’t just be any music. I have written two published novels and a heap of completed drafts, and they were all written while listening to multiple playlists curated by yours truly.
As a writer who has created dozens of writing playlists over the years, here are some instructions on how to make one of your own.
Choose Your Music Platform
As you set out to create your first writing playlist, you may become overwhelmed by how many music platform options there are to choose from out there. Google Music, iTunes, and Pandora are just a few of them. I have tried several tools for creating playlists in the past and have been a faithful subscriber to Spotify Premium for years now. It is extremely user-friendly and it is simple to create folders and put tracks into a particular order.
Spotify Premium does cost $9.99 a month. A free version of the app is also available, but it has ads, which can be extremely distracting while writing. I consider Spotify Premium to be well worth the expense. If writing playlists are as useful to you as they are to me, you will likely see this as a good deal as well.
Find Your Favorite Songs
If you’re like me, you already have a long, rambling playlist of your favorite songs (mine’s currently close to 1,000 songs). But if you don’t have such a playlist, never fear! All you need to do is go on your chosen music platform and start searching for the bands and songs you like best. Once you have a song in mind, create a playlist—on Spotify, this entails clicking “Create Playlist” on the lefthand sidebar—and call it “Favorite Songs” or something like that.
This playlist will be your guide when it comes to creating the playlist for your book. Once it contains a good number of songs, listen to your favorite songs playlist, and keep an ear out for songs that somehow feel like your story or a certain character. If you’re having trouble coming up with enough favorite songs, on Spotify you can utilize Discover Weekly. This is a playlist of 30 tracks Spotify creates based on your musical tastes and updates each Monday. When you search for an artist on Spotify, if you scroll down the page you will see other related artists under “Fans also like” that you can check out.
Lyrics or Instrumental?
Writers can differ greatly when it comes to working while listening to music with lyrics. Some can mostly tune the lyrics out and focus on their books, and others can even draw inspiration from the words of a song while they write. A lot of authors, though, find lyrics very distracting. If you are one of these writers, don’t worry! You can still make a wonderful playlist purely of instrumental music.
I personally work to both music with lyrics and instrumental music. I’m one of those writers who is able to feel inspired by a song’s lyrics—or at least the feel of a song’s lyrics—while writing a novel. But when I’m doing research or my freelance writing (like this very blog post, for example), I only listen to instrumental music since I have a hard time reading while listening to music with lyrics. Most of my playlists include both instrumental and music with lyrics—what’s important is that it matches the mood of whatever I’m writing.
Do Some Research
If you’re having trouble coming up with songs for your book’s playlist, you have many resources at your disposal. If you enter the word “writing” into the search field on Spotify, several writing playlists curated by others will come up. You can listen to these playlists while writing and see if any of those songs get your creative juices flowing. If you Google an author’s name and the word “playlist” you may be able to find their playlists as well. Another research source to consider would be the soundtracks of your favorite movies and TV shows. I have countless songs from Hayao Miyazaki films on my writing playlists since they tend to have such a lovely, emotional tone.
If you’re writing a story that takes place during a particular time in history, research becomes even more important. Whenever I’ve written a period piece, I’ve researched music from that period and listened only to those songs while writing. On Spotify, you can search a year and find the Billboard Top 100 Hits of that year. If you are writing about a certain part of the world like Ireland, you can also research songs from that region.
Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
It might be that your favorite songs will inspire you the most, but it’s worth stepping out of your comfort zone and listening to some different types of music for your playlist. As said, if you’re writing historical fiction, it’s good to listen to music from that time to get yourself in the right frame of mind.
Listening to your Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify each week is a good way to get exposed to new music. And that way it’s still music that’s similar to what you like. Trust me, guys, $10 a month is a steal for having a tool like this in your writerly toolbox.
Pack Your Playlist with Songs
Some people say you only need 15-20 songs for a writing playlist. But if you’re someone who writes for hours at a time, you’ll run out of songs and have to start all over. Then you’ll end up repeating the same songs and getting sick of them. My overarching playlists tend to have a few hundred songs each, while playlists I create for certain scenes or characters tend to have between 50-100.
One great way to make sure you have enough songs in your writing playlist is to add entire film scores or soundtracks to your playlist. Scores by John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and other great film composers have kept me going through many writing sessions. Having a decent-sized writing playlist will keep you in the zone without interruption for as long as you need.
Do What Works Best for You
I hope these instructions and tips have helped you, but they are really just guidelines. There is no right or wrong when it comes to building a writing playlist. You may need only one, or like me, you may create playlists for various characters and locales in your story as well. You may need only a few songs in your playlist, or even to just listen to the same song over and over.
Even if you’re not musically inclined, I encourage you to try making a playlist for your book. You may be surprised by how much it inspires you. Music is able to sink down into your bones and help you fall into a scene like nothing else, which is why music and stories go so well together in movies and TV. So give it a try and see where the music takes you.
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