If you don’t feel it when you write it, the reader won’t feel it when she reads it. I don’t remember where I heard that advice but I want to believe it’s true.
Nothing may be as powerful as a playlist for maintaining a feeling.
Recently, I read an article about agent pet peeves. One of them was the suggestion of a soundtrack if the film rights are sold. It must be common practice to attach music to stories. Knowing that other writers have sent musical suggestions to agents makes me feel a little less crazy for creating playlists for segments of my writing, or for certain characters. I have found it the quickest way to return to the atmosphere I want to convey.
Short stories–maybe a song or two. My latest novel–four playlists, forty or more songs each.
Writing memoir is slightly different. I once played the same triggering song in a loop for hours until I had written an entire essay. The feedback was as disturbing as the experience of writing it. It proved my belief that feeling what you write is contagious. On the other hand, I was a mental wreck for days and the piece was too dark for publication. Hardly worth it.
It’s something we take for granted and don’t understand. Music, in its ubiquity and potency, expresses what no one can say and everyone interprets personally, yet universally. If a picture paints a thousand words, music defines a thousand emotions. This makes a writer the most challenged of all the artists. Words alone lack the dynamism of music or art.
I present nothing new with this observation. Everyone knows this is why movie soundtracks sell and why the ASPCA and its Sarah McLachlan ads have succeeded in making us cry. I only wish to appreciate music and the composers and musicians who create with it. They remain uncredited in my work even though they are integral to inspiration.
Perhaps developing playlists should be common writing advice, too. If it is true that a writer must feel what she wants the reader to feel, a ready-made shortcut to creating that feeling must be worth the time and effort.
