Whatever music you play in the
background affects your writing. It helps if it's instrumental, because lyrics
can be distracting. Try to find tunes
which suit the mood, culture, period or setting of your story.
Ideally, the music you play in the
background should have medium or fast tempo. The tempo of the music will affect
your heart rate as well as your subconscious. Fast, bouncy music leads to
fast-paced scenes, while ambient relaxation music can give your scene the pace
of a slug.
Consider burning a CD or creating a
playlist for every WiP, or better still, for every scene.
Is Harry Hero about lead his loyal
henchmen into battle against the Forces of Evil? Will Helga Heroine defend her
virtue against Vicious Vince?
Put on fast music, and the fight will
practically write itself.
Here are some of the tunes I play while
writing fight scenes. At YouTube, you can listen to them for free. Just don't
be tempted to watch the clips when you should be writing.
* Sabre Dance by Aram
Khachaturian. Very fast, exciting, perfect for sword or dagger fights.
* The final of the overture
to the opera William Tell (aka Wilhelm Tell aka Guillaume Tell)
by Giaochino Rossini. Very fast, great for cavalry charges.
* Ceddin Denden, a
traditional Turkish military song. Medium tempo, good for historical fiction.
* Walkürenritt aka Rideof the Valkyries by Richard Wagner. Dramatic and intense, good for final
showdown fights at the climax of the novel.
* Kafkas Lezginka
(aka Kavkas Lezginka), a traditional tune from the Caucasus, used for
ultra-masculine folk dance performances. Good for dagger and fencing fights.
* 40 Göktürklü. Soundtrack from a Turkish historical movie. Good
pace, steady bouncy rhythm, some singing.
* Seyh Samil aka Sheik
Shamil aka Seyx Schamil and various other spellings. A famous folk
song from the Caucasus and the Middle East, celebrating the heroism of a
historical resistance leader. This is an instrumental version with a steady
rhythm.
You can also listen to military
marches, which generally have a steady medium-to-fast rhythm. However, their
exuberant mood is designed to make soldiers happy about going to war and does
not reflect the brutal reality of battles.
Movie soundtracks, especially from
fight scenes, are often dramatic and intense. Although they lack the steady
rhythm most authors need for writing, they're great for plotting and sure to
get you into the mood.
Put on music – apply fingers to
keyboard – write!
Rayne Hall is the author of thirty books in different
genres and under different pen names, published by twelve publishers in six
countries, translated into several languages.She teaches online craft classes for advanced
and professional writers (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes,
Writing about Magic, The Low-Word Diet and more).
Recent releases under the Rayne Hall pen name:
“Storm Dancer” (dark-heroic fantasy novel)
“Six Scary Tales Vol 1”, “Six Scary Tales Vol2”, “Six Scary Tales Vol 3” (short horror stories)
“Writing Fight Scenes” (Practical step-by-step
instructions how to make your fictional fights realistic and exciting.)
Recent multi-author anthologies edited by Rayne
Hall:
“Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts”
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The first painting is by Francesc Sanz i Cabot: The General Juan Prim y Prats at the Battle of Tetuan, which occurred on 4 February 1860. The second is by Francisco de Goya, La rina c. 1819, both in public domain.
I tend to listen to soundtracks from films when I write. Armegeddon, Stargate, Avatar, Batman Begins, Pirated of the Caribbean, Hunger Games, Star Trek, Inception, and others are staples for me. Which one depends on my mood and ALSO the mood of the book.
ReplyDeleteI do tend to avoid songs though; I find that listening to words distracts me while I am writing. The exception being songs in other languages; because I don't know the language, Gaelic vocals for example come across as just more music.
Kevin -- me, too. My current faves are Last of the Mohicans, the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, Fateless (I adore Ennio Morricone's film scores for writing), Remains of the Day, Master and Commander, and LotR (although as I'm playing some of those on piano, they can be a bit distracting as my fingers want to play notes, not letters).
ReplyDeleteI'm also with you on lyrics. Generally, they don't work, and when they do, I can't understand the words.
That's an interesting point, Kevin. Lyrics in other languages are less distracting because we don't understand what those guys are singing about.
ReplyDeleteDo you find soundtracks work during the actual writing process? I find the varying tempo can be distracting. Though I love soundtracks for plotting - their intense emotional content and mood is inspiring.
LOL This is so funny, Deborah. I imagine sitting down at the computer keyboard to write a story, and my fingers starting to play the tune instead of typing. Fortunately, I don't play the piano. (Fortunate for my writing, that is.)
ReplyDeleteI find the easiest soundtracks to use are the ones which retain a consistent tone throughout, yes. The more consistent, the better! Inception is good for this. So is Battle: LA, and oddly, the soundtrack from the "Transformers Prime" TV cartoon (which I would *never* have found except it was by the same composer who did Battle: LA).
ReplyDeleteBut yes, some soundtracks I don't use in their entirety because they're too variable in tone. I did yank a *great* playlist from the soundtrack for the new fifth season of Doctor Who, for instance - just grabbed the 20 tracks with the tone I wanted out of the 60-something tracks in the album.
Sometimes I just listen to my all time favorites. I know the songs so well that I don't listen to the lyrics at all.
ReplyDeleteSoundtracks are the best. I like: Sky Captain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Wing Commander, Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas, Krull...and John Debney's Cutthroat Island, which I think is the greatest pirate score ever written.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it depends on the fight. If the main characters are cracking skulls and taking names, I'll usually go punk music (Marked Men, Ex Humans, Hex Dispensers)--if they're getting their tails kicked, it'll be grungier stuff but probably still technically punk (Mystery Girls, The Men). Usually I'll get a little into the scene before I settle on the music that needs to accompany my writing.
ReplyDeleteI am so impressed by the diversity of musical tastes here. I love classical music (actually, Romantic) and "narrative music" (like Rimski-Korsakov's "Sheherazade") so movie scores work really well for me, too. There may be some generational differences here, but what we have in common are connectors music-to-creative juices!
ReplyDeleteHi April,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting point. If we're very familiar with the lyrics, maybe we don't notice them any more I'm not sure if that works for me, though. If I know the lyrics, I sometimes sing along with them without noticing... and this distracts awfully from what I'm trying to write.
Hi Doug,
ReplyDeleteI see a theme in your choice of soundtracks. Do you use this music specifically for pirate yarns, or also when you write something else?
Hi Sam,
ReplyDeletePunk music? That's an interesting choice. I've never tried that. Maybe I should. :-)
Rayne
Hi Deborah,
ReplyDeleteI also like classical (and romantic) music for writing - especially ouvertures. Give me a Rossini or Wagner ouverture, and my imagination thrives. Although the varying tempo of ouvertures isn't ideal.
If I had facilities for editing, I'd use just the best bits (most suitable for writing) from the ouvertures and put them on a continuing loop.
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ReplyDeleteI find it impossible to listen to music and write at the same time. The music rhythm and the writing rhythm always clash. Where I write is up a short flight of stairs from the kitchen and I leave the radio turned on very low. I can't hear what's going on in any detail, but I can hear the sounds.
ReplyDeleteAh, that's interesting, Jonathan. You're the first person I've met who can't write to music at all. I understand about music being distracting - I find it distracting if the tempo is uneven or if the lyrics are strong - but it seems you're more sensitive to it than I am.
ReplyDeleteIt's remarkable that you still like some music in the background.Is it a kind of "white noise" to block out other, even more distracting, sounds?
Not so much white noise as an addition to other sounds. I can hear the wind and I can hear seagulls, but these sounds aren't constant, and because volume varies on different tracks on the radio, it fits in with the others. I like to have the radio on but I don't like to hear it. Of course I might be insane!
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan! Your comments about listening to the radio remind me of how different we all are. I find radio, even turned down low, incredibly irritating and distracting. TV, ditto. Yet the sound is soothing or refreshing or centering or enriching to other people.
ReplyDeleteI think that's one reason conversations like this are so valuable. They allow us to learn from one another and to appreciate our differences ... and to find new ideas to try out for ourselves.
I do listen to noncommercial radio and audiobooks when I drive, however.