A Novelist’s Soundtrack (Music to Write Stories By)

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may remember that, for me, music is a vital element of the creative process when I write fiction. The format (screenplay, novella, or novel) doesn’t matter; the emotions and mental images evoked by the songs and other compositions…those matter.

As someone who “sees” stories as mini-movies in my mind either before or as I write, I almost always play different songs or even entire albums to inspire me. In 1980, for instance, I wrote a 40-page “novel” for my English 1 class in ninth grade while I listened to the double-LP album of John Williams’ score for Superman: The Movie. My story had nothing to do with the Man of Steel, but Williams’ music was somehow perfect for my war-in-space story…I just adopted it for my characters and situations.

I’ve discussed how James Horner’s music for Titanic and Maestro Williams’ elegaic score for Saving Private Ryan were catalysts for my first novella, Reunion: A Story several times, most recently in an interview with fellow blogger Thomas Wikman, so I won’t repeat myself here. Instead, here are some of the musical works that have shaped how I tell the stories of Jim, Marty, Mark, and Maddie in Reunion: Coda.