TOOLS FOR WRITERS: THE PLAYLIST

Whenever I start a project, I start a music playlist.

It often begins with one song, something that captures an important feeling about the project I'm starting. It then begins to build alongside my writing. Sometimes songs are removed, sometimes they are added. Eventually, it gets broken down into subsections and reordered to match the moods contained within each part of the screenplay. This lets me go back to specific songs when I'm revising different scenes. I think it really helps with emotional continuity and stylistic consistency.

THRESHOLD

In the Beginning. My most recent screenplay Threshold (a science fiction legal thriller) started out with a Peter Gabriel song, Digging In the Dirt. It captured what I thought was a core feeling for the story, with a grinding rhythm and dark lyrics:

Something in me, dark and sticky All the time it's getting strong No way of dealing with this feeling Can't go on like this too long The more I look, the more I find As I close in, I get so blind Digging In the Dirt

This is a story about an external investigation that leads to dark inner truth, which led me to add King Crimson's, Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream. And that led to Dinosaur.

Like any story worth its salt, Threshold isn't all darkness. This led me to Remember by Harry Nilsson. I find Randy Newman a little annoying, but his version had the right feel -- maybe because of his association with Disney:

Remember, love is only in a dream Remember Remember, life is never as it seems Dream Remember

I think it's important for stories to bring together vastly different emotional states. If you can get Remember to co-exist with Digging In the Dirt you may have something special on your hands! Writing, In Earnest. As you write, you may find songs that eeriely and unexpectedly capture very specific parts of the story. So it was with The Doors song, Not to Touch the Earth. It was added to the list:

The mansion is warm at the top of the hill Rich are the rooms and the comforts there ... Red are the arms of luxuriant chairs And you won't know a thing 'til you get inside Not to Touch the Earth

Strangely, this song was written after a visit to the Hearst Castle by Jim Morrison. My own visit was one of the inspirations for my story. And I didn't know about that connection until after hearing these lyrics and independently being inspired by them. Of course, that's just the strangeness of the universe (and time) inviting us to dance.

Visions fugitiv

That's when I heard Sergie Prokofiev's Visions fugitives, Op. 22: XX. Lento. Could one piece of music capture the eerie center of my story any more provocatively? Doubtful. I have no memory of how I found it, and I consider it one of those divine inspirations. Don't question it. Embrace it.

One Day, It Will End. My playlist has grown through the writing and reqriting process. It now includes Wilco's Either Way, David Bowie's Scary Monsters, Stan Ridgway's Uba's House of Fashion, Drywall's Time Wave Zero, Brian Eno & David Byrne's Come with Us, and many more. If I have to rewrite parts of Threshold, I can jump right into the perfect emotional space.

Maybe this is just common knowledge. But I find it helpful and inspiring, and I hope you do as well.