Song and Emotion

ElanaJ had an awesome post yesterday in which she related writing to a Twisted Sister song.

It started me thinking about music and how difficult it might be to write without it.

I love music. Nothing can get me more fired up about a character than a carefully chosen playlist.

In fact, each character in Long Road had a specific song that helped me "feel" where they were coming from.

This one, for instance, put me in touch with Dave Vacanti:



This one defined the I-don't-need-a-man attitude of my MC's best friend, Roxann Bainbridge:




Saigon Kick, a one-hit wonder from the early 90s, always helped me get in touch with the scenes I wrote between Nick, the hero, and Heather, the heroine.





And I could easily call forth visions of Heather, by herself, with this tune.



I guess I had figured these characters were so easily conjured by certain songs because they, themselves, are musicians. It stood to reason that writing about someone whose life revolves around music would be made easier by defining them each with a song.

Since I started working on my latest project, however, I quickly came to realize that's not necessarily the case. The bad guy in my NaNo book, who has surprised me by being more of a cunning snake in the grass than I had first anticipated, calls to mind a song to which my brother-in-law introduced me a few years ago.



Every time I write about this guy, this is what I hear in my head. It's quicking becoming a top song on my playlist.

So what about your characters? Are there songs that define any of them to a "T"?