Character Theme Songs

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AXavierB

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This is something I do very often when making characters and brainstorming about their personalities; I find it very effective to listen to songs that you feel somewhat describe your characters. For me, it helps with inspiration and developing the character and the type of feelings I want to portray with them. For example, when making one of my characters (the one I talked about in my other thread about portraying insanity and schizophrenia in a character) I listened to Poor Unfortunate Souls, The Phantom of the Opera and Disturbia.

I know this is kind of a weird topic to bring up, but I was just wondering if there were any others besides me that do that when making characters.
 

tehuti88

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This is something I do very often when making characters and brainstorming about their personalities; I find it very effective to listen to songs that you feel somewhat describe your characters.

...

I know this is kind of a weird topic to bring up, but I was just wondering if there were any others besides me that do that when making characters.

I don't actually set out to do this, since I know my characters' personalities very well, but when I get to know certain songs, sometimes they just kind of identify with a particular character. More often with scenes/stories, but once in a while with a character.

The clearest example is the protagonist of my current series. When I hear Within Temptation's "Stand My Ground" it definitely brings her to mind. The instrumental version of Nightwish's "Eva," too. (Not the sung version, since the lyrics have no meaning for my character, but the tune makes me think of her.)
 

mscelina

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All the time. I use playlists to fuel my writing and switch them according to where I'm at in the plot. When I killed one of my characters in my first series, he got all tangled up with "people seized with life' from Chrono Cross *dh is a gamer*. Now I can't write anything else to that song. *grin* but that's okay--it really helped me kill him off and grieve about it and apparently making reviewers cry is my new metier.

Use whatever works.
 

Pagey's_Girl

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Mine do, too - sometimes more than one song. The one who came to mind, though, is, of all characters, one I don't have a story for. (Long story long, she was originally conceived as a fanfiction OC, but I never wrote anything with her in it, because I realized I wanted her to have her own story - and I haven't come up with it yet.) Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" always makes me think of her. She's the tougher than leather, kick-butt, fearless action heroine I wish I was...
 

SherryTex

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I discover my character's theme songs. Helen for example has that song, "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover..." which plays in my head --don't have actual music on as it distracts me but I know that's one of her songs. Polyoxo has Cold as Ice for one. You never met a more bitter angry woman.
 

Varthikes

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I don't actually set out to do this, since I know my characters' personalities very well, but when I get to know certain songs, sometimes they just kind of identify with a particular character. More often with scenes/stories, but once in a while with a character.

That's pretty much how it is with me. Just recently, I came across a song, "One in One" by Robert Miles in Dreamland, that fit perfectly with my two main characters in Fractured Trust. The two characters are very close friends, but, in a scene that I wrote several months ago, they clash at one point in the story. In the following chapter, they come back together in the next chapter. Very similar to what is being described in the song.
 

Stunted

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Sometimes I set out to find them, but then I'm always disappointed. Nothing is ever quite right.
 

maestrowork

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Yes, I have some themes for them, including themes for their relationships. And there are two themes I wrote (shameless plug) for my two main characters in the WIP: Kai's and Grace's Themes.
 

Gianluca

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Whenever I think about one of my characters "Araj", an Algerian born arms dealer, I think of Rachid Taha's "Barra Barra".
 

eLfwriter

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I'm with tehuti that I don't set out looking for a particular song that matches my character's personality or quest or whatever, but the better I get to know them, the chances of me hearing a song on the radio or on one of my CDs that just works becomes very high.

In one of my stories, a necromancer is plagued by the ghost of a girl he used to love, and she pleads with him to bring her back to life. I heard Evanesence's Back to Life on the Sirius Radio the other day, and I thought, "hm, well, there's Laurelau singing her story, right there!" It worked so perfectly that I just sat and stared at the radio and wondered what tricky little god of tricks was reading my NaNo WiP and decided to play that particular song just as I finished it.

Funny how it hits you sometimes.



One or two of my characters have little tunes they sort of introduced themselves with. I won't say that I wrote the score for them (since I suck at piano) but I hum the tune, and I know the words. Arawn and Bronwyn have a lullaby I was obliged to write for them.


Oh, hey, funny story time.

In my local writer's group, since we critique each other so often, we know everyone elses' characters and we like to do little games with them, just to see what other people think of the characters we know so intimately. A couple weeks ago we decided we would do 'iPod' lists for each others' characters, and we all laughed!! Other people see different things in certain characters that I didn't think of. Sometimes the songs that came up fit so well that it was hilarious.

We used the phrase; "that's so true!" about a zillion times that night. :)
 
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