The Creation of Three Dimensional Characters in C minor:  Or how to use music to discover voice

Do you ever feel there is a soundtrack to your life?  Is music important to your memory, and to your own past (back-story…) Humans are connected to music in a visceral way.  It tugs at us and pulls us in.  It changes our mood, makes us laugh and cry, helps us through the hard times, and helps to keep us awake when we are driving.  What would a world be like without music?

When I was little one of my favorite things in the world, (get ready, I am about to expose the secret dork who lives under my skin,) was a record by Prokofiev:  Peter and the Wolf.  There were very few words to the story, the premise of it was that each character was given a sound, and then when the sounds were put together you could hear the story. Without the words!  I listened to that album (yes vinyl) over and over again.  I can still remember the sound the wolf made, an ominous trio of horns, but delightful too… letting the listeners of the narrative understand his complexity.  Beware the wolf who is dangerous and delightful and dark. I remember…

And that is what we want for our characters, right?  We want them to be complex and well defined.  Flawed and full of emotion.  We want the reader to make that connection with the people in the stories that we tell.

So here is a little trick that I use.  When I am thinking up my stories, I give my characters music as well as a name.  They need to have a sound, a rhythm, a beat.  I need to know what music is playing inside their heads so I can make them move.

For example, in my novel, Haunting Anne, my dark and brooding heroin, Anne, was connected to The Cure and to The Cranberries. It didn’t matter that she was coming of age in the 1950′s.  She is a timeless character and the music helped me create a timeless mood.  The honesty that poured out of her when I was listening to her music was amazing, and the flow was nonstop.  It hurt my brain because the words couldn’t be typed fast enough.

The really interesting part of all of this what remains.  Now that I am through with the creation of that novel, the music still belongs to them, those people who haunted me for all that time.  Even though I have my own memories and bits of nostalgia connected to the music I used to help fortify the complexity of my characters, I no longer think about those things when I am driving in my car with the radio on.  Instead, I think of them!  Their stories and their lives! Talk about multiple personality disorder….

Music.  It is a powerful tool.  Try it!

Suzanne M. Palmieri

Suzanne is a Sociologist by profession and degree. She teachs Social Behavior and Social Interaction as well as many courses in Deviance at the university level.

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