Month: April 2025

Reveal Character Traits through Music

Reveal character traits through music

Since this month’s theme is about how other arts influence our writing, today I’m reposting about how to reveal character traits through music. A character’s relationship to music is a less common way to show parts of their personality and can freshen your character descriptions.

You are Your Music

My teen detective Rae Riley is, first and foremost, an amateur photographer. It’s the way she sees the world. But, like a lot of creative people, she enjoys other arts. She played drums in her high school marching band and jazz band. Making her a drummer gives her personality another layer. She’s playing an instrument that leans more toward males, so some might see her choice as unusual or offbeat (ha!). 

When I was in band, certain personalities tended to pick certain instruments. The Type A, straight arrows played flute and trumpet. The clarinet was the everyman or woman of the band. The more quirky kids picked trombone, saxophone, or percussion. My character’s choice of instrument can say a lot about who he or she is.

If you need to draw disparate characters together, making them all musicians gives them a common interest and a plausible reason for people who might not normally associate with each other to interact. In A Shadow on the Snow, Rae joins three young police officers in jam sessions because they play outlaw country music for fun and didn’t have a drummer. (Yes, it’s supposed to be funny that cops like outlaw country.)

The fact that these Gen Z cops are playing music from the 70’s says something about their personalities. Houston, who sings lead and plays lead guitar, explains how he can’t stand current country music. His love for outlaw country can mean any number of things. Maybe he’s not concerned with following popular trends. Or he doesn’t like how big business takes over an art form; he likes art for art’s sake. Or he just likes to be different, to stand out from the crowd.

When Rae and the cops take a break from jamming, they play songs from their playlists. I can use their choices to say something about their characters. Since Rae doesn’t know the three young men well, she hesitates over her selections because her playlist contains what she considers some pretty obscure songs. So she picks more popular songs. Her choice shows her uncertainty in this new social situation. Out of the four characters. the bass player is the only one to pick instrumental pieces instead of songs. I can use that deviation from the other characters to reveal something about him.

Now it’s your turn. Have you written or read about characters who love music? How did the author use music to show character?

For more tips on character development, click here.

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What Music Inspires Your Writing?

What music inspires your writing

A lot of writers like to write to music, so I’d like to know what music inspires your writing? I used to write my mysteries to music. But I think being married and raising kids has overtaxed my brain so much that now I have to write in silence. But when I’m not writing, I enjoy listening to music and letting it suggest scenes.

What about you? How does music inspire your writing? What are your favorite pieces?

For more posts on the connection between music and writing, click here.

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Writing Poetry Can Improve Your Novel

Writing poetry can improve your novel

This month, my theme for JPC Allen Writes is about how other arts inspire and influence writing stories. Although poetry and prose are often seen as distant cousins, writing poetry can improve your novel or any story you’re creating.

Improve Descriptions

Writing and reading poetry has made me look at my surroundings in a different way. Poetry often uses figurative language, such as similes and metaphors. When I use these elements in my prose, it makes descriptions more vivid and can also reveal something about the character who is doing the describing.

In my first novel, A Shadow on the Snow, I had my main character Rae describe the route to her dad’s farm in rural Ohio this way: “The Rust Bucket {Rae’s truck} followed the asphalt like a ship over the crests and troughs of waves.”

The description not only tells readers the road is hilly but it also show Rae’s background. She lived for four years on the coast of North Carolina before moving to Ohio and bring that experience to her descriptions.

Improve Diction

I love short forms of poetry, especially haiku. The seventeen syllables in haiku force me to describe something and set a mood in the most precise way I can. That’s good training for writing stories. Although it depends on the genre, most readers don’t want lengthy descriptions to weigh down the pace. So poetry can help me be thoughtful in selecting the best words for the most impact.

Although I drop in the physical characteristics of Rae’s dad, Mal, throughout a novel, I usually introduce him by describing him as Thor in a sheriff’s uniform. Those five words bring an immediate image to the minds of English readers, and since the Marvel movies, most of the world.

Improve Rhythm

Most poetry has a rhythm. Now unless I’m writing a novel in verse, I don’t want my book to sound like Dr. Seuss got a hold of it. But sometimes, a particular scene or a conversation will benefit from a definite rhyme. Sometimes, I use it to inject humor in a story.

I also think action scenes have a rhythm. Alternating between physical action and the POV character’s thoughts is like a dance that I want to sweep the reader into. If the scene is mostly action, readers are kept at arm’s length from the POV character and can’t experience the thrills through that character’s senses. But if the scene consists mostly of an internal monologue as the character deals with the action, it’s not an action scene any more.

For writing prompts for poetry, click here.

Does poetry inspire your prose writing? How?

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