Background Music by Gerri Brousseau

Can you imagine going to see a movie that has no music in it?  I'm not talking about a musical, like The Sound of Music, I'm talking about music in the background.  You know how they always play suspenseful music when the woman is creeping through the dark and creepy house and is about to open the door the killer is hiding behind … yeah, that kind of music … the soundtrack.

When I'm writing, I always have something on in the background … like the radio, my I-pod, or even the TV.  The other night while I was sitting with my lap top, happily typing away, the TV happened to be on.  The movie Twilight was on.  Now, I've seen it so there was no chance of it getting me so distracted that I couldn't keep my mind on my work, so I left it on.  It was then that a very funny thing happened.  My mind began to focus, not on what the characters were saying, but rather on the background music in the movie.  (As an aside, this movie has some pretty good music in it)  It got me thinking about music used in movies, and even more than that, about how I think of scenes I'm writing as I'm writing them.  How differently would I write them if I could imagine background music?  And if I could select the music for certain scenes, what would I pick?

When I write, I see the scene in my mind as if a camera were panning in.  I SEE the story unfold in my mind as if it were a movie being shown upon the big screen and hopefully make my readers see what I see.  But could I take my writing a step further by imagining the background music that would be in the film?

So now I ask my fellow writers, when you write do you see your story playing out in your mind as if you are watching a film?  Can you imagine the background music?  To readers, when you are reading a novel, do you imagine it being played out in your mind as if you are watching a film and do you imagine background music?  Do you ever say (or think) "Do Not Open That Door!" as the unsuspecting victim reaches out and places her hand upon the door knob and only you, the reader, knows the killer is in that closet?

Filed under: romance