How Music Can Flesh Out Your Characters

Inspiration can be everywhere: in music, in movies, in books… This month, we’re spotlighting inspiration in its many forms. Today, Leah Ferguson, author of the forthcoming All the Difference (Berkley/Penguin) , shares how music from her childhood has influenced her writing.

In the seventh grade, a friend named Mariah gave me a tape of Depeche Mode’s Violator and solidified the angsty foundation of my current “grown-up” taste in music. The longing in “Somebody” and shock of “Blasphemous Rumours” hit a place inside my insecure, dreamy, twelve-year-old self that never left. The Cure followed in the eighth grade, and Violent Femmes after that (my first concert!). R.E.M. and U2 led the way for Tori Amos, The Smiths, and Jane’s Addiction, and then an embarrassingly long flirtation with punk-ska.

I was a stick-to-the-rules kind of kid, who rarely gave her protective parents a chance to doubt her, so off-the-mainstream, “progressive” music was my safe rebellion. This paradox carries over to my writing, where I weave music into my scenes to help portray it: Florence and the Machine and Fleetwood Mac pop up throughout my debut novel All the Difference to describe my favorite characters: relatively “good” people with a side of sass. Not only is it fun for me as a writer, but I love the way certain songs help flesh out a character’s personality or struggle. After all, music developed mine.

Leah Ferguson holds a B.A. from West Chester University, where she studied English Literature and Russian, and an M.A. in teaching from Notre Dame of Maryland University. A former editor and teacher, Leah now writes from her home in Pennsylvania with her husband, three young children, dog and tailless cat. Her debut novel, All the Difference , is coming September 1, 2015, from Berkley/Penguin and is available now for pre-order. Please connect with her on her blog, Tumblr, or through Facebook and Twitter.