Illustration by Leeza Hernandez
Whistle while you write? You might not want to put your lips together and blow, but maybe a little music could lighten your mood…and your mind.
Last Sunday at the NJ-SCBWI picture book intensive, illustrator Leeza Hernandez led writers in a creativity exercise by playing random musical selections. The idea was to help us generate ideas. (Sound familiar?)
Leeza played two-minute tunes, and during each piece, she asked us to think of a single story element and write whatever came to mind.
So let’s try Leeza’s exercise today!
Go to Pandora.com.
Enter an artist or song. A new music station will be created for you, with songs similar in style to what you submitted. (Aim for instrumental, although music with lyrics will likely pop up. I entered “Vivaldi.”)
Alternatively, you can choose a genre station: classical, blues, dance and a dozen others.
Set your timer for two minutes. As the first song plays, focus on element #1 and write. Don’t stop until the timer goes off.
Next, click the [ |>> ] button on the Pandora player to switch to the next song. Now focus on #2 for two minutes.
New song, #3…and so on…
1. Character
2. Scene
3. Supporting Cast
4. Conflict
5. Emotion
6. Resolution
Leeza’s sixth instrumental did not conjure up a resolution for me. Instead, I envisioned a boy on a farm at sunset, herding all the rowdy animals into the barn for the night, only to have them escape again.
However, the boy in the musical mayhem was the character I created during the first piece—and I didn’t even realize it until I was done writing. I subconsciously felt a connection between the two songs.
Do I have a story? Maybe. Maybe not. But I do have some ideas that floated out of thin air. (Truth be told, I had just received an advance prototype of Michael Sussman’s IdeaCatcher.)
Being an illustrator, Leeza sketched her ideas as the music played. For #6, she drew herself jumping up and down, holding her published book.
Keep working on your ideas, PiBoIdMo’ers, and that image may be you, too!
So, how’s it going today? Care to share your musical thoughts?
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 
5 comments
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November 17, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Jewel
I have used instrumental music for art activities for children but I had not thought about applying it to idea generation for each element of my story. So I put your suggestions to the test.
I put in the word “amazing” at pandora.com. It produced music with bagpipes and drums. Here is what I wrote during three two minute songs.
Title: Hopscotch Jig: Rabbit’s Dance Lesson
Scene: Marshland Town
Supporting Character: Squeakie (Mouse)
Conflict: Squeakie Mouse wants to teach Rabbit how to square dance and Rabbit wants Squeakie to learn the Hopscotch Jig.
Resolution: Neither can dance to suit the other so they come up with a new dance called Ramblin’ Morning Moon Jog.
This was so much fun! The music provided a way for my mind to relax and go with the flow. Was it the music or my makeshift windsock Ideacatcher on a tree branch? Maybe a little of both.
Thank you so much Leeza!
November 17, 2009 at 3:34 pm
tara
That’s really cool, Jewel. Thanks for sharing your musical results!
November 18, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Sheri Dillard
Thanks for posting this exercise, Tara. I tried it this morning and got one — maybe two — PB ideas. 🙂
I played around with different types of music halfway through the exercise. (I started with classical, but since my PBs tend to be quirky and silly, I thought I’d try something different.) Stevie Ray Vaughan livened things up a bit and then The Allman Brothers came on during the “conflict” element. That’s when I got my PB idea for today. 🙂 I’ll try that again exercise again. It was fun to see how the writing changed with the music.
Also — and I’m embarrassed to admit this — but I didn’t know about Pandora.com before. Love it! Thanks for that, too!
November 22, 2009 at 12:07 am
Kelly Fineman
I’m off to give this a try. Will not enter “Orff”, since I don’t know that I want to start with Carmina Burana.
*does exercise, comes back*
I found it difficult to interpret the terms you gave us – character, etc. – because they seemed as if they ought to go together into one work, yet the music (working from a J.S. Bach playlist) didn’t always work that way for me – some of the pieces sparked completely separate ideas. Still, I enjoyed it and would likely try it again.
November 22, 2009 at 12:18 am
tara
Sorry, Kelly. I should have explained it better. The elements did not have to be part of the same story. Of course each piece of music might inspire something totally different. Six different story ideas could be explored. It just so happened that when I did the exercise, both #1 (character) and #6 (resolution) went together. But nothing else did.