Down the Rabbit Hole column
by Melissa Robinson
A Peek at Inspiration
One of the biggest struggles I face as an author seems to be inspiration. I tend to just plug my earphones in and blast music. The type of music I play affects the scene I’m attempting to write at that moment. For most of my work, I turn to Nox Arcana’s Necronomicon album. It’s something about the creepy feel to the music that sets the perfect stage in my mind. The limited vocals also help me focus on the task at hand.
If I’m writing a particularly violent scene, I switch to harder hitting music like In This Moment, Godsmack, Avenged Sevenfold, and Marilyn Manson. I’ve also learned that classical music is helpful when I’m struggling to get a scene right. Even now, I’ll end up staring at my WIP for ten to twenty minutes before my muse hits me in the forehead and I start typing. This normally wouldn’t be an issue for a full-time writer, but most days I can only devote an hour or two to my projects. I’ve had to come up with creative ways to get inspiration for stories.
My favorite way is to go on location to various creepy places and incorporate them into the story. By doing this, I can truly describe how the place looks, feels, smells, and sounds. Feeling a place is more to me than “The carpet is rough under my bare feet.” It’s more to the tune “The air was so thick it was like breathing soup.” Personally, I want my readers to feel everything I felt, hear the sounds of the place, smell the rotting wood, and see the flicker of shadows across the windows. Wording is crucial for me. From the moment you read the first sentence, I want to draw you into my world and let you explore the dark and demented places I’ll take you.