Sound Effects for Inspiration

When it comes to setting, music can be a powerfully inspiring vehicle for writing. Certain songs or genres can call up specific times and places. But sometimes, I find that while I'm writing I need sometime more. I need to be able to call up the smells, sounds and sights of a setting so that I can create an immersive world. And that's when I turn to ambient recordings.

As opposed to Ambient music, which is a sub-genre of Electronic music, ambient recordings are tracks that include just the sounds of certain environments. I used to go to YouTube for these tracks, but since then I've discovered that apps such as Spotify and Songza have whole categories of playlists that fit the bill: sounds from a Quiet Park, a Busy Coffee, or sounds from the ocean.

The great thing about these tracks, I find, is that even in the middle of winter, I can call up what it's like to be in those settings. And the closer you can be to the setting you're attempting to describe, the better it will make your writing.