The sister blog post, “How to Enhance Your Reading Experience with Soundscapes,” can be found on FuentesPens.Ink.
What does your perfect writing experience look like? There are so many ways to write nowadays—by dictation, on your laptop, on your phone, on a word processor like the AlphaSmart, or the old fashioned way with paper and pen.
Whichever way you’re used to doing things, nowadays, you’re probably stuck in the same place while you do it. In past blog posts, Writer’s Atelier has featured authors switching up their routine by heading to new places if they’re feeling stuck. That’s not really an option anymore.
But what if I told you there was a way to truly immerse yourself in the story you’re writing like you never have before?
You can do just that with soundscapes.
What are soundscapes?
Whether you’ve heard the term before or not, you know what it is. Close your eyes and imagine yourself at a beach. You would hear the roar of the ocean, the giggles of children running into the surf, and seagulls cawing overhead if you were there now, wouldn’t you? That’s the soundscape of a beach.
You might already listen to music while you read. I usually do. I preferred instrumental music—usually jazz—from the same time period I was reading or writing in to help me get into the mood. I’d layer that over conversation-like mumblings from Coffitivity to get the vibes of a coffee shop from the 1920s, and it was perfect for writing In Barcelona With You. I made a soundscape for my ideal writing spot without even realizing it, and you might be doing the same thing!
How does a soundscape enhance the writing experience?
While writing The Price of Magic, I found myself torn about what to crank up. It’s a book about mermaids—there’s no historical era to from which to pull music. I tried listening to “beachy” tunes, but it was the wrong kind of sound for the story. It didn’t mesh with the mood.
Instead, I searched around the Internet until I stumbled upon a few ambient noise generators. More specifically, I found this soundscape.
It helps you find your flow.
After I found that mix, my words were flying out of my fingertips. I could get inside the head of a mermaid, and I stopped tripping over words. I effortlessly remembered to write “swam” instead of ran and “floated” instead of stood because I felt like I was underwater alongside my protagonist, Thalassa.
The next day, when I returned to my story, I found it easier to get into that state of mind. I was training my brain to associate writing a mermaid-centric story with that soundscape.
It’s mentally stimulating.
A soundscape can inspire you to step off of the path your outline or character has made for you.
Take, for example, this soundscape of a Medieval village. Play with the sliders on the site until you get a mix you love. What is that blacksmith making? What’s being traded at the market? Why are there so many goats? Who knows? But I bet now you want to write until you find out.
Another example? All right, if you insist. Maybe your character is on a space station. You can just feel the cold and darkness of the void coaxing you toward itself despite every effort to remain sane. The description of this mix on the site reads, “Droning machinery and a weird electronic beating heart sound. Maybe the ship is alive…”
It doesn’t disturb dictation.
Another great thing about a soundscape is you can let it play without it messing with your flow. You can have it on in the background while talking to your voice assistant or dictation app du jour and be confident that the software won’t mistake the noises for a human voice.
Unlike music, which has a rhythm that could distract you or lyrics that could throw off your software (and your train of thought), soundscapes just sound like noise. Soothing and inspiring noise, but noise nonetheless.
Where can I find soundscapes?
Once you’ve started looking into ambient noise players, you’ll find there are tons of them on the Internet, and I’m not just talking about YouTube! The list below has just a few players that I happen to like, and that are also free.
- Ambient-Mixer is my first love. It has the most flexibility in terms of mixing your own soundscape. They have an app available on the Apple and Google Play app stores.
- MyNoise is a distant second with dozens of soundscapes, but not nearly the same amount of flexibility without becoming a patron. You can also find it on the Apple and Google Play app stores. Fun Fact: the creator uses the Patreon money to offset the site’s carbon footprint!
- Noises.Online is a more simplistic version of MyNoise made by the same person. Great if you’re on your phone’s browser!
- Purrli is also made by the same person, and it’s just kitty purrs. I mean, how can you not love that?
- Pluvioniverse only offers nature sounds, but it gives you the ability to open YouTube videos and layer that sound in the same tab. Great for when you already have fifty tabs open. (It’s okay, I do, too!)
Will you give soundscapes a chance in your next writing session?
Megan Fuentes is an historical fiction author and the administrative assistant for Writer’s Atelier. Her favorite things in the world include iced coffee, office supplies, and telling you about those things. And writing, too. And lists!
You can find her books on Amazon.com, and you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Goodreads.
