As many of you already know, part of my process when writing is to create a playlist for my characters. Creating a list of songs my men enjoy really gives me a good insight into them and feeds more individual traits from them to me. Take Jacob Benson, the stoic ag major who captures the heart of Ryker Madsen in Ryker, Owatonna U. Hockey #1.
 
To help me get to know Jacob better, I dug around a bit in his past and where he was raised. Jacob is a farm boy and while not all farmers love country music, the majority that I know sure do. I live on a hobby farm in a super rural area of Pennsylvania so I know quite a few farm boys!
 
Once I got that musical link established, I could then start padding out Jacob a bit more in terms of how he was raised and the morals his rural upbringing straddle him with. Of course, there’s much more than musical tastes involved when creating a character, but since music is such a big part of who and what we are, it’s a huge help to me in getting to know my men better.
If you’re interested in giving Jacob’s playlist a listen, you can find it by following this Spotify link–
 
 
Skate hard and love deeply.
 
V.L.