We here at the Kwikspell column thought there was no better time than the month of Halloween to talk about characters. So many wizard rock bands have taken on the persona of an individual character or a group of them, using it to influence everything from their songwriting to their stage persona. Going out on stage as a character can give you a ton of extra confidence, allowing you to feel bigger than yourself. It’s a great way to combat stage fright and make costuming choices simple! But for this month’s column, we’re going to focus on how being in character can help you write a song.

One of the great things about wizard rock is that you can step into a character’s point of view when you sit down to write. It can be challenging to figure out where to start – what do I want to sing about? – but wizard rock gives you some easy answers. A good first step is to decide what point of view you want to sing from – what character do you want to be? Are you Harry Potter, with a million “obvious” stories to tell? Are you an original character working at the Ministry for Magic? Are you Parvati Patil whose experience we see very little of in the books, giving you just a few “obvious” moments to work from (The Yule Ball, going to Hogsmeade, studying divination, hanging out with Lavender, fighting in the war, etc)? Pick a character and then pick one of those moments or ideas to explore – that’s your subject matter for your new song!

Some character choices will give you a nicely limited range of “easy” stories to tell – look at The Moaning Myrtles, for example. Myrtle is a character that only pops up a few times over the course of the book series, and that makes it easy to narrow down your subject matter: which event in a bathroom do I want to talk about now? Sometimes you might think you’ve run the well dry on character stories, but then you can get creative. You can invent your own stories, like The Moaning Myrtles did with “Bathroom Acoustics” and Tonks and the Aurors did in “1991-Charlie Weasley,” or you can go full meta like Draco and the Malfoys did in “Out of Ideas.” Sometimes a character choice can even just give some extra perspective observing a story they weren’t directly involved in, like Percy and the Prefects do in “Ron and Scabbers (Freaky Little Man).”

Now you get to step into your character’s shoes and try to express something. Think about what the character is feeling and how you as a songwriter are feeling. Emotion is the key here: are you trying to be funny or earnest when you write this song? Is your character angry or lovestruck? That will give you an idea of how you want to tell your story. What those emotions sound like to you will impact how your music sounds – it’s the difference between a sad piano ballad and an upbeat country jam. There’s no right answer here, and it’s okay if everything you write in the beginning sounds the same! 

Next, think of some ideas that will help you structure your song: is your character talking directly to someone, or about them? Are you telling a story in first person like Ashley Hamel does in “Love Cannot Be Sorted,” are you talking directly to the listener like Pussycat Dolores does in “Ministry Has Fallen,” or are you retelling the story as a narrator like Seen and Unforeseen does for most of “Meanwhile?” Once you know this, it’s easier to figure out where your story starts and ends. Now you just get to fill in the details! Experiment and have fun with it.

Because you’re writing songs inspired by the Harry Potter universe, you have a lot of source material to inspire you. Watch your favorite movie again and think on what you’d love to write a song about! Write down ideas you think are funny so you don’t forget them. Don’t be afraid to steal quotes and turn them into lyrics – this will often help people know exactly what you’re singing about! And when in doubt, do like Witherwings did when she wrote “Oliver Wood” – just open the books to a random page and write a song about what happens there. The results might surprise you!