What I Learned About Writing from Hans Zimmer

Last year, I bought an annual subscription to MasterClass on the 2:1 Black Friday deal, and gifted the second subscription to my author accountability partner. My goal was to learn from successful authors, especially those with film and television credits. As a bonus, the subscription offers classes with filmmakers, actors, and musicians whose work I respected. I don’t know how they got all this A-list talent to share their secrets, but thank you! What a valuable service.

Hans Zimmer’s music moves me. Everyone I know loves the Interstellar soundtrack. So when I saw Hans did a MasterClass, he landed #3 on my priority list, after Dan Brown and Salman Rushdie.

Wow. Over five hours and 31 chapters where Hans broke down his creative process. He explained how he thinks about music composing in terms of storytelling. Hans described how to describe a character and set the mood for a scene. As an artist born with an ear for music, his experience and advice made sense to me. I found Hans’ advice as valuable as Dan’s or Salman’s, and just as applicable to my writing process.

Overall, I laughed many times, hearing Hans share his human experience of storytelling through soundtrack music. Hans echoed what Dan and Salman described; this journey to becoming a great artist isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work. Sometimes one must throw away many days or months of work and start again. The artist must love the process enough to persist.

The author game changed when I let go of the indie author grind; publish books as fast as possible to have any shot at making it. It won’t work for me. I fell in love with the process of creating storyworlds and writing about them. Hans reinforced why loving the process is so important.

Not all the content Hans shared applied to me as an author. For example, I doubt I’ll collaborate with world-class orchestra musicians in my career. Some chapters focused on the process of making music for movies. These chapters spoke to me as an author.

Chapter 3. Story. “You must live in the world of the story.” Easier said than done. And I’m my director, so to speak. The part of me that envisions storyworlds must have conversations with my inner writer. To write effectively, one must grasp the rules and ethos that define the characters and story. I do this through journalling, like Hans described in…

Chapter 13. Music Diary: Sherlock Holmes. I use Scrivener instead of Cubase, but I use the diary process almost exactly like Hans described! My creative process is like his, just using different tools. Hans left me feeling validated at a deep level that I was on the “write” track.

Chapters 14–17. Characters and Character Themes. Writing characters is the most challenging part for me, as humans are both simple and complex. Conveying that complexity in simple language can be difficult. When Hans talked about composing the character themes for Batman and Joker in The Dark Night, he gave me a character decoder ring. Hans captured the tragic, traumatic loop that drove Batman’s actions — the murder of his parents — in just two notes. He captured the anarchistic and honest nature of the Joker in a single note. The tonality applied to the notes told us everything we needed to know about the characters, at a simple and visceral level. I already use music playlists to get to know my characters better; this technique will help me design and write character change arcs.

Chapter 25–26. Writing Tips. The subchapters from the MasterClass class guide define a playbook for any artist whose craft incorporates writing:

“• Write Every Day

• Start When They Start

• Write in Diary Form to Figure out the Movie <Story>

• Stay Organized

• Ask New Questions With Your Work

• Break Rules (Elegantly)

• Don’t Rely on Muscle Memory

• Find Your Story to Beat Writer’s Block

• Don’t Be Limited by Budget

• You Only Need Passion to Start Writing.”

I also loved the last class, very short and to the point. Hans asks, what are you still doing here? I hope you went off to create instead of finishing my class!

This class was an enormous commitment for a busy person like me. But it was more than worth it. If you have a MasterClass subscription and this speaks to you, check Hans out.

P.S. If you’re a fan of Hans Zimmer’s music, he’s touring this year! I did not know he toured. Of course, I’ve purchased tickets and have floor seats for the experience. Will let you know how it goes!