Imagine this: You walk into a place you frequent often, whether that's a coffee house or the library or a bar, it's not a big deal. Put yourself there and think about what's going on around you. Do you see it? There's one thing I'm sure you're forgetting and it's not your fault that you don't notice it. More often than not, you aren't supposed to notice it.

I'm talking about the background noise. The music playing in the coffee house or the sound of people typing on computers in the library. If you're in a bar, well that changes from night to night and hopefully you aren't too drunk to notice it. Why don't you notice it? Because it's there to influence your mood.

When writing a scene like this in a novel, you have to remember that background noise is there and use it to your advantage. I put a couple bar and club scenes in Prophecy and I actually name the song I'm thinking of playing in the background. When Seven walks into the bar the first time he sees Rhoswen, he enters to Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole". All of a sudden, you get a picture of what is really going on. When Seven and Rhoswen go out for their first date, I describe the song playing on the dance floor of the club (because it's in Japanese and I honestly didn't have the title with me, but you understand where I'm coming from here).

This adds realism to your writing. No one walks around in a bubble of silence. We all have our favorite bands and we all sing along in the car (well, most of us). If you have a character driving around without music playing in the background, he's probably talking to the other character sitting right next to him or reflecting on the aliens that just abducted his dog.

Make sure you remember what should be there and take the opportunity to show off some of your own personality if you want to. Lincoln listens to Linkin Park in Forbidden because it's A: Funny (you'll get it in a minute. If you don't, leave a comment and I'll explain), B: A personal favorite of mine, and C: He's an angry teenage boy. But if he's driving around listening to the sounds of silence (that isn't really a band is it?), then it's no longer believable.