Whispered Secrets and Recorded Magic
It can be a first step to telling a story that shows more than the obvious, and one I always look for on a page—and kick myself if one of my own scenes neglects it. It’s the mark of atmosphere, of surprise, of emphasis. It’s hinted at in my writer’s motto, up there at the top of this site. And it can mean one other thing about how writing resonates with me that I’m about to share with you all.
Sound.
I’ve written before, about how the standard advice to “descibe all five senses” can as easily backfire as not. It bugs me most because keeping track of when to use five of anything sounds calculated to scare writers, as well as to cover up how the senses do have relationships that can make mixing them easier if we learn to use them. (And yes, people keep saying “five” knowing that taste rarely matters if we’re not at a restaurant—and that some of our heroes have more than five anyway.)
So, sight needs sound.
Of course we’re visual creatures first; sight’s our most fundamental sense because of how it takes in everything in an instant and locks it all into a roadmap of threats, promises, the pathways to each, and everything else around us. And since a writer can only describe one thing at a given moment, the choice of sights can follow how the eye tracks what our attention focuses on just then. (After all, “focus” itself is a visual image—and so’s “image.”)
Keeping a description just in sight terms is so tempting, I’ve slipped into it myself again and again. Even though sound is one of the great thresholds between merely decent writing and bringing a moment to life.
Why does sound add so much? For one thing, because it builds straight onto what’s already there. Yes, most visual description does “follow the ball” of what’s drawing our attention from moment to moment… but what makes a person, a object, or anything important? Often it’s what it does right then—for every tall and elegant (and dead) statue trying to dominate a city square there ought to be the marching feet of soldiers who actually protect or repress the city, or the creak of a gate that lets you in.
If it’s important, it’s probably active, bouncing off the environment around it or churning with its own internal reactions; what’s worth seeing is often worth hearing too. And that goes triple for characters, of course, because the sound of their action tells so much about how and why they’re doing it, and because they usually want to be heard.
Even for minor pieces of the setting, just the moment’s attention they get might be worth using sound to give it instant character. Simply walking on hard stone raises a different kind of thump from the slight echo of wood, let alone snow or leaves.
But if sound’s good at amplifying sight and attention, it’s even better at contrasting with them. Sound forces us to stay aware of more than one thing at a time, because noises don’t care if you’re looking at them. A sudden sound is perfect for making one of my heroes glance around and stay on his toes. Or, it’s one of my favorite tricks in a scene: to draw the eye in close to the action and then break up a moment of silence with a passing car or shout, just to say the world’s still bigger than we started to think. Movies love it too, with the cry of a “distant hawk” to pretend they aren’t just shooting on a tiny set.
–Although, if Paul in Shadowed hears a bird in the sky, it might be a long way off indeed. And if Mark and Angie hear one in The High Road, it’s probably all too close.
The full expression of sound might be in letting mood become more important than details. Again and again I’ve found that if a scene is supposed to settle into just a feeling, the ones that do it best let my hero “heard a dog’s bark, a shout, and sometimes a siren.” or “hear a baby crying, probably part of one of the families he’d seen walking when the sun had been out.”
But no, we all know that isn’t the fullest use of sound in writing. Most of all, at the heart of it all, sound reminds us of our voices as we simply talk to each other.
And… here’s a little secret… I’ve never been able to write a word without a part of me picturing myself telling the story or the message aloud. Letting the words slow to gather mood, then build in speed and force to pick a reader—a listener—up and sweep them on toward the climax. I like to think my words work better as a flow than as separate touchstones that are meant to build a story just by sitting next to each other.
And now you can hear that flow too.
Starting today, I’ll be working with a certain veteran voice actor to bring you a few recorded samples of Shadowed, soon followed by The High Road. I hope you’ll lend an ear and feel a little of the excitement I’ve always felt in putting these dreams into words.
I’m opening with one minute of sound from the first chapter of Shadowed. Just to set the mood…
Paul Schuman is in the middle of a party he’s infiltrating, when the heightened senses that have driven him into living in hiding detect a person from his past—his sister-in-law, Lorraine. And then the one thing Paul never thought could happen, happens: Lorraine crumples, holding her head in a way Paul knows all too well. One of the onlookers is just asking “Ms. Schuman…”