wired for sound

Sound is everywhere around us, and even when it isn't that silence is often referred to a deafening silence. We live and operate within the world where we are lucky enough to choose what sound surround us. We pick our ringtones. We assign certain tones to calls we want to avoid. We pick our radio stations and when they stop entertaining us, we skip songs on pandora until they tell us we can't do anymore.

When John Carpenter's Halloween (awesome film. see the original. Michael Myers forever!) was first shown to executives way back in the late seventies, it had no sound. They hated the film. They wanted the director to reshoot everything and basically create a whole new film. Instead, he got together with a friend and they created music for the background. That now famous chachachacha, cahcahcahcah sound in horror movies was created by a desperate director saving a project. He showed the film again to the big boss man and this time he loved it. The rest is history. (conveniently laid out on wiki if you want to read about it)

But why are you giving me a lesson on sound Jennifer when we are the player of words and not instruments?

Firstly, please, call me Jenn. Secondly sound is just as important when you are writing. Why are tongue twisters so funny? Because they confuse the mind, make your tongue trip and you suffer in a not-going-to-die way. Why are poems so hard to write? Because of rules, and usually those rules come back to beats. Every song is based on a beat. So is a poem. And so is all your writing.

Pick up something you wrote and read it out loud. I'll just sit here and wait for you to finish.... seriously could have picked something shorter. Ok, ok, you get the point, though. You naturally fall into a rhythm when you are reading. There are beats to every sentence, not enough for a melody, but it is undeniable. When you miss a beat or change it suddenly it makes your mind freak out. It frowns and tries to work out why did the pattern stop? What happened to that base? That moment when the brain stops and tries to work out what went wrong, the reader is taken out of the story.

If it happens enough, then a reader might never try reading your book again. Sound can be traced back to cavemen. They couldn't write, but you can be sure they sat around hitting things together and getting happy from the results. Caveman rock bands were totally a thing. Long before books, we told stories. Once upon a time, hearing someone recite a book over the radio was the only way to get a new story. Whole families sat around and listened. How something sounds is so important that it can make or break a career.

So add that to the list of things to worry about. How does your book sound? When you read out loud, do you stumble over how the words connect? Can you engage your audience with the same techniques a musician does? I think you can. Utilize all the senses.