Imagine watching a movie with no sound effects. It would not be satisfying.
You, the author, are the sound effects creator and sound mixer for your verbal movie.
Rhetorical devices and sentence structure add rhythm and emphasis to your prose, but there is also the task of decsribing the sounds in your setting.
You must decide when to add them and which words to use.
Onomatopoeia is the rhetorical device that provides sound words such as: whine, chirp, buzz, roar, clatter, clank, harrumph, giggle, guffaw, chortle, snort, twang, thwack, ring, clang, boing, knock, screech, hoot, bay, and bark.
Sound effect words are often used in conjunction with a simile or metaphor: The seal opened quickly with a pop like a champagne cork.
Building a sound track is more than using sound words; it is using them in clever, memorable ways.
1) For every scene, choose a location. We all make sounds: people, animals, nature, machines. Every location on the planet has its own unique blend of noises. If it is an actual place, even if you can't go there, you can usually find a video of it. If it is a made-up place, then your imagination can fill in the details. There will be background noises: ticking of clocks, rattling of train tracks, and shush of the ocean. Use sounds to set the scene.
Orient yourself in the scene. Close your eyes. Listen. What do you hear? What it is important for your reader and character to hear? Why?
2) Use sounds to define characters.
Does the character constantly snuffle, cough, clear his throat? Do her high heels echo on the tile floor?
How is the character feeling in the scene? What noise might he make if surprised, hurt, angry, shocked? How can you use sound words to emphasize the moment?
Is the character calm, tapping the table out of anxiety, or groaning in agony? What does the scene call for?
3) Story Building Blocks III contains a list of sound words. Add your favorite bugaboos. In the final revision passes, do a search for specific words using [Control] [F] or Find, or read through your manuscript and highlight the words.
Have you used each word more than a few times?
Can you change them or use them in an unusual way?
Is the sound necessary? Does it add something to the sentence? If not, cut it.
4) Avoid purple prose.
Romantic scenes and fight scenes are danger zones for clichéd sound effects: smacks, slurps, sighs, groans, slap, oomph.
There are only so many sounds a person can make, but there are pedestrian and master craft ways of utilizing them.
A beginner writer reaches for common sound words and uses them literally.
A master craftsman transforms common sound words into passages with a visceral effect.
Here are a few examples from one of my favorite writers, Tana French, and her new release The Secret Place:
She shut the interview room door behind us, flick of her wrist and a slam.
The music has turned into a distant hysterical pounding and shrieking, like someone has a tiny Rihanna locked in a box.
The night is thick with clouds and cold; they have to grope their way down the paths to the grove, wincing each time a branch twangs or a clump of leaves crunches.
In the darkness they're just a trail of rustle and laughter, sweeping a circle around the edge of the clearing.
A wisp of a laugh, a frail thing, lost, drifting between the slick posters and the make-up smeared tissues. Not a laugh she'd learned off some reality star and practiced; just her, missing that day. Here was why she needed to see Selena and Chris through a dirty snicker and a gagging noise. That was the only way she could stand to look.
For the list of sound words and more revision tips, check out:
Can We Talk?
Dialogue is far more than words inside quotation marks…
by Rob Walker
What’s just as important as what your character says? What do you need concern yourself with as you craft dialogue other than just the dialogue? Let’s start with the face.
Whose face? Why the face of the speaker and the features of the other speaker as dialogue means two logues, not one. Facial expressions and features are a starting point. Squints, ticks, licking of lips – it all becomes part and parcel of how it all comes off the page like life itself or remains on the page like a dead, dehydrated piece of road kill.
In other words, now that we know so much about non-verbal communication, it is incumbent upon us writers to think of using three non-verbal “triangulations” just as we would triangulate at least three of the five senses in a scene.
In a dialogue scene eye contact is huge, facial expressions, big, sounds, sighs, rolling eyes, as well as gestures and even how a character sits, legs crossed or not, and how he stands, firm or shaky. Posture and proximity. These are all key to making dialogue action rather than feeling like inaction.
So what does science tell us about body language? Here is a pretty good list of items that I use as I write:
Non-verbal signs of Cooperation:
Standing with feet apart, head tilted high.
Direct eye-contact
Uncrossed legs and arms
Open arms and palms out
Finger to face (as opposed to hand covering face)
Suspicion/Secretiveness:
Hand covering mouth or shading eyes
Head down
Throat clearing
Need for reassurance:
Sucking on pen, pencil, glasses or other item
Clenched hands
Cuticle picking, biting nails
Hand to throat
Defensiveness:
Hands in pockets
Hands locked at back
Hand rubbing back of neck
Body twisted away
Stalling for time by cleaning glasses, pipe, rearranging, etc.
Interest:
Hand to cheek
Chin stroking
Leaning forward
Scratching head
Doubt:
Pacing
Hand over nose
Brow furrowed
Anxiety:
Nail biting
Strained voice
Rapid eye movements
Open Gestures:
Smiles
Eye contact
Affirmative head nods
Rubbing hands together
Interim phrases of agreement or acknowledgement (Eh? Uh-huh? Hmmm, oh, etc.)
Closed Gestures:
Fidgeting
Leaning back (as opposed to forward)
Hand covering mouth
Peering over top of glasses
Crossed legs, arms
Head down
In other words, it is as important to see/hear what a character says but just as important to see and hear what is going on between the spoken lines, alternating with interesting actions the character is involved in and engaged in. This keeps the dialogue interwoven with the action, and the action engaged while speakers speak. Action should not end when a character opens her mouth. Same as with thinking; we are in real life normally involved in multi-tasking as we are thinking, no? Same as when speaking. Your dialogue needs to walk; your dialogue requires legs. When the man says, “Lights, action, camera” include in that list “dialogue” but dial it UP!
My latest madness is found via google at Dirty Deeds – Advice where you can keep tabs on the work in progress – Curse of the Titanic, or google Write Aide, or check out his blogs at www.makeminemystery.com
Do leave your comments!
Rob
Mama’s Bayou by Dianne de Las Casas, illustrated by Holly Stone-Barker
Take a sound-filled tour through the bayou as the animals that live there prepare to sleep. Using the repeated phrase of “Mama’s by you on the bayou” the book moves from animal to animal offering the sounds they make. Crickets chirp, frogs slurp, snakes hiss, mosquitoes (skeeters) buzz, and more. Every few pages, there is a double-spread given over just to the accumulated noises of the animals. These small breaks in the pattern of the book keep it from being too rhythmic and also give readers a place to pause and consider the noises of the night.
De Las Casas has written a book that is a lullaby directly from the bayou to you. Her use of repetition is nicely done. Also the cumulative nature of the animal noises makes for a fun read. Stone-Barker’s illustrations are done in cut paper collages. The papers have dimension and texture, offering a depth that is exciting. She also uses deep colors of night very successfully.
A lovely way to celebrate the sounds of the night whether listening to the mosquitoes in the bayou or all the way north in Wisconsin. We do have fewer crocodiles though. Appropriate for ages 2-4.
Reviewed from copy received from Pelican Publishers.
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By:
Shutta Crum,
on 8/18/2009
Blog:
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Several friends have sent links to this wonderful video of the song AFRICA. It starts with creating the sound effects of a rain storm. Click here or on the sidebar. I can just see doing this with a whole group of kids! Music teachers?
The rock band Toto scored their biggest hit with this song in 1982.
But it has been reinvented. Perpetuum Jazzile is an a cappella jazz choir from Slovenia. Group members simulate an African thunderstorm with their hands.
Turn up the volume to high …. and close your eyes! Be patient as it starts softly before the vol really picks up. Enjoy!
Ciao!
Shutta
Click here for some great thunder sound effects!
(*Clip art by: http://www.designedtoat.com)
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Good points, Rob. And there's also the sub-text of dialogue. Is the character saying something but meaning something else?
You nailed it, Rob. Often we get too wrapped up in "he said", "she said" dialogue and forget there is a whole world of nonverbal communication.
I've meant to start my own lists for some time and it's time to do it. I think it's good to keep track of which gestures specific characters use, too. Great post!
As always, lots of great ideas.
Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com