December 17, 2019
Sounds in Literature: Creating Subjective Meaning
After sight, hearing is arguably the second most important sense to most of us. Humans mostly use seeing and hearing to interact with their surroundings. And so, sounds in literature can be powerful in conveying meanings – particularly those subtle and symbolic.
But, as with every aspect of writing that is important, there is significant depth below the surface.
To talk about “sounds in literature” isn’t about a one-line advice in the direction of “remember to describe the weather” – sorry Ernest; I never liked your writing.
In other words, in this post I won’t tell you “remember to describe sounds in your book” – let alone how to do it. Instead, I’ll become a bit more abstract and show you why sounds in literature can be powerful and useful, and how they affect your readers.
Sounds in Literature: the… Aural Side of Visuality
I once wrote a post about visuality – the way I chose to define it. In that post I referred to visuality as
a rendering of reality that is subjective and has visual foundations […] A filtered or edited way of seeing things
For today’s topic, sounds in literature, I’m adapting the very same definition to hearing. And so, you could consider sounds in literature as a mechanism that renders reality in a way that is subjective yet one which has aural (hence objectiveA discussion on the metaphysics of sound is well beyond the scope of this post. I won't attempt to answer whether a tree falling in the middle of the forest produces sound.) foundations.
In simpler terms, what this means is that you, as an author, can create a subjective instance of affect deploying an objective set of words.
Let’s simplify it further…
You can write something that will make reader A feel one thing, and reader B another.
On Subjectivity and Meaning (yet Again)
Of course, this almost sounds like something self-evident. “That’s what everything in a book does,” you might protest, “what’s so special about sounds?”
You would be right to underline that books operate this way – or, at least, they ought to. That is, a good novel will, for example, vividly describe a beach sunset for its readers, instigating a wide range of emotional reactions.
Reader A might feel longing for a trip they took to some island. Reader B might feel sadness remembering the place her boyfriend broke up with her. And reader C might erupt in a nervous laughter, recalling a similar scene from a comedy. Meaning can be chaotically subjective – that’s how literature operates.
Yet sounds in literature are special in a somewhat different way. We do live in the audiovisual era, after all.
Sounds in literature are special precisely because they are sounds; intangible and incorporeal. A scene (like the sunset of the example and photo above) is still something involving physical objects: the water, the sand, the pier, and even the clouds are all physical objects. Conversely, the sound of the wavesIf we wanted to be really pedantic about it, we could have a discussion about the nature of reality and the phenomenality of the material world. Sounds are not objects but processes (energy transmission) happening inside objects. On the other hand, objects themselves are basically blobs of energy. All that exists in the universe is multiple manifestations of energy. Therefore, deep down, you could find objections to my separating the sound of the waves - parenthetically, themselves transmissions of energy - from the water. But let’s stick to literature for now 😉 isn’t.
How to Use Sounds in Your Writing
No, I’m not going back on my… promise. As I said, I won’t tell you how to describe sounds. The specifics are up to you. What I do want to talk about is the mechanism and the process.
Sounds – and especially music – in literature offer you a unique opportunity to “plant” complex (yet still subjective) interpretations into your readers’ minds, in ways visual representation cannot.
Instead of becoming too theoretical about it, let me just cut to the chase and offer you a couple of examples.
Example A
His sadness overwhelmed him. He watched her go, seeing her figure receding into the distance. She left his life; forever. She left, to find love in someone else’s arms.
Example B
His heart began to race like a tribal drum. He watched her go, seeing her figure receding into the distance. She left his life; forever. She left, to be a star in somebody else’s sky.
There are two elements here that we need to talk about.
- His heart began to race like a tribal drum.
- be a star in somebody else’s sky
The former is more obvious and, more importantly, aimed at a wider audience. That is, there is a greater chance that more people will interpret it the same way.
In all honesty, this first element is fairly simple. It works well on its own as a metaphor, but doesn’t (on its own) offer any great added value. However, it functions as a magnificent hint at what follows, effectively placing the reader right into the middle of its musical context.
Recall my post on symbolism in literature:
Familiarity exists in an inversely proportional relationship with affective power. In simpler words, symbolism in literature that is harder to grasp, is also more rewarding for the discoverer.
An Entire World of (Subjective) Meanings
In our case, this shines in all its glory in the second element, be a star in somebody else’s sky.
For many people, this sentence means nothing. They see it as a nice metaphor but that’s about it. But for the few who can recognize what it refers to, an entirely new world explodes in this sentence.
For those who recognize the reference, the entire scene is suddenly replete with meaning that – crucially – can still be entirely subjective for various readers.
No visual depictionPresumably, an author could attempt to deploy descriptions reminiscent of a famous painting. But why don’t you try it, as a funny little writing exercise, and you’ll discover it would be too space-consuming, too awkward, ultimately not as efficient as a simple short line from the lyrics of a song. can so powerfully convey such rich yet subtle meanings.
Words Are Powerful, but so Are Sounds
The reason sound – and, as I said, particularly references to music – can be powerful in a narrative is their booster effect. Perhaps this is a matter of opinion or style, but I’m an ardent believer in packing as much meaning in as little text as possible.
More still, I’m a great fan of subjective meaning. As an author, I provide the canvas and a few pigments, but I want my readers to come up with their own compositions.
What’s the point in literature, if it doesn’t make you think?
Many thanks to my friend Francis Mont for his useful input regarding the physics of sound. If you’re interested in an engaging, easy-to-understand look into how your surrounding world works, why don’t you take a look at his very interesting book, Humane Physics: No Student Was Harmed in Writing This Book.
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Few writers do this automatically as they create their first drafts, but it is a great place to think about the impact after the words are down on the page.
Awkward paragraphs often have places where a careful writer can shorten a realistic set of auxiliary verbs (the way we talk in day to day conversations) into a single powerful one. Sol Stein’s books on writing emphasized choices; he calls it ‘particularity.’ Pedestrian writing, tweaked, gets boot-shined. If I don’t do this, every time in the future I read the words again, I feel I need to ‘do something.’
And then, when it’s right, it’s right.
Particularity sounds like an interesting concept, I’ll have to look into this some more. Thanks for sharing.
Sol Stein has two books on writing out that I learned an incredible amount from when I first bought them – now they’re mostly old hat for me now, but I like to remember where I learned things. Particularity is Chapter 29 in On Writing, in the section Literary Values in Fiction and Non-Fiction.
Brazilian modernist Oswald de Andrade once wrote in a preface never published for his book *Serafim Ponte Grande* that “A gente escreve o que ouve, nunca o que houve” (roughly translated as: “we always write that we heard, not what happened”, his mastery coming from the use of homophony in [Brazilian] Portuguese). One of those rare cases where literature made me think.
This is a wonderful thing to say, refreshingly smart and auto-referential.