Most of us experience “hearing” writing on some level, but ’sound’ is a way in to writing that we often overlook!
Just think about: How do you use your sense of sound in your writing? Do you play with the weight and length of words to create rhythm, do you feel a rhythm in your style? Do you use the sonic relationships between words to express conceptual relationships, make connections, and create mood? Do you know how to pace, do you know how to identify pace? When you read, do you embody the breakbeats—pauses, spaces—or skip past them? How much can you hear the intentions behind punctuation? Can you follow intonation? Can you create it?
If you’re not used to using your sense of sound in your writing, come tune in, my friend! Our work today is not to think about all these questions, but to start to feel how much we already know how to hear the music of writing. It’s in the body. We can use our senses to help us ‘understand’ what we read, and create new work by valuing resonance—a sonic vibration. We can also use sound to understand and appreciate our own writing style, and we can use sound to edit and revise our work just by listening and playing—welcome to soundcraft.
Hang on, hang on! We are not getting to all of that today 😂 Today we’re going to practice hearing sound and rhythm in writing, and ‘analyzing’ (experiencing and articulating) the effect. What is the relationship between sound and mood and meaning and style? By learning to read for sound, not just for comprehension, we are going to deepen our engagement and our understanding of a piece of writing. First I’m gonna show you, then you’re gonna do it yourself. Yay!
Listening to “The Snowfall”
Here is an excerpt from Rachel Carson’s genius 1951 book, The Sea Around Us, titled, “The Long Snowfall.” I’ve recorded myself reading this paragraph twice just below. You may read it first to yourself if you like.
Recording 1: This is reading like you might skim it in your head (or like I hear most people when they start reading and have never practiced sounding it out). It’s not that I’m mumbling, it’s that I’m not paying attention—notice how I am ignoring the punctuation that’s been written, and breathing at random times.
Now let’s try that again, with feeling:
Recording 2: This is reading like I care about every part of what was written (yep, takes twice as long)! The difference between these two readings is not about ‘proper enunciation.’ This is about following the way the author is conducting her language—paying attention to pauses, expressing the sonic reflections, following the flow that is there. This is how craft connects to meaning: in this reading, I am feeling the meaning behind the music for the reader (whether that reader is myself or another).
Listening to the sounds here, let’s dig into that: Can you can hear the effect of her punctuation—the SOUND SIGNIFICANCE of that em dash in the first paragraph? Does the space it creates in the lilting rhythm (a breakbeat) give us a chance to contend with the idea of an accumulation of sediments over a timescale that is literally beyond our comprehension? Another sonic element is the repetition in the word choice and syntax (‘drift upon drift, layer upon layer’), as well as the plodding, additive pacing (’single, overwhelming fact’)—can you hear how she is adding language like layers of drifting sediment, creating the effect that she is describing?
Read it alive
Ok, can you feel it? It’s your turn to read. This is about you finding the music, so my only tip is: Take your time! You don’t have to copy me, just try to get a pace that feels right and maybe a little challenging to how you normally read.
I am giving you two pages to read here, so you can see how, like movements in a piece of music, the pacing and dynamics change to alter the mood and enhance the meaning. You can just practice reading the first paragraph or the whole thing. You can start by reading in your head (as if you are reading out loud), or go straight for a vocalized reading if you’re comfortable. Here are the pages:
Experience and analyze
Ok?? What was that like! Here are a bunch of questions!
What does this focus on hearing the sound of the text change for your experience of it? How did this change your engagement in the piece, and what was surprising? How has your curiosity about this piece changed?
Can you hear Carson’s craft in a different way—why she is doing what she’s doing?
What do you think about the pace and rhythm? Does the writer’s style demand a slower pace? Why, how can you tell?
Did you feel how she uses the music of language to create the mood and carry the meaning of her work? The varying weight of words that give a lilting rhythm, as if of things falling, falling and accumulating, until the end?
Can you feel and hear how the sound and rhythm of her writing continues to support the topic, carry its meaning, and create a powerful mood in which to tell her story of the deep sea and its significance to our human story?
Why? Why is it important to the topic of the writing that she made the choices she did? What is the intention behind the way she conducts the music of her language? Why did she write it to sound like this when she could have written it otherwise?
See, see how getting curious about a writer’s style can bring us closer to them! Paying attention to sound and reading as if we care about the choices the writer made is a very respectful, contributive experience of reading. I hope you got that from this, too.
There are SO many more things to notice in this reading: what else stands out to you? What do you hear, and what does that expand for you? I would love to know in the comments!
If you want to continue flexing this muscle, keep going—if you think soundcraft could be a big thing for you, it really, really helps to keep practicing, just like with music, learning a song, feeling it. Practicing my reading, what did I miss the first time that I can emphasize this second time? What hidden meaning can I bring out if I rest with this pause here and bring out the sonic connection between two words? It’s this work that will help us use sound as a tool to edit our own work.
Try a line that troubled you again, and then again. Read it like your own engagement with it matters to you. Read it like you wrote it. Maybe you think about ‘performing’ the reading for a listener you care about—you want them to really hear it and have a good time. Imagine you are the one who cares about these words and your goal is for them to care. Imagine you wrote it yourself. How does it feel when you can hear it? What does this change for you?
If you really enjoy ‘performing’ your reading, go as far as you want with it! Bring some friends together and read poems and passages out loud to each other, performing! Drink wine or something and sit on the floor! Did I do this every weekend with my weird friends in grad school? Yep!!! Some of the best times of my life, jeez. It’s honestly like writer karaoke idk why there aren’t bars for this.
And maybe this journey continues, and you end up reading your own work out loud to people in your life, to strangers at a writer’s event, to a wider community of readers you care about. Maybe you start something. Maybe it’s already starting. I can’t wait to hear all about it!
Till later! 🤘
Human beings simply are music imo. And we’re all here to have an embodied relationship with writing, right? So don’t forget to bring in more of your senses as a writer! How do I hear when I read and how does this change reading for me?
Again in case you skimmed yr way here: In another soon-to-be post on Soundcraft we’ll ask, “How do I use sound in my writing? How does sound help me hear my own style?” Soundcraft will help you get in touch with your writing style and to become a better editor of your own work, using your sense of sound.
If you want to work together on soundcraft and practice your out-loud reading together, please reach out to me rachel@racheljepsen.com! This would be a great single-session unlock for people who want to really lean in to this sense in their writing, or who hope to read their work out loud in a group setting or lit event. You can also join us in our monthly Writing Club where we often practice soundcraft : )
AUGUST WORKSHOPS
New August workshops will be released for sign-up and purchase on Friday! You’ll be getting an email ; ) Here’s what’s coming up:
Writing a Nonfiction Book, Phase 1: Meeting four Sundays in August, this workshop is for anyone in the early stages (or pre-stages) of writing a nonfiction book of any kind. This will follow a lot of what we covered in the series here that begins, Looking for a Ship. If you think it would be helpful to you to do all of this work (and much more) together in community, discuss the details of your specific book, ask questions about your own process, practice, and project, and help others by engaging with them in conversation and discussion—please join us.
Poetry for Nonfiction Writers: On Saturday, August 9 I am holding a very very precious workshop for you!!! Nonfiction writers tend to shy away from poetry—and simultaneously be very drawn to it, as many of you have admitted to me. In some ways, this workshop is the culmination of so much of my work over the last ten years, including all this soundcraft business. You do not have to have any experience or do any preparation to get a ton of out of this day! Hope you’ll join for the first event!
Pricing will be released on Friday and it will be on a wide sliding scale.
I love you!