Listen to Your Writing

"Everything in writing begins with language.  Language begins with listening."

-Jeanette Winterson

           It was a warm spring afternoon and the students in English 101 stared at the screen with furrowed eyebrows.  They stared at the projection on the eastern wall of the classroom.  Their eyes seemed to be searching for an answer that would not appear on the screen.  Ten sentences were projected onto the screen.  All ten had errors.  I asked a question, however, no one knew the answer.    The ten sentences each had grammatical typos.  One student decided to change “…we decided to go to a beach” to “…we decided to go to THE beach.” 

            “Why change a to the?”  I asked, which brought us to the awkward length of silence.

            “I don’t know,” a student chimed in.  “It just sounds better.”  She shrugged her shoulders.  A few brave souls nodded their assent.

            Sometimes we aren’t aware of the fact that we determine whether a sentence is grammatically correct or not based on how it sounds.  I have seen this phenomenon play out many times in my Composition classes.  Whenever students are asked to judge an irregular verb, they revert back to “how it sounds.”  “Writing is just another form of communication, which is something that most of us do on a daily basis.”  I have stated this point many times in my classes to ease the stress of writing.

            When I am working in our college Writing Center, I make a point to read a student’s paper out loud to them.  This way, the student gets out of the mode of the writer and into the mode of the listener.  As I read their essay, I read it back to them exactly as they have written it (warts and all) so they can hear how the essay actually sounds.   Writers have a tendency to “hypercorrect”.  This is where the author of the text reads the paper and (whether they are aware of it or not) they correct the essay as they go along.  At times, the writer will not even see the error that they are correcting.  They will read the essay with the correction included.  What an author means and what the author writes may be two different things.  Due to this, more grammatical infractions may be committed when writing.  Once the student listens to his/her own writing, they will be more apt to view it in a rational way, rather than an emotional one.  It would be easier to see their own typos and errors, thus making them more effective editors.  

            Lately, I have been thinking about this idea of listening to writing, focusing particularly on my own.  I live on the west side of Michigan; however, my parents live clear across the state.  Plus, I have to drive 45 minutes to get to work.  To say the least, I spend a great deal of time in my car.  On many occasions, I have had an idea pop into my head only to lose it when I get to my destination.  To address this, I have been using a miniature tape recorder to dictate into on my extended travels.

            The storylines that I dictate into the recorder are streams of consciousness, at best.  Most of the time is spent recapping what has already happened in the works.  This allows me to review the particulars of the story to make sure that my thought process is on the right track.  On many occasions, as I am running through a story, I will come up with something new that could work its way into the manuscript.  Since time can be a precious commodity, time that would have been considered “wasted” while driving can be placed to good use.  The simple action of expressing your thoughts aloud can allow you to “see” your work differently.  Once the drive is over, I can write about the thoughts, plot ideas, etc. that I had set up in the tape recorder.  This has led to more developed scenes and interesting plot twists.

            In the same vein as dictating the story aloud, playing the tape back can be a good experience for a writer.  This is the part of the scenario that I do not like.  This is due, in part, to the fact that I hate listening to the sound of my voice (think Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with Mickey Mouse).  As agonizing as it may be, I listen to the stream of consciousness, all the while with an ear out for plot holes.  I can ask myself questions such as: Would this character do that?  Why would he/she commit this action?  What is going on with this scene?  This way, I become a more effective editor.

            Giving a voice to your writing can add dimension to the writing process.  The process need not be confined to a pen and piece of paper, or fingers along a keyboard.  The writing process can incorporate sound.  Even now, I am experimenting with using music in my process.  I am creating a soundtrack to my newest manuscript.  Don’t forget to engage yourself on many sensory levels.  After all, shouldn’t we be doing that with our readers?