A Different Kind of Listening

Detecting the emotional content of a voice requires a different kind of listening.

No longer can we rely solely on our ears. We need to feel the emotion in a voice, and to do this means using our hearts as well as our ears.

Listening with our hearts lets us feel the underlying emotion--the fear or joy, sadness or hope--that flows through a character's veins.

But how are we to identify this emotional quality?

Where do we begin?

Although it may seem obvious, listen to the language of the story--the author's choice of words, the details the narrator has selected to share.

Listen for the rhythm of a pulse, and listen to the tone--whether it's formal or informal, stiff or loose, warm and inviting, cool and aloof.

Then, ask yourself how you feel about the language... and the main character.

What do your feelings reveal? Not just about the character, but about your response to the character?

Let's listen to a handful of voices and try to hear the emotional currents rippling through them:

Basketball is my thing. I can hoop. Case closed. I'm six four and I got the moves, the eye, and the heart. You can take my game to the bank and wait around for the interest. With me it's not like playing a game, it's like the only time I'm being for real. (from Slam! by Walter Dean Myers)

What do you hear in this passage?

Who is speaking?

What's the most important thing in the character's mind? Basketball? Playing the game? Proving himself on the court? Or feeling something different when he's playing than when he's not?

We know he's tall (six four), well-coordinated (he's got the moves), a player with drive and determination. We know, too, that he can play well (in his own mind, at least). And... what else?

How would you describe his emotional state? Secure? Fragile? Despite his prowess on the court, does he feel confident when he steps off the court?

What does Myers intend for us to feel as we read this passage? How does Myers succeed in linking us with this character? He merges our heart with this character's... so that we can feel it beating beside our own... but how does Myers do this?

Here's another voice:

"What if they find us? What's gonna happen?"
Harrison's eyes snapped open and he gave me his meanest stare. "Now, you be quiet, child, and git some rest 'cause we got another long run ahead of us. I don't want to hear no more of your talkin."
I kept quiet then, but the questions were still running back and forth in my head. What if I had left footprints in the field? What if Master hired dogs to track us down? What if it didn't rain? What if they found us sitting in the tree? What if they shot us down, as if we were nothing more than a pair of foolish wild birds?
(from Trouble Don't Last by Shelley Pearsall)

Listen closely... what do you hear in this passage?

Do you hear the fear in the character's voice? Can you feel his fear?

What do we learn from this passage about his life? He's a child ("Now, you be quiet, child...") and tired... and his journey is far from over... but what else?

The characters are running from someone or something... and the danger of being discovered is great... so great that the boy must remain silent.

But the silence only gives the boy's imagination freedom to design ways for their escape to fail--a series of what if's... his existence dependent not on his own actions but on random luck. If the master doesn't send out dogs. If it doesn't rain. If they're discovered in the tree.

Notice how the boy's consciousness reflects his way of looking at the world... his way of being... as an escaped slave. Having run away, he now can feel only the foolishness of his attempt to gain freedom, an attempt no different than a "pair of foolish birds."

How does the author bring you inside the story? What words does she use to let you feel the boy's fear, sense of isolation, and abandonment? The danger that the escaped slaves are in? The growing tension over the boy's future?

Now listen to this voice:

I spent the reception listening to comments about how tall I was, everyone trying to make it sound like it was a good thing to be a giant at fifteen. I towered over everyone, it seemed, and Ashley kept coming up behind me and poking me hard in the center of my back, which was my mother's subtle and constant signal that I was slouching. What I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball under the buffet table and hide from everyone. After four hours, several plates of food, and enough small talk to make me withdraw into myself permanently, we finally got to go home."
(from Sarah Dessen's That Summer)

What do you hear now? And, on a deeper level, what do you feel?

What details provide keys to the emotional state of this character? How do we know what we know about her? Which words, which actions, make us feel a certain way? Why?

Is she confident about herself? Happy with who she is? Pleased with her body? Does she like to spend time with people or does she prefer to spend time alone? What's her relationship with her mother? Her sister (who pokes her in the back)? How does she deal with things that she dislikes? Does she tell people what she's feeling? Does she have the courage to exit a situation that's making her feel uncomfortable?

How does this scene make you feel? And how does the author place you in the character's shoes?

One last voice:

I felt tears stinging my eyes as the bus pulled out of the station. It would take me to the Mehtas' village, but it would not bring me back. Maa must have had the same thought; she reached for my hand and held it tightly.
Mr. Mehta was there when the bus stopped. He was a short man with a small round face and a pair of large, dark-rimmed glasses. It was hard to see his face behind the glasses. I made my best ceremonial namaskar, saluting him and even touching his feet, but he gave me only a quick look. Instead he turned to Baap and, after a courteous but quick greeting, asked, "You have brought the dowry, sir?" Until that moment I had believed it was me the Mehta family wanted; now it seemed that what they cared for most was the dowry. Was my marriage to be like the buying of a sack of yams in the market-place?
(from Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan)

What are the emotions that you feel when you listen to this voice? And why do you feel them?

We are present at a leave-taking and an arrival... events that will change the character's life. By sharing certain details with us, the author gives us a glimpse into the young girl's heart: how much she cares for her family, especially her Maa and Baap, and how much she will miss them.

Even though her parents accompany her on the journey, she's already imagining her life without them... as a married girl in the future. And we're given a glimpse into how she feels about herself and that future when she gets off the bus and meets her future father-in-law, who virtually ignores her respectful greeting and shows interest in only one thing: her dowry.

How does that rebuff make the character feel?

And how do you feel as you move deeply inside the narator's point of view?

What is it in the language that gives you this feeling? Is it the way the character finds herself ignored by Mr. Mehta? Or is it the way that she feels about being ignored... and the way that she expresses her emotional state in words ("Was my marriage to be like buying a sack of yams in the marketplace?")

Listen with your heart. Try to find the emotional thread running through these passages.

If you listen to a story with your heart, not just your ears, you should be able to slit open the story at any point... and not only hear the quality of emotion in a voice but feel the emotional pulse of the story, the character's heart beating steadily beside your own.

The examples that we looked at above were from YA novels, but you could perform the same exercise with picture books or middle grade readers.

Try it, see what happens... and let us know what you hear.

For further reference:

Walter Dean Myers: http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/myers.html and an interview at http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-myers-walterdean.asp

Shelley Pearsall: http://www.shelleypearsall.com/

Sarah Dessen: http://www.sarahdessen.com/

Gloria Whelan: http://www.gloriawhelan.com/

Also, Canadian illustrator Ian Wallace describes how he probes a text for an emotional link before he begins work at http://www.ian-wallace.com/speeches_1.html

One Writer's Process: Sarah Dessen

Sarah Dessen, the author of That Summer, This Lullaby, Someone Like You, Dreamland, and The Truth About Forever, keeps a daily blog (Sarah Dessen's Journal) that brims with the same kind of closely observed details and insights about life that you can find in her fiction.

In one of her recent blog entries, Dessen shares her thoughts on her own writing process and succeeds in capturing much of the mystery, unpredictability, challenges and joys that she experiences in the daily act of writing.

Her entry, which she was kind enough to let Wordswimmer post, appears below:

"I started writing regularly (i.e. on a pretty much daily basis) after college, when I was juggling two jobs: working as a personal assistant to a writer here in town, the incredible Lee Smith, and waitressing at the world famous Flying Burrito. Because of this, it worked out that the only free block of time I had on a steady basis was in the afternoons, from about 3-4:30, right before I went into work. So that's when I wrote. I'd do errands for Lee in the morning, come home and have lunch, then mellow out for a few minutes and get to work. I wrote for a couple of years that way, churning out two books a year. I'd start one at the end of the summer, and finish it around Christmas, then start another around February and finish it around my birthday in June.

"Now, I didn't SELL all those books: I only sold about half. (That's another thing about my process: I have a lot of misfires. I also have several books that are not YA, but with narrators in their twenties, that are sitting in my closet, waiting for me to do something with them, if I can bear to haul them out.) But the main thing was that I trained myself that this was the time I wrote, so that if I wasn't writing, I was very much aware of it. Even now, if it's three o'clock and I'm not at the computer, I always have that twinge of guilt, even if I've earned some time off. It's like that sudden realization that you left the iron on: something' s wrong! But at the same time, you can get obsessive about it. It's a fine line, one I am still struggling with.

"I very much admire people who can write longhand, but I am a computer person all the way. And while I've tried to write in coffee shops, it's hard for me: I do best here at home, in my office, where I know I'll be serious and not distracted. Back when I first started this schedule, I lived in our little farmhouse in Durham, and my office was this tiny room off the bedroom. It was, in a word, hideous. Orange carpet, dark paneling on the walls, one very dirty window, which I faced away from, so I wouldn't be distracted. I got a LOT done there. So much so that when we moved here, to this house where my husband had built me this beautiful study, with bright walls and windows and a view, I was terrified I wouldn't get anything done. But I have learned to focus. Even if it is hard sometimes.

"If I have to, though, I can write anywhere: airports, hotel bathrooms, in the car, you name it, I've done it. I think it's good to know that you don't NEED anything to write other than a surface, a pen and your hand. I think it's very easy to get caught up in the particulars, oh, I need my coffee, or my chocolate, or the sun to be in Mercury, or whatever. Enough! Sit down and do it. Given a choice, though, I like to be here at home, where I know I can completely lose myself in the story and when I come up for air, I'll know where I am.

"I know writing every day doesn't work for everyone. Sometimes, it doesn't even work for me. There are times I think a novel is much better served by stepping away from it, taking a break, and letting your subconscious work on it. I have a bad habit of fretting over my plots, constantly, wanting to change things only to change them back, then back again. It's crazy. My editor often has to pry the manuscript from me to make me stop.

"The weird thing about writing, for me, is that there is no one formula that works. Every book---God, every DAY---is different. This Lullaby I wrote in three months: it was like riding a comet, or going to a party every day, so much fun I didn't want it to end. The Truth About Forever was incredibly hard, although it got easier towards the end; my new book I was terrified pretty much from start to finish. Why? I have no idea. It just is what it is. I think I was writing at my most free back at the beginning, when the only person I knew for sure would read my stuff was my mother. There was less pressure. But I also think the books have gotten more in depth and stronger since then, so maybe the neurosis is working? I have no idea. I could think about this all day. But I don't. Because it's all about that hour and a half to two hours, and not much else. Get it done. That's it.

"The thing is, there is no formula for me, no right answer. The minute I think I've got it figured out---I'll do this, and then this, and everything will work---it changes entirely, right before my eyes. This used to make me NUTS, but now I'm starting to understand it's probably happening for a reason. If it was easy, maybe I'd get bored with it. Anything that is difficult makes overcoming it that much more worthwhile. So I'll just keep plodding along, my two or so hours a day, some great, some horrible, many right down the middle. I guess the truth is, even on the worst days, when I want to tear my hair out, when I feel like the biggest failure or fraud ever, this is still a dream come true. No joke. It is all I ever wanted to do, and I'm doing it. That makes up for a lot. More than you know."

Thanks, Sarah!

For more information about Sarah Dessen and her work, check out her website http://www.sarahdessen.com/ as well as the journal where these comments on her writing process first appeared http://www.livejournal.com/users/writergrl/.

Also, look for her new book, Just Listen, scheduled for publication in May, 2006.

(P.S. - Wordswimmer's next post--"End of Year Musings"--is scheduled for Dec. 29th.)