Hearing Language

I love word play. Often when I write I’m not only physically typing in the words, but also hearing them. It’s probably why there’s so much internal rhyme and alliteration in my sentences.

I was reminded recently of when I was going through the galleys of Beyond Paradise. I was going over a scene with me editor (at this point we thought we were done) and I might have casually mentioned that I relied heavily on my primary source, a diary or article written by a former internee of the camp I was writing about. My editor asked how heavily. It was decided I might need to change up some wording and add some further elements. One of the suggestions was to have the camp civilian orchestra (based on real events) play a specific suite in rehearsal. I know nothing about music let alone classical violin pieces so I called up a friend who plays. He is originally from Switzerland and grew up in Austria. For the life of me I couldn’t understand what he was saying because he was pronouncing Brahms name correctly. It sounded like he was saying bombs.

This was exactly the inspiration I needed. The scene was supposed to include a Japanese guard who was also a trained musician. I had him burst into the rehearsal shouting “bombs, bombs” until the women gather he is requesting they play Brahms.

So many times we remain focused on the problem, the editing issue that if we stop and just LISTEN to the language, the context of the piece, what the characters are saying or not saying as they talk past each other—we can find a way through.

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