What's Your Story's Soundtrack?

March 2026

Our mind's eye has been trained for decades... from the first day a book is read aloud to us... to precisely imagine every detail an author describes. We have lots of reference material from real life, television, film, and theatre. It's fairly easy to conceive the visuals of a story: The rippled reflection of a memory in a mirror. The snowdrift as it passes by a window in a gust of frigid white. Or, the blue curtains that, I swear, signify nothing more than blue curtains.

Aromas and tastes are equally simple to conjure and recollect because we're assaulted by them every day through what we eat, the environments we walk in and out of, and the people we encounter: The sulfur from a match struck in a moment of panic. The musk of two men embroiled in a contest to win the heart of a lady, and the sting of copper as each tastes their own blood with the next blow. Or, the vanilla and cinnamon drifting on a cloud of softness from the kitchen to the playroom as the children discover Grandma baked Snickerdoodles.

The physical attributes of a story are a little trickier, but still, we have the connection to life that gives us a touch point toward understanding: The heft of a crate of potatoes as it is passed from one worker to the next, and loaded onto the truck. The balance lost, regained, and lost again as a child tumbles to the ground on the first day riding a bike without training wheels. Or, the concussive vibration felt through a woman's sternum as the clay pigeon explodes during her first skeet shoot.

But how do readers hear your story? When the baby cries, does it wail through the night air like a witch's lament after too many failed spells? When the dog rests comfortably in front of the fireplace, chewing on a bone, does it remind you of the splinters breaking away from the wishbone tug-of-war you fought with your sibling at Thanksgiving dinner? When the air is lost from the lungs of a long-distance runner at the top of the hill as his heart fails, does it escape with the same rasp you remember when a kite was taken up by a small tornado when you were seven?

Film and television use music and background sound effects to lead our awareness into moments of tension, love, loss, and hope. They use sophisticated microphones to catch every tiny exhale of a lover's tentativeness, and every drop of anger seethed from a villain lost in revelry. Authors can't use the same tools to hint at or focus a moment of emotion or impact for our readers. Few books come with their own soundtrack - unless it's an audiobook, and even still, it's an uncommon practice to interject sound into the story. We rely on the tone and tenor of a voice actor's recitation and the words written on the page to feel the underlying clues the author hopes to convey. It's an inexact science.

To bring readers closer to the story, we need to remind them of the soundtrack that plays continuously in the background of every chapter we write... those intensities hidden just beneath the layers of action and dialogue. The vibrant cues of sound bring a story into it's fullest expression of existence. The noises of your story recall for readers their own experience with a similar moment in their history, and helps them tie together the emotional strings associated with those actions. Sound helps readers open a window to empathy for a character's dilemma, recognize the muscle memory of a particular series of physical trials or joys, or perhaps pacify a moment of over-thinking tension.

The onomatopoeia you include to highlight a particular moment aren't enough to hold the imagination. Instead of telling readers what to hear, help them actually hear it through direct experience. Involve readers in the argument of shifting octaves between a police officer and a woman detained during a traffic stop. Enhance the elongated stress of second-guessing inside the mumbled lyrics of musak sung badly in an elevator. Or, prepare them for the prolonged agony of a medical crisis with the hesitation of a final request layered within the metronome of a breathing machine.

All of these, and more, will draw your reader deeper into your story, allowing them to experience your characters' suffering, elation, distraction, and devotion with greater impact and a lasting imprint on their imagination.

But don't forget the moments of silence, either.

Silence isn't just the act of not mentioning sound. Silence is a moment absent of sound, and it can have tremendous influence on a story. Silence, whether awkward, intentional, or artificial, can add layers to suspense and depth to lust. Decisions are often made in the seconds of silence before force plays it's hand. The echo of nothingness shares secrets with readers that noises cannot, helping readers understand the complexity of the characters' perceptions of their world and themselves.

A toddler who is playing alone quietly in the next room is suspicious. A wolf holding it's ground before the lunge incites dread. An explosion in the vacuum of space could be the death knell of a thousand humans or the creation of a new species. Floating underwater, watching raindrops hit the surface with moonlight as the only spatial reference, can create a moment of peace, loss, or resolve, depending on the character and the choice they must make.

Including sound and silence in equal, or perhaps disparate measure in your stories offers readers another dimension to consider. Through the soundtrack of each experience, layers of audible emotion and in some cases, the bullhorn of a complete abdication of logic, might make the difference between a book that is treasured and recommended, and one that is unfinished and forgotten.

Is the difference really that dramatic? Maybe, maybe not. Still, the unique awareness of hearing your story from the inside out... How you convey emotion, intellect, and the physicality of your world through sound and silence, is worth taking the time to flesh out the soundtrack. Do you hear what I hear when you read? I can almost guarantee you don't. We all hear our imagination differently. But the specific frequencies you create might help readers crave more stories from you and become fans for life.