The Sound of Writing

Inspired is a word I do not use lightly. However, working with my friend Benjamin Fife on the Audible performance of my upcoming novel, In Westminster’s Halls, is incredibly inspiring.

I hope my writing is not just words on paper but a performance that resonates in readers’ minds. And while Benny is an exceptional voice artist, I would be equally delighted if a reader of the book had Darcy sounding one way or Elizabeth another. Each reading and listening experience is a unique, personal connection to the story.

I recall when I first experienced the wonder of the sound of writing. I watched the film The Russia House from John le Carre’s book of the same title. I loved the movie so much (with Sean Connery in the lead) that I got the book. When I read the book, I heard Sir Sean delivering every passage involving Barley Blair’s speech or thought. That was transformative.

One of my favorite mantras to students—be they history or writing—was, “If it sounds weird, it probably is weird.” Oh, I know, this was odd coming from the podium at an august institution of higher education, but I spoke with the best intentions. ’Twas my fun way to encourage the l’il darlin’s to proofread aloud. That way they will hear their words and understand that if they spew a mouthful of gibberish, they likely have written something semantically incomprehensible.

This exercise is deeply rooted in my belief that every syllable, pause—partial or complete—sentence, and paragraph have evolved from Humanity’s earliest efforts to preserve the spoken word. It is a testament to the profound impact of spoken language on the development of writing and literature.

Recall that the Greeks invented vowels (after they pinched the Phoenician alphabet in the mid-700s BCE to replace Linear B from the pre-Greek Dark Ages days: nobody could read it!) so that they could preserve the Homeric Epics after Homer died.

I mean, how would The Iliad read if there was an eternal confusion over (OK, this is English, but imagine an Athenian bard trying to sing for his supper) whether the word “dg” was “dog,” “dig,” “dug,” or “dag?” The cardinal vowels (a, e, i, o, u…forget about the cross-dressing “y” and “w”) were created to allow the Greeks to record their favorite after-dinner entertainment. Yes, Plato indeed recorded many down-and-out drinking brawls where Alcibiaedes and Socrates would try to drink each other under the klismos, but that was after a local minstrel had recited a few dozen stanzas of something designed to show the cultural chops of the party’s host.

Yet, given that the Greeks captured the eloquence of Homer’s words—and later those of Sappho, Aeschylus, and Ovid—these written works were still designed to allow an oral performance before an audience.

This is, I admit, a long way around the block to get me to the point of saying that all writing is rooted in the oral tradition. If that is the case, should not all writing, when heard, sound as good as (if not better than) when read?

In the InspiredByAusten world, Austenesque authors have been moving through the processes of bringing their works to a broad public using a range of electronic publishing options. Many are now adept at designing their stories to fit digital and print venues. We have, it seems, been following the traditional path extant since our good friend Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press in the 1450s.

Naturally, this great leap in how the written word was distributed forced the putting of the cart before the horse, essentially giving priority to the written over the spoken. And it has remained so until the last twenty or thirty years.

However, new technologies (I am ignoring phonographs upon which you could have enjoyed John Gielgud performing King Lear: not particularly portable.) led to a reappraisal of the spoken word as a literary device—three words…books on tape.

Of course, these were usually the author or a celebrity reading their words into a microphone. The utility was that one could listen to a book—and hear the author’s voice—without ceasing other tasks to flip pages. But ’twas “just” a narration, not a performance.

With the advances in Internet technology and ever-expanding server farms, more opportunities are now available to move books to recorded arenas. In the process, voice artists perform and interpret the books rather than offer a standard narration.

Consider how Maria Grace’s fairy dragons would have sounded if Benny Fife had not been at the microphone delivering his interpretation of the flitterbits. Yes, the words would have been the same, but they may have been just that—words.

The performers with whom I have worked on all twelve of my previous books offer just that. Barbara Rich (The Lessers and Betters stories) and Amanda Berry (The books of the Bennet Wardrobe, In Plain Sight), Stevie Zimmerman (The Longbourn Quarantine), and Benny Fife (The Sailor’s Rest) bring their training and experience to play to present listeners with a uniquely different experience.

They interpret the pacing of the writing. They assume the nature of the characters. They bring emotion to the passages and, hopefully, inspire reactions not experienced by printed book readers. They draw you in, much as the ancient Greek and Roman rhapsōidos did 2,500 years ago. And in the process, they made the words I had laid down sound much as they did when I imagined them.

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Please read the following excerpt from Chapter Eight in Henry Fitzwilliam’s War while listening to the audio sample as performed by Amanda Berry found at https://www.audible.com/search?keywords=henry%20fitzwilliam%27s%20war&ref=a_home_t1_hdrSrc.

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The House thus settled itself for another night much as it had for almost a century, its long porches reaching out to embrace the turbulent weather that had disturbed its owners’ homeland just a few hours before. Idiosyncratic creaks and pops echoed through the structure as ancient nails and beams gave up the heat collected from the watery October sun. Yet, while the building and its servants may have surrendered themselves to sleep, the two principals found such relief impossible to attain.

She could not imagine that he could be pulled away from her again, even though she knew that it was impossible for him to remain in this time. His absence would disrupt every thread, every mote that swirled in the complicated universe governed by the Wardrobe. Only the fact that her husband was in Washington permitted the soldier’s presence next door. 

As she lay there, counting the hours to dawn, she gazed around her son’s room, the furnishings so distinctly male, yet still revealing his sensitive nature. On the one hand, his polo mallets were resting in hooks on the wall facing the window; two cricket bats were also propped in the corner. On the other, one of her favorite canvases, his oil of Roses on Fieldstone, Deauville looked down at the foot of the bed. How she prayed for his safety. What would he have made of the young man resting in his parent’s bed?

That young man tossed one way and then the other. Each crash of thunder returned him to that night, back to Loos, to the moment when he could still count sight as one of his senses. But, artillery was only thunderous at the moment of impact. The low grumble beyond the horizon, sometimes punctuated by flashes of grim lightening, first led to a whistle that increased in pitch and volume if the shell had your number. If not, the sound deepened and the moaning faded as the charge found another target.

Then there was the wind; its gusts shook the House like a terrier would a captured rat. Again he was thrown back to the Front where the ground quivered pudding-like under the pounding of Hun cannons. Sudden drafts chilled his cheeks and chin as the pervasive blasts overwhelmed well-mitered windows. 

How foolish we were, to allow phony “national pride,” the ultimate manifestation of masculinity, to destroy the system that had kept the peace for a hundred years. Now the blood price that will have to be paid to erase this, man’s original sin—pride, will be steep indeed.

 He knew that the coming parting was utterly necessary. He had to return to his own time lest he become another Kitty Bennet, now lost in the Wardrobe for 70 years. He could see Gran’s sadness when she spoke of her next eldest sister. He could not subject his family to that sort of grief.

vvv

There was a point around midnight when she found herself sitting on the edge of her bed. Had she dozed? Then, responding to a dream, had she risen in pursuit of…she knew not what? The pulling she had felt for twenty-plus years was roiling her insides. The demand was too intense.

Her bare feet touched down on the bedside throw rug. Gathering a blanket around her shoulders, she glided across the mahogany stained floorboards to open her door. Just four steps down the hallway to his. She rested her forehead against the panel, trying to control her breathing—but with little success.

Stop…do not proceed. You will break your heart…and his!

In his darkness, he first perceived her scent, roses rushing over the grass to his nose. He must have lost the sound of the door opening beneath one of the crashes of the storm. Somewhere, feet or inches away, She stood, silently. The weight of her eyes in the nighttime darkness bore on him. Her gaze played up and down his body and pushed his aura like a hand gently stroking a cat’s silky coat. He could hear her shallow quick breaths signaling intense conflict. But, she did not move to close the gap.

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