My wonderfully talented friend, Edie Melson, is offering her ebook -- FIGHTING FEAR: WINNING THE BATTLE AT HOME WHEN YOUR SOILDER LEAVES FOR BATTLE -- for FREE today only!
Be sure to stop by Amazon and pick up your copy. FYI: You don't have to have an ereader to read e books. You can download Kindle software -- for FREE -- right to your desktop.
Don't miss this opportunity to pick up FIGHTING FEAR by Edie Melson.
The Sound of Speed
“Gee, Julie, what are we gonna do tonight?”
“The same thing we do every night, writer. Try to take over the writing world.”
Today we’re going to focus on speed.
Not speed writing. No, no, no.
Rather, the way sounds within words generate a sense of speed versus a sense of slower movement. We know words can feel “bigger” or “smaller”. They can feel “round” or “narrow”. The connections our minds create between vowel sounds and how they make us feel has been a subject of study for scientists for many years.
Recently, researchers at New York University and University of Southern California explored how certain sensory associations can help companies create more provocative names for products. While their focus was limited to assisting companies in creating powerful brand names, there remains an expeditious lesson for writers.
Their discovery is right up our ally. Certain vowel sounds, like i in spring, are associated with swifter movement. More open vowel sounds, as in plod, dictate slower movement.
Choosing a word based on its sound is not a new trick for writers. Onomatopoeia has been slinging around words like cuckoo, sizzle and hiccup for decades. But what if we choose words based on how fast or slow they sound?
Compare these sentences for speed:
Sarah was dashing across the parking lot.
Sarah was sprinting across the parking lot.
Because they have the same number of syllables, the untrained ear may consider them interchangeable. However, to our finely-tuned writer’s brains, we clearly feel the difference in pace.
Here’s another speed tip. Scientists have learned that most adults instinctively associate O and A sounds with larger, more cumbersome objects while I and E evoke smaller, more delicate objects.
Compare these sentences for speed:
The cat ran across the yard.
The kitten ran across the yard.
Because the i sound is associated in our minds with smaller, speedier objects, in most people's minds the kitten will cross the yard faster than the cat.
It’s unknown why humans make these connections, however, as writers, noticing the corresponding differences in vowels sounds and how they feel in each sentence may go a long way in hastening our respective writing careers toward success!
“Are you pondering what I’m pondering, writer?”
“Yes, Julie, but I think Mr. Roger’s sweater was a more profound fashion statement than leg warmers ever were.”
Narf!
Some days I feel like parenting is like fighting the battle of Bedford Falls.
You remember the movie "It's a Wonderful Life.”
The story is told of George, who has big dreams and plans for his life that go beyond his home town of Bedford Falls. But before he knows it, he's married with kids and tied tightly to the family business, ensuring that he'll never leave Bedford Falls. The kicker is, even when the war hits and all the other young men go off to fight for their country, George can't go. Because of a bad ear, he's "left behind to fight the battle of Bedford Falls."
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that our precious, little miracles are like having a bad ear -- I'm just saying I know how George felt.
George had to stay behind and maintain the mundane. He had to take care of the daily-ness of life. He had to trudge through the same tasks day after day. And just when he was convinced that he was going to drown in the mire of common life, he realized (with a little help from above) that fighting the battle of Bedford Falls is really what made his life wonderful.
Trite? Well, maybe, but it works in the movie. And I am determined that it can work for me as well. All it would take is a divine change in perspective.
Parenting is more than making the lunches the night before, only to have to make them again the next night. Parenting is more than facing one pile of laundry after another. Isn't it? I mean, parenting -- although rich in repetitive tasks -- is by no means boring.
Even on the days when constant activity leads to nowhere, there are built-in boredom busters. Who hasn't had a leaky diaper in church or a temper-tantrum in a restaurant? Who hasn't been at Walmart putting the toilet paper in the cart, only to look up and find your kid is nowhere in sight? Who hasn't been told by your teenager, "Stop it, mom, you're embarrassing me," and all you're doing is standing in the kitchen?
Without these wonderful interruptions of real life, parenting could teeter on the brink of unbearable and the mundane could easily overcome every one of us.
There will always be days when I feel like I've been left behind to fight the battle of Bedford Falls. But the truth is if I hadn't stayed behind I would have missed the incredible insight of my thirteen-year-old daughter recently.
One night we were discussing a particularly painful incident that had affected our family, leaving all of us feeling rather ostracized. As we were talking and digesting the unexpected hurt, I expressed my concern that sometimes when facing difficult situations, we all have a tendency to ‘act’ hurt. I wanted to discuss how we could avoid “being offended” and instead live from a place of loving-kindness and compassion. Before the discussion even began, her smile took me by surprise.
“What?” I asked.
“We’re not going to act hurt.” She assured me.
“How do you know?”
“Because our family’s not cookie cutter.”
Maybe I'm not being left behind at all. Maybe resisting the cookie-cutter responses of the world with my thirteen-year-old is what makes my life wonderful.
