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Welcome Author Stephanie Ayers
Stephanie is a Speculitive Fiction Writer. Let's see what she's got to say!
The Gift of Silence
I am Stephanie Ayers, published speculative fiction author. I am a coffee guzzling, word whispering creative ninja. I am a unicorn disguised as a human. I hate housework, refuse to grow up, and terrified of zombies. I have lots of things known about me out there—my love of unicorns and fairies, the number of children I have either given birth to or inherited by marriage, how many fur babies we have at any given time. The fact that I am a huge football fanatic is well known, too. But what if I told you I am mostly deaf? I need a hearing aid to help me hear and even then it’s a good chance I still won’t understand you unless you are in front of me, and I can read your lips.
No need to feel sorry for me. I certainly don’t feel sorry for myself. Just don’t friend me on Facebook and send me videos without captions or audio recorded messages and we’ll get along just fine! Having a severe hearing loss that requires aids has its own blessings. I have the distinct ability to shut the world off whenever it gets overwhelming. A simple click on the aid and my children’s arguing, fighting, and complaints disappear (and I get satisfaction out of making them mad, too, haha!). I’ve got it pretty well over here!
In fact, the only time having a hearing loss affects me is when I’m writing. I used to have full hearing when I was a kid, but I’m not a kid anymore. I haven’t been a kid in a long time. I have memories of sounds, but it’s not always the easiest sense for me to get a grasp on in my writing. That’s partly why you don’t get a lot of sound effects in my story. So, when I need sound, how do I figure it out? Now that, friends, is the real purpose of this article.
How Do You Write Sound if You Can’t Hear?
You’re writing a story and someone knocks on the door. You want to show the knocking rather than tell it.. “Sophie’s moment of bliss was interrupted by a knock on the door,” vs. “Thump! Thump! Interrupted Sophie’s momentary bliss and she rose to answer the door.” But if you can’t hear, how would you know the knocking would sound like a thump vs a tap? How do you know if different door materials make different noises when touched? What does a door knocker sound like? Is it different from tapping on the door itself?
These are the kinds of questions that could make your story richer, but how would a deaf person answer them? We have a few choices. Sometimes Google works, but most often I have to draw from memory, which taints how I perceive sound (visually or perhaps an alternate or extra acoustic representation of sound). Sometimes, I have to recreate the sensation and stew over it as the sound fills my head, and my brain finds words and meanings to put to it. For me, as an example, the sound of a big book hitting a hardwood floor may be muffled, so I would lean heavier on the vibrations I feel from the action and challenge it by dropping a small book on the floor rather than the actual thud the book would make. This would translate on paper to something more like feeling rather than an actual sound.
And if I still struggle with a sound? I go to my writing group. For instance, I recently needed to know what it would sound like getting hit by a large vehicle like a bus. I could imagine what the sound was like, but to be true to my story, I needed more. Googling doesn’t help much in that aspect, so relying on how other people hear it was key. Was the sound as I imagined it and had already put to paper? You’ll have to read the story Send in the Clowns in The 13: Tales of Macabre to find out.
Does Hearing Different Affect How You Write?
I think perhaps because my ears don’t work as well as they should; I enjoy a strong sense of smell, feeling, and intuition. I think it helps me put myself in the scene and visualize it in a way other writers can’t. Like real life, I’ll pick up on that faint trace of perfume or that fresh-baked pretzel that wafts around downtown Springfield I have yet to find the source of. I think it gives me an advantage to bring readers into the scene and make that movie play in their heads. I have to rely on my five other senses and emotions every time I sit down to write. This can have its drawbacks.
When I first wrote seriously, I had a lot of “purple prose” comments. Through trial and error, learning and experience, I’ve learned how to write sound the only way I know how to without going overboard. I can still get carried away, but my fans don’t seem to mind.
Bio:
A published author with a knack for twisted tales, Stephanie Ayers is a full-time world-building ninja and part time freelancer living in Ohio while crafting her own story and resists growing up at all costs. She mothers her children, loves her husband, attends church, and avoids all things housework and zombies.
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