Reverb. Filters. Equalizers. Terms, as of two weeks ago, I had either never heard of or had the most abstractly basic understanding of.
Now after playing with audio editing for two weeks? I’m still a total amateur and won’t even pretend otherwise, but I have a basic working understanding of what these things do to an audio file. I couldn’t explain it to someone else necessarily, but I can open Audacity, play with settings, and get something to sound how I want it to sound.
Since these are total hobby projects that involve existing songs I’m covering to entertain my D&D group, I can also listen to my version, compare it to the official version, and hear the difference between what the pros did and what I’ve chosen to do. Some of that is intentional. A lot of it is me just not putting in the same editing passes. But the end result is seeing how my version tells the story I want to tell.
💡 It’s fan-fiction, for audio.
Now that, I understand.
The thing I love about finding new hobbies is that they inevitably teach me things about writing and storytelling I never could have learned by just revising one of my stories over and over and over again. In this particular case, sound editing has given me a completely new perspective on the space around the characters, on how big or small their world is in any given scene. And how that changes the tools (filters/equalizers or words) one uses to convey that space.
For example, one of my hobby projects involved “Popular” from Wicked. The scene in the play/movie is set in a dorm room and takes place between two characters who are at the beginning of a strong interpersonal relationship. The song is bright, fun, and directly from one character to the other.
In Audacity, this means a small room size, low reverberance, and a softer volume on that reverb. In writing, this would translate to words like “cozy” or “intimate.”
Another project involves “Be Prepared” from The Lion King. Far from the cozy dorm room setting, this song exists in an enormous cave made out of an elephant’s skull. There are bones pointing every which way, cavities big enough for a full-grown lion to fit in, and enough overall space for dozens of hyenas to march around.
In Audacity this means a much larger room size, reverberance that branches out to fill that space, and a more booming quality. On paper, I’d use words like “vast” and “powerful.”
Understanding the space characters exist in and being able to convey that space is another component of immersive storytelling. If you set a scene in a cozy dorm room with beds, clothes strewn about, and movie posters on the walls, then describe the space as “echoing,” that will create a disconnect in the reader’s mind because the word doesn’t match the ambience. Similarly, if you’re characters are hanging out in a shadowy skull-like cavern you describe as “welcoming,” the point-of-view character using that word better have a good reason for doing so (or else I’m going to wonder about their upbringing).
It’s more than just the words used to describe the space, though. How do the characters move in that space? Why are they there, and how does that reason contribute to how they view the space? How does their background relate to a particular location? These are all questions we, as creators of any kind, can answer through the words/effects we choose and the atmospheres we create.
I’d even go a step further and say listening to different audio settings could be a great writing exercise. Listening to someone speak in a small dorm versus a giant cavern and then writing the same scene in each setting? Hello, importance of word choice, writing style, and character relationship to the setting.
Heck, you could even record your dialogue and experiment with the sound of the characters in different spaces to see how it changes the sound and mood of a scene. (I just thought of this idea while writing this, and I really want to go try it now.)
Long story short, setting and atmosphere matter a great deal. Also, try something new because you’ll be amazed at what you learn about things you already do.
Also also, thank you for coming to my talk. 😄
👋 Fair travels,
Mary
P.S. A big thanks to GDJ from pixabay.com for the image.
P.P.S. If you’d like more storytelling thoughts involving The Lion King, check out this post on different types of character strength.
