Feel What You're Saying

I find it amusing that we place a magical quality to foreign language. It is this mystical phenomenon that we are certain makes perfect sense, yet we have no clue what it means or even how to go about solving the puzzle. It's no surprise that magical incantations are rarely in English; they aren't mystical enough.

There is a catch with foreign words, though. Although they can hold tremendous power, they are meaningless if you don't know their meaning. If you say magical words, but you have no idea what they mean or what they are supposed to do, nothing is going to happen.

You can see the same thing happen in music. When people sing in a foreign language, there will be one of two outcomes: either the person knows and truly understands the lyrics, thus singing with great power and greatly affecting the audience, or they are just making melodic sounds that they learned by rote and it comes off flat and lifeless.

Oddly enough, the same is true of music sung in English. People who are singing words are flat, and people telling stories and expressing emotions connect deeply with listeners. There's no way that you can listen to Freddie Mercury sing and not feel the emotions he was giving you through his voice.

Not so oddly, the same is true of writing. It is never enough to just put down words (though it can be a good start for a draft). You need to feel something when you write. You need to express that feeling. You need to make other people feel that feeling.

This is why I always suggest writing as though you were speaking it out loud. If your writing reads like a speech, then your audience can hear it more easily, even if they are reading it silently to themselves. You need to be able to feel what you're saying. Then you will have the chance to pass that feeling on.