Trust the Rest
As a writer, I love how different aspects come together and build a story. But, what I love even more is the same story can mean something different to someone else. You can even reread the story, years later, and the take-away is new.
My favorite tool to execute this as a writer is to trust the rest.
What do I mean by rest? Silence. Letting something breathe. Allowing a moment to have its full impact before moving on.
It may be rich that a girl whose assigned seat was moved in nearly every class is talking about the importance of silence, but it was a lesson I had to learn.
Take music for instance. Someone playing/singing a loud/high note and holding it forever seems impressive, and it is. Building the muscles and lung capacity to execute the physical task alone takes months. Take into consideration the sharpening of the skill so it actually sounds like music instead of someone blaring a horn or shouting off-key, that’s the dedication and endurance shining through.
But, when someone plays or sings softly? Did you know that is actually harder? It takes something I struggled with for years. Restraint.
I always wanted to fill the silence. I was bummed when we got new sheet music and found I had rests. Lots and lots of rests.
I would sit and wait through several measures as our band director, Mr. Adcock, would cue different sections in and patiently wait for my turn. The ancipatoon was killer. One, two, three, four. Two, two, three, four. Three, two, three, four… Then, I’d play. After a while, something besides anticipation grew. I began to feel what the composer had written — the build they orchestrated from moments of silence, drawing from nothing but their mind, heart, and the desire to share.
Isn’t it neat how music and books both tell stories? Some are happy and you find yourself tapping along or cheering for a certain character. While others are filled with a melancholy so deep you wipe away tears and feel a heaviness in your chest.
That is the beauty of composing — both music and novels.
The author creates the tension and brings in components at a specific time with the intention of a large emotional payout.
Rests between the noise gives listeners and readers the freedom to interpret as they choose, allowing the same piece of art to hold a potentially endless number of meanings. It will feel different to everyone, every time.
In Breathing Freely, there were moments I had to delete what I blurted out to preserve the reader’s right to interpret — telling my readers how to feel about a scene, confrontation, or ending verses using imagery, pacing, tension and dialogue to show them in a way that also lets them feel freely. I had to step back and trust the reader’s ability to feel and that the emotional weight of the words would land appropriately, without the need to explain.
Rests give stories breathing room.
Another applicable aspect of rests, is Job and his three friends. Job has been through the worst pain a parent could imagine and then continued to endure through more physical torment. Once Job’s friends hear of his turmoil, they come to provide comfort. And they did. For 7 days and 7 nights, Job’s friends sat with him in silence.
Then they spoke and increased Job’s pain by forcing their interpretations and beliefs upon him.
The key takeaway from that story, for me, was that simply being present is all the comfort we need to provide. There is no time limit to grieve or a correct way to do so. A steady, silent companionship can be invaluable during times when those we love are going through something we can’t even begin to fathom.
We don’t always remember what was said, but we do tend to remember who was there. Presence is what lingers, and silence is golden when all words fall short.
Trust the rest.
As a storyteller, I had to learn that what makes a story memorable is not filling every space, but leaving room for it to breathe freely within each member of its audience.
With gratitude,
Haleigh
