How to Add a Soundtrack to Your Writing

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People have five senses.  They are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.  A reader brings all of these senses to the reading of a short story or a piece of flash fiction.  When a writer puts sense details into a story the sense details trigger memories of the sight, sound, smell, taste and the feel of the things that are being mentioned in the story.

Let’s say the writer has a piece of flash fiction with six college students, three men and three women, in a bar sitting around this table eating pizza and drinking beer.  The beer is poured out of two glass pitchers and creates a foamy head in the mugs of the students.

A large open white box with half a pizza pie of sixteen slices sits on the table.  The toppings of the pie are extra cheese, ground meat, hot sausage, green peppers and peperoni.  The pizza is hot and smells greasy and cheesy.  The bar is full of students laughing and talking as they sit at the bar or at the tables, drinking beer and eating pizza.  Someone plays the jukebox.  The song is Little Red Corvette by Prince.

In his or her mind, the reader can see the students, hear the music, smell and taste the pizza and taste the beer.  In a booth in a corner a male and female student are locked in a kiss.  In his or her mind, the reader can feel that kiss.  This is putting sense details in a story.

This is how the writer can give a short story or piece of flash fiction a soundtrack.  A sound track can be made of several things.  Always make sure the soundtrack enhances the story, reinforces the action.  A short list of sounds for a soundtrack are:

Music

Sounds of traffic

Sounds of nature

Incidental background sounds 

Dialogue