Snow Melt

Creative Saturday: Noises

Listen carefully. Is that noise someone entering the house? Is it an echo, a reverberation for outside? Is it a ghost or some other monster skulking through the house? What is it?

Don’t let your imagination run away with you. Don’t let your fears create terrors that don’t exist. Identify the noise. Remember that normal noises sound strange at night. Remember that sound echoes in odd ways through the house, especially at night.

The noise echoing from the street is the neighbor’s Harley-Davidson. The noise from the backyard is a neighbor’s dog barking, probably at another neighbor’s cat. What is the noise in the house? Could it be the sound of paper blown by the air conditioner? Is it the icemaker emptying?

Listen carefully. Identify the noise. Pick up your cell phone and walk through the house. Check the front door to see if it’s locked. Check the back door to see if it’s locked. Even without cats in the house things go bump in the night. Don’t let your imagination run away with you.

Think about the sound. Identify the sound. If you are going to let your imagination run wild then put it in a story, but don’t let the noise frighten you. Let it frighten the characters in a short story. Let it frighten the characters in a novel, but don’t let it frighten you.