When we write Fiction (one modality of representation), we can (depending on our story or expressive desires) find ourselves trying to represent the worlds/competences of other artistic modalities: Poetry, Music, Visual Arts, (either in imitation of the form or in reference to how it works). We may also want to represent physical expertises: Dance, Martial arts, Equitation, etc., in the medium of fiction.

What do you need to do that?

1 – You need personal (or pseudo) competence yourself, if not necessarily expertise.
2 – You need to represent those worlds for the reader to experience, subliminally if you can.
3 – Extra points if you can represent them in your prose itself artfully: i.e., the rhythm of a foxhunt, the questioning of a musical theme, the outside-in evaluation of a painting, etc.

This may seem daunting, but how is it any different from representing the rhythm of a romantic encounter? Use that as a metaphor for describing music: sudden attention (noise, theme, rise & fall, frustrated expectations). All “arts” tell stories after a fashion, and they all have movement (even if only in your eyes or your brain).

Do you have that competence yourself? Well, aren’t you a writer in the business of making things up?

Here’s how it works for me. Physical chases have rhythms and suspense, which prose can mimic. Other physical activities may have repetitious elements that words can echo, or alternations of high and low, dark and light.

You can be explicit about where a character looks and what he sees, piecemeal instead of all at once, if you want him to be able to dwell on various aspects of an emotional scene. He may be compelled to keep turning his gaze to one aspect, to better make sense of the whole.

Music has issues of speed, intensity, release. So does stuttering, stumbling in speech, pauses, resumptions of speech.

What tricks do you use to add to the vividness of your writing?