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writercises2009-03-06 11:13 am
mbarker.livejournal.com) wrote in writercises2009-03-06 11:13 am
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EXERCISE: Juxtaposition, a.k.a. unstoppable force meets immovable object?
Original posting 21 December 2008
Fair warning. It's the end of year, things are winding down a bit, and my wife wants me to clean up my magazines. Part of that is the stack of Writer's Digests that I haven't quite had time to look at. So I'll be at least glancing through them and perhaps putting up some odds and ends here. For example, the February 2005 issue on page 12 has a quick exercise on juxtaposition. The entire thing, from the Pocket Muse by Monica Wood, is:
"Juxtaposition, whether subtle or extravagant, infuses even the quietest stories with dramatic tension. Think of big Lenny contrasted with his pet mouse in Of Mice and Men, or the frigid winter landscape that provides the setting for Ethan's brief inner blooming in Ethan Frome."
"Try writing a scene in any genre in which two seemingly opposite things go on at the same time. A French lesson being offered at the site of an excavation, a meditative letter being written at a barn dance, a lover's tryst going on at a wake. Notice how the uneasy fit between two elements forces you to imagine differently."
Sounds like fun! So you work on writing that scene, and I'll continue cleaning up. Just watch out for the bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks. Is it littering when you extract odds and ends from a print journal for dispersal on an electronic media such as this? Or just creative re-contextualization? (wow, that's a mouthful :-)
Do you suppose she meant I had to throw them out? After I read them, right?
Fair warning. It's the end of year, things are winding down a bit, and my wife wants me to clean up my magazines. Part of that is the stack of Writer's Digests that I haven't quite had time to look at. So I'll be at least glancing through them and perhaps putting up some odds and ends here. For example, the February 2005 issue on page 12 has a quick exercise on juxtaposition. The entire thing, from the Pocket Muse by Monica Wood, is:
"Juxtaposition, whether subtle or extravagant, infuses even the quietest stories with dramatic tension. Think of big Lenny contrasted with his pet mouse in Of Mice and Men, or the frigid winter landscape that provides the setting for Ethan's brief inner blooming in Ethan Frome."
"Try writing a scene in any genre in which two seemingly opposite things go on at the same time. A French lesson being offered at the site of an excavation, a meditative letter being written at a barn dance, a lover's tryst going on at a wake. Notice how the uneasy fit between two elements forces you to imagine differently."
Sounds like fun! So you work on writing that scene, and I'll continue cleaning up. Just watch out for the bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks. Is it littering when you extract odds and ends from a print journal for dispersal on an electronic media such as this? Or just creative re-contextualization? (wow, that's a mouthful :-)
Do you suppose she meant I had to throw them out? After I read them, right?