Dropping the Baby

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Posted: Feb. 6, 2008

Whoosh! Now that's a brave man - he grabs his nine-month-old nephew from his sister's arms, and while she and her husband yell "DON'T" he drops the baby four floors to a policeman? And at least according to the news story, had a plan to jump if there hadn't been someone there to catch the baby?

See the article at http://us.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/06/germany.babysaved/index.html

So, let's see. How about an exercise that focuses on catastrophic circumstances, and heroics like this? I.e., take a character and bring them face-to-face with a catastrophe, and let them make that decision - to drop or not, to lift that truck, or whatever? (What do I mean, lift the truck? Well, my favorite story along those lines was a farmer that we knew in Ohio who had found his son under an overturned tractor - and carried the boy back to the farm in his arms, having lifted the tractor off him. And you have to understand that farm tractors are a bit too heavy for any man to lift - but somehow that day he did.) Anyway, let's see. Pick a number from one to six?

1. Fire
2. Flood
3. Storm
4. Car accident (or other - trucks are good!)
5. Airplane
6. Mechanical (go ahead, dream a bit - factory, drill, whatever?)

So that's the problem. Take a few minutes and elaborate it, imagine what is going on. And then put one character and one relative or friend (ye baby!) in the middle of that scene, with the threat that the relative or friend will die. Soon! Feel free to sprinkle with other people.

And then play it out. Can our favorite hero escape by themselves? Will they drop the baby out the window, swim against the tide, brave the lightning and wind, turn the car so that their side takes the impact, or . . . yeah, put them at the crux, able to see how to save the other, but will they? Will they ignore the parent screaming as they perform an emergency tracheotomy with a borrowed Bic pen? Will they take the chance that the policeman way down there will catch the baby?

Go ahead, tell us about the hero - and what happens later?

(as the Boy Scouts say, Be Prepared!)

When we write, we learn about ourselves.

The most amazing things...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 21:59:38 EST

[Based on an exercise in The Writing Workshop, Vol. 2, by Alan Ziegler, p. 26]

Pick a number from one to six. Go ahead, pick one...

1. Amazing
2. Heroic
3. Horrible
4. Beautiful
5. Frightening
6. Inspiring

Start by taking your word and putting it in this phrase:

The Most (Insert your word here) Thing I've Never Seen

Do a fast brainstorming session -- let your mind roll around on the floor and howl at the moon -- scribble down at least five ideas in response to that phrase. Don't spend more than a few minutes expanding any of them, just go on and come up with another one...

Now, put your word in this phrase:

The Most (Insert your word here) Thing I've Ever Seen

Do the same thing, dreaming up at least five responses to this phrase, but focus on incredible personal experiences. Not something you've heard about, not a global shakeup on the other side of the world, but those little miracles and moments that you have encountered.

Finally, take your favorite thing from each list (those you've never seen, those you've seen) and one more little bit -- the topic of sight, sound, sensations and experience and so on...one to sixers? okay...

1. sight
2. sound
3. feeling (tactile type)
4. taste/smell
5. emotions
6. memories/experiences

Let these three rattle around in the old mixmaster of your mental slice-and-dice setup, look at whatever connections and annotations may turn up, and then...

write!

Quick Start

There are times when the world seems to snap into sharp focus, connecting things seen and unseen in a moment of wonder.

and then along came the thunder of keyboards, silently molding bits in cyberspace, presenting shining spirits and mists of the night...

Smoothing Out Joints

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting: Sun, 27 Oct 1996 23:02:47 EST

This is a bit late, but...

[based on "St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing" by Robert Connors and Cheryl Glenn, ISBN 0-312-06787-9, p. 233...]

W. Ross Winterowd in a 1970 article "The Grammar of Coherence" argued that transitions (at the paragraph or "discourse bloc" level) are crucial to form and coherence, with coherence being consistent relationships among transitions. His seven relationships and the terms that express such relationships are:

1. Coordination - and, furthermore, too, in addition, also, again
2. Obversativity - but, yet, however, on the other hand
3. Causativity - for, because, as a result
4. Conclusativity - so, therefore, thus, for this reason
5. Alternativity - or
6. Inclusativity - the colon
7. Sequentiality - first, second, third; earlier...later, etc.

[please allow me to express my extreme displeasure at such ugly labels - obversativity, indeed! They could have used And, But, For, So, Or, Inclusion and Order, but no, they had to take a healthy word like Cause or maybe Causality and wring its little spine into Causativity? Yech, poo, some English instructors should be tested for linguistic sensitivity and then fired!]

Okay. The exercise assumes you have a piece of your very own sitting there in front of you. It can be an essay, fiction, even (horrors!) poetry.

First, go through the piece and identify the "discourse blocs" - the chunks you have used in writing the piece.

Next, look at the transitions used to tie the pieces together. Butt joints in writing, like those in carpentry and plumbing, need some finishing - a little smoothing and glue to help the reader across without splinters in their head from the edges.

So identify your transitions. Consider whether they are the best for this part of your piece, or whether another one might be better suited.

Simple, right? Just walk through your piece and make sure you have used transitions between the various pieces.

But...try it. You may find that just making sure the transitions are correct helps make the structure of your piece coherent and well-developed, which makes the whole piece work better. It's a little like the chiropractor manipulating your spine - get it right and everything works well, leave it crooked and nothing seems to fit.

playing schoolmaster