EXERCISE: Dilbert Says . . .

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Leaving out some of the jokes, Dilbert had a couple of amusing suggestions for an exercise. So, here's the two parts:

1. How would other people describe you?
2. You have thirty minutes to give yourself a label that will haunt you for the rest of your life

(actually, I think that may be the description of the whole Dogbert Personality Predictor Index, which judges career potential so that you can be placed in the dead end job that most closely matches your lack of potential - I'm pretty certain I took that test a few times, and consistently flunked out by being an overachiever :-)

Anyway, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to provide two small items. Start out by picking a character. It may be one you are working on, one in a favorite story, or it could even be yourself, of course. Then . . . the two items!

First, a short scene, paragraph, or whatever about how other people describe the character (you or a fictional surrogate, we'll take either one). Second, boil that down into a short label.

'saright? Take a character, show us how other people think about them, and include the label that those others are likely to use.

Go ahead, write.

When we write, we learn about ourselves.

This exercise references http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20080210.html

Weather Report: Brainstorms All Day! (3) Breaking Shackles

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 18:35:02 JST

[for anyone joining now - this is a set of exercises intended to help you develop ideas. the first lesson was to set quotas - push yourself to come up with a set number of alternatives, then choose! the second lesson was to query assumptions and boundaries - those hidden notions behind the obvious. And today...]

Dominant ideas, crucial factors, and levels of abstraction

Just as there are assumptions and boundaries "hidden" in our everyday thinking, there are dominant ideas which often hide alternatives. For example, in medicine, the idea that germs cause disease can hide the fact that we need certain germs to live (matter of fact, there is at least one antibiotic that gives you the most incredible diarrhea, gas, and stomach trouble simply because it kills off the helpful germs that live down there...). It can also hide viruses, deficiencies, and even overdoses.

Again, as with assumptions, first we need to isolate that dominant idea, then set it aside temporarily, reverse it, or otherwise hold it out of the way while we hunt for those ideas that were hiding under its skirts.

Crucial factors are similar - in most cases we think we "know" what the crucial factors are. For example, the crime story "means, opportunity, and motive" are an obvious attempt to classify the three crucial factors in crime. But - there could be other factors. What if the phase of the moon really did make a difference? What if... identify those well-known crucial factors, then push them aside. Consider them as inconsequential. Add other factors. Split them into shivering remnants of themselves that most people wouldn't recognize.

Last, I mentioned levels of abstraction. What this mostly means is that we think of things at certain levels, often without trying to look at either specifics or without going up the ladder to higher levels of abstraction. By now, you should know what I think about that kind of blindness - figure out what level of abstraction you are using, then push it around. What happens when you turn "people" into specific people you know? What happens if you turn "people" into "living beings"? Push and prod at different levels - and see what happens to that simple thought!

Exercise 3. Get out of the dungeon and out of the shackles

1. Take one of your stories (poems, etc.) Identify the "dominant idea". Then identify the crucial factors in the story. Then consider other dominant ideas you could have used. Make a list (QUOTA!) What kind of crucial factors would be involved with those other dominant ideas?

2. Take a popular statement such as "All men are created equal." Now, play with the levels of abstraction in that statement. "All men" obviously can go up or down - George and Ted or All living beings. "created" also can become more or less specific - try "born" or "manufactured". "equal" has so many levels - you pick some. But try finishing the statements
George and Ted were born .....
George and Ted were manufactured .....
All living beings are manufactured .....
All living beings are born .....

3. Description - you might not realize it, but descriptions often are victims of very strong dominant ideas and crucial factors. Consider what you use to describe a flower (building, etc.) The odds are that there is a dominant idea - flowers are attractive, soft, smelly; buildings are ... There are probably also key factors in the description. But suppose someone says "The rose was a dung-heap, stinking of the animal waste that fed its parasitic growth." Kind of a different impression of the rose, eh? Find those dominant ideas, and the crucial factors, then change them!

4. Characters

Pick a character in your own or someone else's story. Now, identify the dominant idea of that personality. Pick out the crucial factors in that character's life. Now, move things around - try a different dominant idea, and changes in the crucial factors. How does the character change? How does their part in the story change?

A variation on this is to consider the dominant idea and crucial factors used in building the character in the story. This is one way of looking at the "style" a writer uses.

5. Conflict/Problems

Go back to a conflict or problem from one of your stories (or one you'd like to write a story about). Identify the dominant idea(s) that make this a problem. Then identify the crucial factors. Then try changing things - what other crucial factors could you use? Are there other dominant ideas? When you change these, what happens to the problem(s)? Suppose the crucial factors really weren't so important - what happens to the problem?

6. Solutions

Same kind of thing - take the solution(s) you are working with, and look for the dominant ideas and crucial factors. Then try identifying alternatives, and see how that changes the solution(s). If you change a factor and nothing happens, maybe it isn't really crucial after all? Are there other things that you could change which would affect the solution? How important are they?

Weather Report: Brainstorms All Day! (4) Divide and recombine?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 18:35:02 JST

So far, we've been playing with the patterns of thought we may have, looking at quotas of alternatives, pushing the boundaries around, moving the tent poles holding them up, but we haven't really tried to change the patterns too much. This exercise starts to rebuild the patterns, which can be somewhat surprising in its results.

The main point here is that most patterns consist of smaller pieces. You've probably learned how to divide patterns into various "approved" characteristics, pieces, etc. For example, you may have learned something like thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

But there is an important difference in the approach we'll be taking, because we aren't looking for the "true" parts, the "real" way of breaking the pattern into smaller pieces, just some ways of subdividing the mess. You don't have to include all the parts, some of the pieces may overlap, and if it doesn't quite fit, go ahead and use a hammer.

Then feel free to combine the parts, or build up again. In a sense, this is an experiment in breaking down and putting back together the patterns you are working with, with the deliberate intent of exploring the various ways you might do this.

Even splitting into two parts, then splitting those into two parts, etc. - very simple binary fission - is sometimes better (in terms of provoking new thoughts) than using the same old patterns.

Exercise 4. Divide and Combine

0. NO IDEAS? Okay - take your favorite book, childtime story, even that silly country and western tune playing on the radio. There's a pattern - what are the parts? how many different sets of building blocks can you divide it into? suppose you pull the evil stepmother out of cinderella and put in..? or what if you rearrange, and build it again? don't forget to push the boundaries out, challenge assumptions, and make those quotas - plenty of ideas will come flowing out of the horn of plenty, you just have to jiggle it a bit...

1. Description - As we've done before, let's start with a description. Now, there are many ways to describe a chunk of buzzing, humming reality. Most writers talk about covering the five senses, design engineers might look at the forces, stresses, and components, and other specialties all have their own particular approaches. Try picking a different field - an artist's shadows, tones, masses, and lines, for example makes a convenient grouping - but do that with your writing! Or invent a new set of parts, then arrange your description according to that way of dividing up the world. As always, set yourself a quota of new ways of breaking up the description - then develop at least that many different ways, select the most interesting one(s), and write!

2. Characters - characters, as we all know, are critical elements in most modern fiction. An interesting problem here is breaking out of the "standard" ways of understanding (or dividing up) the character. Psych and so forth are so well-known that we tend to forget some of the ways that people have "diagnosed" their neighbors over the years - but consider your character through the lens of the medieval "humors" of man, and you may see a different persona come forth. If you don't know any other systems, then it is time to dream a bit - what kind of parts could you divide a person into? how does it change your perception of the character? Set yourself a quota of "building block sets," develop them, then look at your characters again.

3. Conflict/Problems - conflicts or problems tend to seem simple, yet they are almost always made up of several parts. the simplicity lies in our accepting that the "ordinary" parts are the only parts, and that is the point we are moving away from in this exercise. So, take your problem or conflict, develop several different ways of subdividing it, and then look again at how those pieces build up into a problem. Is it still the same problem?

4. Steps toward a solution - the protagonist has a plan, the guy in the black hat has plans, the secretary with his secret night life has plans - and normally we think of those plans as fairly straightforward, simple steps. But perhaps you've had the experience of talking to someone who really believes in magic. The steps, the whole approach to planning they use is very different from what you and I might use. Anyway, pick one of the "plans" of one character, then try breaking it into somewhat different sets of pieces than it seems to have when you first look at it. You may want to change some of the pieces. Put them back together, and see if you've built the same old thing or something new and different.

5. Solutions - like problems and plans, solutions tend to seem simple, especially when you're looking back at it afterwards. But they also consist of parts, and you know what that means! Set yourself a quota, chop it up, next grind it, then cross-cut it, chew on it, slice it, hack it, beat it - break it into pieces lots of different ways, then try putting the pieces back together...

6. [BONUS] - so far, I've been using pretty standard ways of subdividing the pieces of "fiction" or "writing." Guess what - here's another pattern of thought, with assumptions, boundaries, tent poles, and so on. Roll your wrecking crew around a few times if you want!