The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 8 April 2009

Writer's Digest, February 2008, page 77 offers this contest prompt:

"Start your story with 'When I first told my family about [fill in the blank], they didn't believe me.' End your story with 'And that's how I ended up [fill in the blank]." From The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood

Start by filling in the two blanks. What did you tell your family about? And what did you end up with? Remember that the two blanks don't have to be obviously related. In fact, a good way to do this is to start by making a list of five possibilities for each of the blanks, and make them somewhat unusual -- the elephant in the living room, the aliens who lived at the end of the street, whatever makes you feel interested and intrigued. Then pick one from each list, and start filling in the path from one to the other.

Just what happens between what you first told your family about and what you ended up with?

Write!

a rainbow around the moon?

Once More, With Metaphorical Enhancements!

Tossing and turning in the nanowrimo bed, we may find ourselves contemplating just what kind of a metaphor best fits? Whether it is the setting, character, plot actions, or even just the conflicts and contradictions of every scene, we may want to at least spend a few moments contemplating various possible metaphorical suits to try on. So, allow me to point out a variety that are reasonably commonly used -- at least in business. Believe it or not, there are people who actually go out and study this stuff. (Kendall and Kendall, 1993).

Anyway, what they tell us is that there are six metaphors commonly used in the world of business, especially when talking about business. They add another three that are more often heard in technical circles, but I think you might enjoy them, too, so I'll include them below. Oh, and you might find them useful in your writing, too.

The first four are very goal oriented:

• journey (where are we going? Are we there yet? A.k.a. The Quest)
• game (sports, poker, roulette, and all the other fun and games)
• war (the battle royale, combat, and all the fun of the military)
• machine (factory, meatgrinder, automobile, the clock -- mechanical technology)

The organism is the fifth metaphor, and includes all kinds of animals and plants and cells -- living things! And the fun part is that the organism is both goal oriented but also what Kendall and Kendall call alternative oriented. It sort of links the first four, with their goal orientation, with the last four, which are more organic or generative?

The last four, then, are alternative oriented:

• society (groups, organizations, that whole living together mess)
• family (parents, children, brothers, sisters, and the extended relations)
• jungle (the call of the wild, Tarzan, wild animals, strange noises)
• zoo (the civilized jungle, who is watching who?, etc.)

Kendall and Kendall have some words to say about how these are organized in terms of participation -- between being responsible or active members or just being consultants, standing outside of the action. For example, most game and journey metaphors have the actors as active members, while machine and even war to some extent are more likely to have the actors standing outside the action (although war all too often splashes onto the actors, especially if they happen to be military). They also say the family and jungle are likely to have participants, while both society and the zoo apparently tend to have observers (ah, anthropologists and visitors to the zoo?).

The other dimension that they use for looking at these metaphors is order versus chaos. Both the game and machine tend to be on the orderly side (games have rules, and mechanisms have gears?), while the journey and war are more messy (no plan survives contact with the enemy?). Similarly, families and society tend to be orderly, with the jungle and the zoo more on the chaotic side of the ledger.

So how do you use these in writing? Well, I'd suggest making a list of nine items -- I'll give it to you here:

1. Journey
2. War
3. Game
4. Organism
5. Society
6. Machine
7. Family
8. Zoo
9. Jungle

Now alongside these, pick an example for each one. Not just the abstract journey, but a specific trip to a specific place with a particular method of transportation (car, boat, horse, helicopter, etc.). For each generic metaphorical area, pick a specific concrete example. One that you know at least a little about (Google and Wikipedia can be your friend).

Then when you want to add some spice to your writing, pick a number from 1 to 9 (you've played this game before haven't you?). Now look at the metaphorical area and the specific example that you picked. How does the character, plot action, complication, conflict, setting -- whatever problem you are trying to deal with, how does it play out in terms of this metaphor? What are the similarities (gimme 5!)? What are the differences (gimme 5!)? What are some interesting thoughts about connections of any kind between what you're doing and this metaphorical playground?

I know some people run down the list until they find a metaphorical area that interests them or excites them. That's okay, although I think sometimes we're likely to fall into ruts with this -- always putting it in terms of our family, or perhaps the game of croquet that we enjoy so much. Stretch a little, and try doing it with one of those metaphorical areas that you are not so comfortable with -- who knows what ideas lurk in that swamp? (yes, that's a variation on the jungle :-)

Anyway, bring those metaphors to bear on your writing, and watch the nanowrimo word count rise! Like a hot-air balloon, like fighting a war with the stars, like throwing javelins into the sky, like a bird flying, like Rome expanding across the world, like a missile climbing, like the family growing, like trained dolphins leaping in Marineland, like the vines in the jungle climbing up, up, up the trees to wave their leaves above everything -- just like that!

tink
(almost 900 words)

Kendall, J. E. & Kendall, K. E. (1993). Metaphors and methodologies: Living beyond the systems machine. MIS Quarterly, 17(2), 149- 171.

Now is dance a journey or a game? Or perhaps it's a living organism?