The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 27 July 2008

EXERCISE: take a phrase, any phrase

I know there may not be many of you who listen to country music, but one of the standard approaches is to take a phrase and set it in several settings. "Don't Take The Girl" starts with a little boy pleading with his father not to take the girl fishing, progresses to a young man giving his wallet and watch to a mugger to not take the girl, and then sketches the scene at the hospital where the baby is doing fine, but the mother is fading fast, and the husband pleads with God "Don't take the girl." Other songs do the same trick, often with a single short phrase. It's kind of fun, watching our interpretations of the phrase shift as the scenes change.

So . . . here are some quotes. Grab a phrase out of one, and consider how it might change in several settings. Country music seems to like having a youngster, a teenager or young man, and then the older couple, but that's up to you.

"If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all." Anne Quindlen

"It's takin' whatever comes your way, the good AND the bad, that gives life flavor. It's all the stuff rolled together that makes life worth livin'." Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata

"Our heroes are people and people are flawed. Don't let that taint the thing you love." Randy K. Milholland

"He that respects himself is safe from others. He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight." Benjamin Franklin

Go ahead, grab some words out of the middle, change the positive to negative or vice versa, bring it down to earth. Winning with a broken heart ain't winning at all? A life worth living? Loving a hero in cracked armor? Or what will you?

Take that phrase, and run it through a scene or five.

Write!

To bring down giants, use a sling and aim high.