Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“The writer
is attempting to find that place in a reader’s consciousness where myth already
exists, to free the ghosts and archetypes that stalk about and haunt.”
Jack
Hodgins
Word
Ideas.
Color Exercise
1.
Choose any color except green or blue. Do a five to ten minute free-write on
anything that comes to mind for that color whether cliché or not. Remember to
include phrases that are already used in common language like yellowbelly or
red-eye. Don’t limit yourself to any particular category—just write down any
thoughts that come to mind regardless of how unusual.
Brainstorm
basics give us a foundation to build from. We develop an instinct for when we
need to connect details with our emotions, and also what particular methods
will be most effective. Often the brainstorm exercises can help to find the
bridges to connect with our characters in their worlds in order to deepen their
reality. And there are so many varieties to choose from. It’s good to have a
basic familiar style to jumpstart ideas and then one you often resist to
stretch the idea muscles.
Note: I
have not read the essay from which the following excerpt comes, and have no
knowledge or idea of what the original purpose is. My sole interest is the
intriguing way he references one color and the possibilities it raises to
develop word language literally and figuratively.
On Being Blue
A Philosophical Inquiry
by
William Gass
“Blue pencils, blue noses, blue movies, laws, blue
legs and stockings, the language of birds, bees, and flowers as sung by
longshoremen, that lead-like look the skin has when affected by cold,
contusion, sickness, fear; the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the
blue devils of its delirium; Russian cats and oysters, a withheld or imprisoned
breath, the blue they say that diamonds have, deep holes in the ocean and the
blazers which English athletes earn that gentlemen may wear; afflictions of the
spirit — dumps, mopes, Mondays — all that's dismal — lowdown gloomy music, Nova
Scotians, cyanosis, hair rinse, bluing, bleach; the rare blue dahlia like that
blue moon shrewd things happen only once in, or the call for trumps in whist
(but who remembers whist or what the death of unplayed games is like?), and
correspondingly the flag, Blue Peter, which is our signal for getting under
way; a swift pitch, Confederate money, ……and, when in Hell, its neatly
landscaped rows of concrete huts and gas-blue flames; social registers,
examination booklets, blue bloods, balls, and bonnets, beards, coats, collars,
chips, and cheese . . . the pedantic, indecent and censorious . . . watered
twilight, sour sea: …..just as it's stood for fidelity.”
What words
most caught your attention or interest? Why? Which did you connect with and
which do find confusing?
Which
choice of words or categories he uses would fit most naturally into your own story’s
genre?
Action
Steps:
2. Take the list you wrote with your color choice and
now divide it into the categories with which William Gass has referenced the
color blue. For example, nature includes flowers, bees, and ocean. History
includes Civil War and the Holocaust. Metaphors include gloom and fidelity.
Don’t worry that some are confusing—just do the ones you recognize.
3. Now look back at your own list. Which references
are literal and which are figurative? What categories can you place your
connections in? What areas are missing? Can you add to them?
Share:
Which category and word captured your curiosity?
Read deep, marcy
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