>>> Item number 27200 from WRITERS LOG9403C --- (121 records) ---- <<< Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 18:35:02 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: EXERCISE: Weather Report: Brainstorms All Day! (8) Exercise 8. Take a Chance So far, we've been looking at ways of stretching, bending, and twisting the patterns or the selection of patterns in fairly controlled ways. This time, we'll take a look at spinning the roulette wheel, bouncing dice, and taking advantage of other random alterations. One thing that people sometimes think is that some random input "won't relate." Fortunately, the human mind is pretty good at making anything relate. One of the interesting experiments is to take purely random sets of dots and let people look at them - they will "discover" patterns, connections, and such in almost every case. Are the patterns "really" there? No, but being human, we "overwrite" the randomness with them - and you can depend on even "random input" relating. Just relax and let the mental gears work - they will mill you a fine set of relations. The principle here is to encourage random stimuli. Here are some ways to do it: Expose yourself - Wander around 1. Accept and welcome random inputs 2. Listen to others, especially if you disagree 3. Talk to people outside your field 4. Take a walk outside your normal interests Deliberate chance 1. Random word from dictionary 2. Random book 3. Random objects Don't worry about relevance or relationship - your mind will create one, and that's what we're after! One oddity that I notice is that people often think they should take a long time looking for the relationships. Really, if you listen to yourself, three to five minutes is plenty of time to come up with enough relationships and links to work with. Don't strain after every last one - just meet your quota, then relax! Today's Practice: By now, you probably know the list of topics inside out. If you want to, pick a different topic or slice of your story making process. For those who have inadvertently skipped some previous lessons... a. Description - a walnut, a church, a scene, an animal - pick something and describe it. b. Character - someone in your story or from the literature - who are they? c. Conflict/Problems - the hero and the villian struggling, fighting - over what? d. Solutions - aha! in the midst of the fight, the villian pushes the hero over the cliff, and the hero clutches his arm, and they both vanish into the mist... but the hero pulls his Acme paraglider from under his leather jacket, as the villian twists his moustache and plunges out of sight... Pick your subject, set your quota of ideas, and then 1. Random word - dictionary or 1. Weed 2. Rust 3. Poor 4. Magnify 5. Foam 6. Gold 7. Frame 8. Hole 9. Diagonal 10. Vacuum 11. Tribe 12. Puppet 13. Nose 14. Link 15. Drift 16. Duty 17. Portrait 18. Cheese 19. Chocolate 20. Coal You can flip the pages (or use dice or random number tables) and pick a word, or just pick one of the words from the above list. DON'T look for a word that "goes with" your subject - pick a number at random, then try that word. Think about the word, think about the subject, and let the mind work out relationships. They will come, if you listen! 2. Try same problem - different words Now, take that same subject, and pick another random word. See how the subject and the word(s) develop relationships. While you may want to concentrate on the subject and a single word at a time, don't discard those odd thoughts about how the two (or more) words tie together - you may find the subject being caught in a cat's cradle of meaning woven around it by the different words. 3. Try different problems - same word An amusing game is to try several problems or subjects - all playing against the same random word. You can even take "worn out plots" and bang them against a random word - and watch them rise up again, with Lazarus pulling the strings! 4. Make yourself an "object grabbag" - and play! A fun way to do this (for adults, as well as kids) is to take a bag and put various objects inside. Then when you need to stimulate the little grey cells, shake the bag, reach inside and yank out the first thing your hand hits. Then let that concrete object and your subject dance. Incidentally, you can do the same thing with slips of paper, cards, etc. I sometimes think the tarot deck might work for this, although I'm not familiar enough with the pictures to be sure. (although I like the concrete real objects, myself - I have an object grabbag!) I also find pictures useful - clip them out of magazines, buy some beautiful replicas at the art museum (they're so cheap, and so few people take the time to appreciate them!), or pick them up wherever. Toss them in a file, then when you need an idea - yank out one without looking at it, then turn it over and let the frozen reality there mingle with your topic. Let's see - five minutes to generate ideas, eight hours to sleep - that leaves you with at least a little time to write down some of the strange visions springing up from your daily brainstorms, doesn't it? Even after you toss the weeds in the compost heap for another plowing, you'll never be short on ideas, just on time to cook and serve them to the hungry mob pounding on the door... ---------------------------------------