Date:         Fri, 14 Jun 1996 11:48:22 EDT
From: tink aloud <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Organization: Verbose, verbase, and verbice?
Subject:      EXERCISE: What killed the cat?

[err...those of you who are sensitive to such things, there
do be some misuse and other contrary squeezing of meanings
in the following wordplay.  I apologize for any confusion
that results, but it does tickle me little fingers when I
have a chance to tease the words like this...gitchy-goo!]

(St. Martin's Guide to Teaching Writing, p. 75...)

    "This exercise might get your students thinking about
what makes them curious:

1.  Brainstorm a list of things about which you know
something but would like to know more.  Brainstorm for
five minutes, making the list as long as you can.
Whenever possible, be specific, but don't censor
yourself.

2.  Take another five minutes, and brainstorm a list of
things about which you don't know much but would like to
know more.  Write down whatever comes to mind.

3.  Look at both lists, and circle one item you'd like to
look at more closely, that piques your curiosity more
than the others.

4.  Now take another five minutes and build a list of
questions about that circled item you'd like to learn the
answers to.  If that circled topic goes nowhere, try
another.

(curiouser and curiouser!  Now to add a twist a la tink)

So now we have a topic and a list of questions...let us
assume that we have a champion in mind (character!  Please,
good writer, a character in mind and body, ready to leap
into action:-).  In what situation might our champion want
to answer these questions?  Can you imagine the answer to
the question of just how toothpaste does get in the tube
being important, even critical?  When would the details of
the process of turning feline intestines into violin bows be
so vitally intriguing that our champion would dare question
reference librarians, struggle with the guide to popular
literature, even settle down and read?

5.  Take five minutes and brainstorm situations, crises,
cliffhangers, and so forth that would make the answers to
your questions important.  Hang a life on whether firemen
wear pajamas or not!

And, the coupe de ville:

6.  Take five minutes and brainstorm answers.  Wild, wooly,
and possibly true.  Do you suppose the peaches could get
in the wine by putting the wine bottle over the flower?
What kind of underwear did a knight in shining armor
wear, anyway?

(oh, okay, if you really want to, you can find some facts
here and there to mix in with the factoids, fictoids, and
pure and simply untrue wanderings of your loosened id.  Just
don't get too tide up in those moon borne wisps of reality.)

Put it all together!  A champion, puzzled by the weird and
tweaky enigmatica, riddlicuousities, and down-to-sky
paradoctors of your imagining, struggles to learn the
answers...shifting fact from friction, they discover...you
tell us!

Short starts?  Get on your blocks, ready, set...

    "He wasn't really your father, you know," she said, and
pushed the remote control, skipping wildly through the
channels.

WRITE!

(They're off, with keyboards in the lead, but pens and
pencils are catching up, and those crayola kids are making a
rainbow cross the race.  Why?  To get to the pot of gold,
off coarse!)

tink