Running to Class:

In Class:

Getting out of class early:

We value the wonderful and creative power of play here at The Writing Center. We’ve just added these cute little classic games to our workspaces here at the center. Come play!

Photo credit: Casey Miles

When I found out there was even more, causing the buses to detour:

Now when I wait for the bus:

It is my intention with this column to find writing lessons in television and film, lessons which I think can be helpful to writers of all sorts. I myself am a great evangelist of popular culture: I’ve turned many a friend and family member into a fan of some show or  band or game they were unfamiliar with, so hopefully I’ll also be able to introduce readers to a variety of shows and films they might not otherwise have seen. I’d also like to think that the analyses that will follow might help readers become better critics themselves, and help them to see visual entertainment as more than “merely” entertainment, and instead as mediums that should be taken seriously, and can have as much merit as any novel or opera. I guess we’ll see.

So all that aside, I’d like to talk about a sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie. A little background, first. Like most of my favorite sketch comedies, A Bit of Fry and Laurie was a British show. It was created, written, and performed by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, hence the name. Both are quite well known performers, although Hugh Laurie is probably better known in the United States these days for having played Dr. House on, well, House.

What I love about the show is that it’s rather intellectual, and most of the sketches rely on wordplay, context, pronunciation, or definitions for their humor. Oh there are plenty of jokes about body parts and a good deal of absurdity, and no small amount of social and political commentary, but it’s the use of language that really does it for me here.

The sketch, “Young Tory of the Year,” embedded  below, is only about three and a half minutes long, so give it a watch. For those not familiar with British politics or history, all you really need to know to understand this sketch is that the word Tory is used to refer to members of the Conservative Party, both within and without the party.

So why am I sharing this with you, besides the fact that I think it’s funny? Because the critique Fry and Laurie are providing here is that Tories are known for speaking in clichés. Clichés occupy an odd place in the English language: everyone says not to use them, but people use them all the time. I had a friend point out to me recently that if you watch reality shows, you tend to hear clichés all the time, because people use them as a shorthand to provide information or indicate a feeling quickly. They have some value in this way.

The problem with clichés is that they don’t have a set meaning. “Family values” (or “family standards” for that matter) means something different to every single person who hears or says the phrase. When a politician says that they’re “for” family values, they’re using it as a shorthand to reassure people that they can be trusted to uphold… something, but they generally leave it to the audience to determine those values for themselves. This allows the speaker to avoid making statements that must be backed up with specific actions, and protects them from criticism for not performing certain actions in the future. It does invite criticism that they’re not really saying anything, and this is what Fry and Laurie are saying about Tories.

The same ideas apply to writing. When you use a cliché, you’re not telling the audience anything specific. If your goal is to use that cliché as the basis for a joke, perhaps you need it, but if you’re trying to actually impart some kind of information or emotion to your audience, it’s best to stay away from them. When your readers come across clichés, they tend to either question your skills as a writer (especially in an academic environment), or they take their own, personal meaning from the cliché. The latter poses the threat of confusing them when a character does or says something “out of character,” because they have a different vision of the character than you.

Avoiding clichés is difficult, but not impossible, and I would suggest avoiding them as much as you can. If you watch television with a critical eye, you’ll likely notice how often clichés are used to quickly establish a character, a scene, or a plot, in order to keep the story moving. Sometimes this is a necessary evil, but often it results in the story feeling unoriginal and leaving the audience without much to recommend it. Give your audiences something to think about, give them writing that doesn’t rely on cliché; it’ll take more work, but that work will be better for it.

Here’s how it works: when you search a word, you get a word map that contains a large number of related words, your root word being the center. These other words are related to the root word in some way, like pertaining to the word’s definition, being synonyms, antonyms, or derivations of the root word, and many other helpful things. Also, you are given the definition for each word on the map, which depending on your root word can be near a hundred words.

This is an incredible resource for brainstorming due to the enormous amount of information you will receive just by typing one word. But don’t be intimidated by the large quantity of information you’ll receive—the visual “word cloud” aspect of visuwords make this bombardment of ideas easy to digest. Plus with all the words you’ll be seeing, chances are you’ll improve your vocabulary as well.

I love this resource because it’s great for brainstorming, and a must have for visual learners. Go check it out!

If you’re like me, then you have a hard time functioning without music. I especially find that I pretty much can’t write without it, whether I’m looking (listening?) for inspiration, or just want something playing in the background. I find different artists and different genres useful for different reasons. Sometimes songs just make me think about writing in a different light.

Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall aree pretty inspirational, especially this Jam of the Week. “War” is from their fourth album, Twilight Theater, which the band has described as “cinematic rock.” I don’t exactly know what that means, but it seems like a pretty good description. The song is epic; it’s moody, and spooky, and kind of uplifting. It feels like watching a film.

The video is dark, both literally and figuratively, and the narrative is focused on loss and confusion, but there’s a sense of longing and desire too. It puts me in the mood for shows like Twin Peaks, or games like Alan Wake (in which the song is featured, and is where I first heard it), stories with dreamlike, and often nightmarish, qualities.

For all of that though, I still find it uplifting (especially the beginning of the chorus); like the story might still have a happy ending, it’s just going to take a lot of work on the part of the protagonist. Not a bad metaphor, especially for the writing process. Sometimes writing is an uphill battle, but it will still come out okay in the end. And just like the narrator in the song, sometimes you have to remember that you’re not always in it alone, and there are people who can help you with that process, like us here at The Writing Center.

We open for summer on Tuesday, May 21st. 

We’re open in Bessey Hall and Online.
Our hours are: M-Th 9-5 and F 9-2.

Holiday closings:
Memorial Day – May 27th

Inependence Day – July 4 and 5.

20 minutes later…