Date:         Sat, 28 Dec 1996 11:19:34 -0500
From: late tink <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      EXERCISE: The Power of Words

[based on p. 28 in The Writing Workshop, Volume 2, by Alan Ziegler
ISBN 0-915924-07-2]

"Think of a time when someone used words that affected the way you felt
about yourself or something that was going on, making you feel happy,
sad, hungry, excited, nervous, relived, etc.  What was the context in
which the words were spoken?  Make the readers understand why the words
were powerful to you."

Let's try narrowing that down a bit.  In particular, think about a time
when someone used words that affected you--except they didn't intend
them that way!  Whether it's lack of context (hard to hear inflections
and such verbal subtleties in the flickering light of these little bits
on the screens, for example) or simple mistakes of timing and wording,
sometimes people say one thing and we hear something a little
different...and maybe they get punched in the nose for giving us a
compliment!

So pick out that missed communication.  Think it through, think about
what it might have been, think about different ways for the play to
go...

Then write it up.  You can use poetry, an essay, a non-fiction or
fiction scene, whatever suits you, but make us feel that impact, that
mental whiplash of words you never expected to hear, and follow
through... do we ever straighten out the confusion?  how do we untie the
connotative knot?  what salve will sooth the burned ego, the bent id,
the deflated superego?

or do those words still burn, a banner of anguish and pain unquenched in
the depths of loneliness?

a quick-start?

    The video said "I don't think any word can explain a man's life"
just before you said it.

[from Citizen Kane, the screenplay, 1941, in case you are wondering]

it was just a word or two between friends...
tink