Week Eleven: Let's Pretend This Never Happened Activity Week
In Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson uses a variety of ways to insert characters and voices in her work. In particular, she uses dialogue, near-dialogue, and one-sided conversation (where the other side is implied). She also uses techniques like litany (where she uses "single words or phrases that accumulate in the reader's mind to create and leave the impression of a person, place, or thing" (Cheney 175).
This week, you will practice some of the techniques that Cheney describes in Chapter 6: Dialogs, Monologs, and Other Logs and in Chapter 10: Special Techniques.
This week, you will practice some of the techniques that Cheney describes in Chapter 6: Dialogs, Monologs, and Other Logs and in Chapter 10: Special Techniques.
Lawson has three primary means of inserting characters into her story. First, she includes them in traditional dialogue:
Victor whispered, "What the hell are you doing?" and I'm all, "Dude. I can't do this. I'm intimidated by your fucking couch. Clearly this relationship is not going to work out." In this passage, we clearly see the distinction between Victor and Jenny's upbringing, their current relationship, and Jenny's insecurities, all in a few lines. Including direct dialogue allows the reader to understand character, setting, and dynamics through direct interaction instead (showing) instead of narrative description (telling).
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But she also uses less traditional means of using what is essentially dialogue in her writing. The first is a kind of near-dialogue, where she, as the narrator, relates both sides of the dialogue:
Then everyone looked at me in bafflement, and Victor made me leave, swearing to never take me to another dinner party again. It was hard to argue with him, but I did point out that the party was kind of a win, because no one saw my vagina. Victor says we have different definitions of what a "win" is. Then he told me that stories about serial killers who are really just cats are now at the top of the list of "shit-I'm-not-allowed-to-talk-about," and that's when I really got a little indignant, because technically he kind of owes me, because he came out looking like a damn American hero in that serial-killer story for charging through the house to kill a serial killer who was actually a cat. The he pointed out that cats aren't serial killers, and I retorted that technically cats are more dangerous than serial killers because they are too fluffy to be suspects, and that if Posey had landed a few inches lower he could have sliced my jugular. Basically, Posey is the silent killer. Much like cholesterol. (p. 182) When the narrator voices both sides of the dialogue, she is attempting to demonstrate control over the conversation. Here, we understand that really, this conversation was probably a heated argument. But Lawson's description of the conversation sets her up as the calm voice of reason, even as the words she speaks are anything but.
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A third way that Lawson adds dialogue is in the chapter "A Series of Helpful Post-it Notes I Left Around the House for my Husband this Week." In this chapter, we add in the other side of the conversation based on the one side of the conversation (with a bit of hyperbole) that is provided in the text. This technique allows the narrator to invite the reader into the dialogue, allowing that reader to construct the other side of the conversation from the contextual cues provided in the one-sided conversation.
In this week's reading, Cheney also describes a number of other techniques to use that provide short bursts of intense imagery, methods he calls "Clumping" and "Litany." After reading the chapters for this week in the Cheney text, paying close attention to the examples of these techniques that he provides, complete the following Writing Activity.
11.1 Writing Activity #4
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For this week's writing activity, choose TWO type of writing from each of the categories below and incorporate those styles into passages of your own writing. If you are transforming a passage, include the original passage AND the passage using the techniques from Cheney's book. If you are adding to passages with new writing, include the paragraphs immediately before and after the passages you are including to demonstrate how the new material fits into the existing work.
Category One: "'Logs"
Category Two: Special Techniques
Finally, select 3-4 pages of your text and edit to lessen the number of "intransigent" verbs (using Cheney's methods pp. 186-190). You don't necessarily need to follow "Cheney's Rule of Thumb," but get as close to it as possible. Include the original text and the revised text, labeling each accordingly. Submit these activities in a Google Document shared with me by the deadline in the class schedule. |