He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life.

He said, “People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let’s look at a few examples.”

He drew an empty grid on the board, like this:

Time moves from left to right. Happiness from bottom to top.

He said, “Let’s look at a very common story arc. The story of Cinderella.”

It starts with her awful life with evil stepsisters, scrubbing the fireplace. Then she get an invitation to the ball! Things look up. Then the fairy godmother makes her a dress and a coach. Even better! Then she goes to the ball, and dances with the prince! This is great! But then it’s midnight. She has to go. Oh no. Sadness. Back to her humdrum life scrubbing the fireplace. But it’s not as bad as before, because she’s had this encouraging experience. Then, the prince finds her, and the happiness factor is off the chart! Happily ever after.

“People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.”

He wiped the board clean and said, “Now let’s look at another popular story arc: the disaster.”

It’s an ordinary day in an ordinary town. But something horrible happens! A child falls down a well! The whole town gathers to save her. Old grudges surface, but are belittled in the light of this tragedy. Rifts are bonded as people work together. The child is saved, and all is well. But notice it’s a little better than it was before, now that this incident has brought them all closer together.

“People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.”

But the problem is, life is really like this…

Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. Some ups, some downs, but nothing to go down in history about. Nothing so fantastic or terrible that it’ll be told for a thousand years.

“But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think are lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.”

That’s why people invent fights. That’s why we’re drawn to sports. That’s why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal.

We’re trying to make our life into a fairy tale.

1. adroit Dexterous, agile.
2. adumbrate To very gently suggest.
3. aestivate To summer, to spend the summer.
4. ailurophile A cat-lover.
5. amaryllis Bulbous plants which have large red or pink flowers.
6. anemone Any of various plants of the buttercup family, having petal-like sepals.
7. aqua A light greenish-blue color.
8. asphodel Plants having white, pink, or yellow flowers in elongated clusters.
9. banana Herbs having a crown of large, entire leaves and a hanging cluster of fruits.
10. beatific Befitting an angel or saint
11. beleaguer To exhaust with attacks.
12. blandiloquent Beautiful and flattering.
13. bliss
14. blossom
15. blue
16. bobolink
17. bubble
18. bumblebee
19. butterfly
20. caliginous Dark and misty.
21. camellia
22. cerulean
23. chalice
24. champagne An effervescent wine.
25. chatoyant Like a cat’s eye.
26. chattanooga
27. cherish
28. chiaroscuro The arrangement of dark and light elements in a picture.
29. chimes
30. choas The exponential divergence of two arbitrarily close points in phase space.
31. cockle A heart-shaped bivalve or a garden flower.
32. coconut
33. colporteur A book peddler.
34. conflate To blend together, to combine different things.
35. cosmopolitan
36. cozy
37. cuspidor
38. cute
39. cynosure A focal point of admiration.
40. damask
41. dawn
42. delicacy
43. destiny
44. desuetude Disuse.
45. diaphanous Filmy.
46. diffuse Spread out, not focused or concentrated.
47. dulcet Sweet, sugary.
48. ebullient Bubbling with enthusiasm.
49. effervescent Bubbly.
50. efflorescence Flowering, the opening of buds or a bloom.
51. elixir A good potion.
52. elysium Any place or state of perfect happiness; paradise.
53. emollient A softener.
54. encomium A spoken or written work in praise of someone.
55. inglenook The place beside the fireplace.
56. enthusiasm
57. ephemeral Short-lived.
58. epicure A person who enjoys fine living, especially food and drink.
59. epiphany A sudden revelation.
60. erstwhile At one time, for a time.
61. eschew To reject or avoid.
62. esculent Edible.
63. esoteric Understood only by a small group of specialists.
64. eternity
65. ethereal Gaseous, invisible but detectable.
66. etiolate White from no contact with light.
67. evanescent Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.
68. explosion
69. extravaganza
70. exuberant Enthusiastic, excited.
71. fantastic
72. fawn
73. felicitous Pleasing.
74. fescue A variety of grass favored for pastures.
75. flabbergasted
76. flip-flop
77. foudroyant Dazzling.
78. fragile Very, very delicate.
79. freedom
80. fugacious Running, escaping.
81. fuselage
82. galaxy
83. gambol To skip or leap about joyfully.
84. gazebo
85. giggle
86. glamour Beauty.
87. golden
88. gorgeous
89. gossamer The finest piece of thread, a spider’s silk.
90. gothic
91. grace
92. gracious
93. gum
94. halcyon Happy, sunny, care-free.
95. harbors of memory
96. hen-night
97. hiccup
98. hilarious
99. hippopotamus
100. hodgepodge
101. home
102. hope
103. hush
104. hymeneal Having to do with a wedding.
105. if
106. imbricate To overlap to form a regular pattern.
107. imbroglio An altercation or complicated situation.
108. imbue To infuse, instill.
109. incipient Beginning, in an early stage.
110. ingénue A naïve young woman.
111. inspissate To thicken.
112. inure To jade.
113. jejune Dull; childish.
114. jonquil
115. kangaroo
116. lagniappe A gift given to a customer for their patronage.
117. lagoon A small gulf or inlet in the sea.
118. languor Listlessness, inactivity.
119. lassitude Weariness, listlessness.
120. laughter The response to something funny.
121. liberty
122. lilt To move musically or lively, to have a lively sound.
123. lithe Slender and flexible.
124. lollipop
125. loquacious Talkative.
126. love
127. lovely
128. lullaby
129. luminous
130. luxuriant Thick, lavish.
131. marigold
132. meandering
133. mellifluous Sweet-sounding.
134. melody
135. mignonette
136. missive A message or letter.
137. mist
138. moiety One of two equal parts, a half.
139. moment
140. mondegreen A misanalyzed phrase.
141. mother
142. murmuring
143. myrrh
144. nebulous Foggy.
145. nevermore
146. niveous Snowy, snow-like.
147. nobility
148. obsequious Fawning, subservience.
149. odalisque A concubine in a harem.
150. oeuvre A work.
151. offing That part of the sea between the horizon and the offshore.
152. oi
153. oleander
154. onomatopoeia The creation of words by imitating sound.
155. oriole
156. paean A formal expression of praise.
157. palimpsest A manuscript written over one or more earlier ones.
158. panacea A complete solution for all problems.
159. panoply A complete set.
160. paradox
161. passion
162. pastiche A mixture of art work (art or music) from various sources.
163. pavement
164. peace
165. peccadillo A peculiarity.
166. peek-a-boo
167. pelagic Related to the sea or ocean.
168. penumbra A half-shadow, the edge of a shadow.
169. peregrination Wandering, travels.
170. petrichor The smell of earth after a rain.
171. plethora A great quantity.
172. porcelain A fine white clay pottery.
173. potamophilous Loving rivers.
174. propinquity An inclination or preference.
175. pumpkin
176. pyrrhic Victorious despite heavy losses.
177. quintessential The ultimate, the essence of the essence.
178. rainbow
179. redolent Sweet-smelling.
180. renaissance
181. rhapsody A beautiful musical piece.
182. riparian Having to do with the bank of a river or other body of water.
183. ripple A small, circular wave emanating from a central point.
184. rosemary
185. scintillate To sparkle with brilliant light.
186. sempiternal Forever and ever.
187. sentiment
188. seraglio Housing for a harem.
189. serendipity Finding something while looking for something else.
190. shenandoah
191. shipshape
192. smashing
193. smile
194. smithereens
195. soliloquy Dramatic speech intended to give the illusion of unspoken reflections.
196. sophisticated
197. summer afternoon
198. sunflower
199. sunshine
200. surreptitious Sneaky.
201. susurrus Producing a hushing sound, like flowing water.
202. sweetheart
203. sycamore
204. symbiosis Interdependence of two different species.
205. syzygy The direct opposition of two heavenly bodies.
206. talisman A symbolic object believed to have magical powers.
207. tendril
208. terpsichorean Related to dance.
209. thrush
210. tickle
211. tintinnabulation Ringing.
212. tranquil
213. tranquility
214. twinkle
215. umbrageous Shady.
216. umbrella
217. vermillion
218. vestige A small fragment.
219. whisper Speaking without vibrating the vocal folds.
220. whoops
221. wisteria
222. zing
223. zyzzyva A kind of beetle.

now, if you were teaching creative

writing, he asked, what would you

tell them?

I’d tell them to have an unhappy love

affair, hemorrhoids, bad teeth

and to drink cheap wine,

to keep switching the head of their

bed from wall to wall

and then I’d tell them to have

another unhappy love affair

and never to use a silk typewriter

ribbon,

avoid family picnics

or being photographed in a rose

garden;

read Hemingway only once,

skip Faulkner

ignore Gogol

stare at photos of Gertrude Stein

and read Sherwood Anderson in bed

while eating Ritz crackers,

realize that people who keep

talking about sexual liberation

are more frightened than you are.

listen to E. Power Biggs work the

organ on your radio while you’re

rolling Bull Durham in the dark

in a strange town

with one day left on the rent

after having given up

friends, relatives and jobs.

never consider yourself superior and /

or fair

and never try to be.

have another unhappy love affair.

watch a fly on a summer curtain.

never try to succeed.

don’t shoot pool.

be righteously angry when you

find your car has a flat tire.

take vitamins but don’t lift weights or jog.

then after all this

reverse the procedure.

have a good love affair.

and the thing

you might learn

is that nobody knows anything–

not the State, nor the mice

the garden hose or the North Star.

and if you ever catch me

teaching a creative writing class

and you read this back to me

I’ll give you a straight A

right up the pickle

barrel.

stolen from Misanthropy Today

1. Use all the cliches possible, such as “He had a gleam in his eye,” or “Her teeth were white as pearls.”

2. If you are a Negro, try very hard to write with an eye dead on the white market–use modern stereotypes of older stereotypes–big burly Negroes, criminals, low-lifers and prostitutes.

3. Put in a lot of profanity and as many pages as possible of near pornography and you will be so modern you pre-date Pompei in your lonely crusade toward the best seller lists. By all means, be misunderstood, unappreciated and ahead of your time in print and out, then you can be felt sorry for.

4. Never Characterize Characters. Just name them and then let them go for themselves. Let all of them talk the same way. If the reader hasn’t imagination enough to make something out of cardboard cut-outs, shame on him!

5. Write about China, Greece, Tibet, or the Argentine pampas–anyplace you’ve never seen and know nothing about. Never write about anything you know, your hometown, or your home folks, or yourself.

6. Have nothing to say, but use a great many words, particularly high-sounding words, to say it.

7. If a playwright, put into your script a lot of hand-waving and spirituals, preferably the ones everybody has heard a thousand times from Marion Anderson to the Golden Gates.

8. If a poet, rhyme June with moon as often and in as many ways as possible. Also, use thee’s and thou’s and ’tis and o’er, and invert your sentences all the time. Never say “The sun rose, bright and shining.” But, rather, “Bright and shining rose the sun.”

9. Pay no attention really to spelling or grammar or the neatness of the manuscript. And in writing letters, never sign your name so anyone can read it. A rapid scrawl will better indicate how important and how busy you are.

10. Drink as much liquor as possible and always write under the influence of alcohol. When you can’t afford alcohol yourself, or even if you can, drink on your friends, fans and the general public.

If you are white, there are many more things I can advise in order to be a bad writer, but since this piece is for colored writers, there are some things I know a Negro just will not do not even for writing’s sake, so there is no use mentioning them.

Originally published in The Harlem Quarterly (ed. John Henrik Clarke), 1950.

To write well you must speak well, or at least know what good speaking sounds like. Here’s the building blocks to that, at least knowing what these figures of speech are called so that you may draw from them– AF

Figures of Speech

Figures of speech are expressions that stretch words beyond their literal meanings. By connecting or juxtaposing different sounds and thoughts, figures of speech increase the breadth and subtlety of expression.

Alliteration: The repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants, at the beginning of words. For example, Robert Frost’s poem “Out, out—” contains the alliterative phrase “sweet scented stuff.”

Aposiopesis: A breaking-off of speech, usually because of rising emotion or excitement. For example, “Touch me one more time, and I swear—”

Apostrophe: A direct address to an absent or dead person, or to an object, quality, or idea. Walt Whitman’s poem “O Captain, My Captain,” written upon the death of Abraham Lincoln, is an example of apostrophe.

Assonance: The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sequence of nearby words. For example, Alfred, Lord Tennyson creates assonance with the “o” sound in this line from “The Lotos-Eaters”: “All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone.”

Cacophony: The clash of discordant or harsh sounds within a sentence or phrase. Cacophony is a familiar feature of tongue twisters but can also be used to poetic effect, as in the words “anfractuous rocks” in T. S. Eliot’s “Sweeney Erect.” Although dissonance has a different musical meaning, it is sometimes used interchangeably with “cacophony.”

Chiasmus: Two phrases in which the syntax is the same but the placement of words is reversed, as in these lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Pains of Sleep”: “To be beloved is all I need, / And whom I love, I love indeed.”

Cliché: An expression such as “turn over a new leaf” that has been used so frequently it has lost its expressive power.

Colloquialism: An informal expression or slang, especially in the context of formal writing, as in Philip Larkin’s “Send No Money”: “All the other lads there / Were itching to have a bash.”

Conceit: An elaborate parallel between two seemingly dissimilar objects or ideas. The metaphysical poets (see Literary Movements, below) are especially known for their conceits, as in John Donne’s “The Flea.”

Epithet: An adjective or phrase that describes a prominent feature of a person or thing. “Richard ‘the Lionheart’ ” and “ ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson” are both examples of epithets.

Euphemism: The use of decorous language to express vulgar or unpleasant ideas, events, or actions. For example, “passed away” instead of “died”; “ethnic cleansing” instead of “genocide.”

Euphony: A pleasing arrangement of sounds. Many consider “cellar door” one of the most euphonious phrases in English.

Hyperbole: An excessive overstatement or conscious exaggeration of fact: “I’ve told you about it a million times already.”

Idiom: A common expression that has acquired a meaning that differs from its literal meaning, such as “it’s raining cats and dogs” or “a bolt from the blue.”

Litotes: A form of understatement in which a statement is affirmed by negating its opposite: “He is not unfriendly.”

Meiosis: Intentional understatement, as, for example, in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, when Mercutio is mortally wounded and says it is only “a scratch.” Meiosis is the opposite of hyperbole and often employs litotes to ironic effect.

Metaphor: The comparison of one thing to another that does not use the terms “like” or “as.” Shakespeare is famous for his metaphors, as in Macbeth: “Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.”

• Mixed metaphor: A combination of metaphors that produces a confused or contradictory image, such as “The company’s collapse left mountains of debt in its wake.”

Metonymy: The substitution of one term for another that generally is associated with it. For example, “suits” instead of “businessmen.”

Onomatopoeia: The use of words, such as “pop,” “hiss,” and “boing,” that sound like the thing they refer to.

Oxymoron: The association of two contrary terms, as in the expressions “same difference” or “wise fool.”

Paradox: A statement that seems absurd or even contradictory on its face but often expresses a deeper truth. For example, a line in Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”: “And all men kill the thing they love.”

Paralipsis: Also known as praeteritio, the technique of drawing attention to something by claiming not to mention it. For example, from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick: “We will not speak of all Queequeg’s peculiarities here; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare.”

Parallelism: The use of similar grammatical structures or word order in two sentences or phrases to suggest a comparison or contrast between them. In Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 129”: “Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.” Parallelism also can refer to parallels between larger elements in a narrative (see Literary Techniques, below).

Pathetic fallacy: The attribution of human feeling or motivation to a nonhuman object, especially an object found in nature. For example, John Keats’s “Ode to Melancholy” describes a “weeping” cloud.

Periphrasis: An elaborate and roundabout manner of speech that uses more words than necessary. Saying “I appear to be entirely without financial resources” instead of “I’m broke” is an example. Euphemisms often employ periphrasis.

Personification: The use of human characteristics to describe animals, things, or ideas. Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago” describes the city as “Stormy, husky, brawling, / City of the Big Shoulders.”

Pun: A play on words that exploits the similarity in sound between two words with distinctly different meanings. For example, the title of Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest is a pun on the word “earnest,” which means “serious or sober,” and the name “Ernest,” which figures into a scheme that some of the play’s main characters perpetrate.

Rhetorical question: A question that is asked not to elicit a response but to make an impact or call attention to something. For example, the question “Isn’t she great?” expresses regard for another person and does not call for discussion.

Sarcasm: A simple form of verbal irony (see Literary Techniques, below) in which it is obvious from context and tone that the speaker means the opposite of what he or she says. Sarcasm usually, but not always, expresses scorn. Commenting “That was graceful” when someone trips and falls is an example.

Simile: A comparison of two things through the use of “like” or “as.” The title of Robert Burns’s poem “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose” is a simile.

Synaesthesia: The use of one kind of sensory experience to describe another, such as in the line “Heard melodies are sweet” in John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”

Synecdoche: A form of metonymy in which a part of an entity is used to refer to the whole, for example, “my wheels” for “my car.”

Trope: A category of figures of speech that extend the literal meanings of words by inviting a comparison to other words, things, or ideas. Metaphor, metonymy, and simile are three common tropes.

Zeugma: The use of one word in a sentence to modify two other words in the sentence, typically in two different ways. For example, in Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers, the sentence “Mr. Pickwick took his hat and his leave” uses the word “took” to mean two different things.