Help avoiding the obvious.
Part 1
“What are we going to do today, Julie?”
“The same thing we do every day, Writer. Try to take over the writing world.”
Just like Pinky and The Brain, writers have a tendency to be focused on one thing: writing the greatest words ever written.
Throw a writer a bone and they'll create a sonnet with perfectly placed skeletal nouns, adjectives infused with osseous matter and drifting verbs that lick each osseous process . . . all without ever realizing that they've just wasted perfectly juicy parts of speech on the endoskeleton of vertebrates.
Writers obey the motions of their own minds, it's true. However, there are times when they need a nudge or an overdose of "right before your eyes" in order to Write This, Not That.
HERE'S YOUR NUDGE
I used to believe that language was something I used to say how I live. But I've also learned that it can be accurate to think of language as a tool that tells me how to live.
For example, social sentiments bind speaker to hearer. "How are you?" "I'm fine, thank you."
Phatic utterances are another form of free and aimless social intercourse. "Nice weather we're having today." "Yes, it is."
These prefabricated phases, although they are completely devoid of meaning, script all of our lives in a very precise way. It's language forcing us into roles.
A few other ways language shapes us is when it gets specific about how we experience yourself and others. It's language telling us that lady is a snob when we hear her say, "Regard with deference and esteem those who are your predecessors."
It's language that gives our own morals a wallop when we hear the curt phrase, "Respect your elders."
HERE'S YOUR OVERDOSE
So, is it possible for language to be re-reflexive? Can language turn back on itself? Can it be reshaped? Recombined?
What if we wanted to experience language differently? How could we go about writing this and not that regarding snobby ladies?
I know what I’d do . . . I'd force language to bow to my careful design. I would pressure language to isolate the snobby lady by a power she didn't want:
“Those who are superior should be given preference. I learned that lesson behind a locked closet door and you will learn it too. One way or another, you’ll learn.”
What about you? Where would you start? What rhetorical device would you pull out of your writer's toolbox? Would you reach for an epistrophe and throw it in the center of a paragraph? Twist it around the end of a paragraph? Or allow it consume the entire paragraph?
Now it’s your turn. I’ve thrown you a bone. So . . .
“Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Writer?”
“I think so, Julie, but pants with suspenders never have looked good on me.”
