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April 30, 2008
Outrageous is In
As the month of May charges in, so does the hope of fresh, colorful flowers, a break in the weather and, yes, a successful sweeps week! In short, sweeps week means that television will go over the top with talk show hosts visiting all parts of creation (Where in the World is Matt Lauer?) or completely hyping up their program content (Dr. Phil will creep into Jerry-Springer territory and Oprah will take on Montel-like qualities). I’m sure shows like Grey’s Anatomy will feature even more sex, while the costumes on Dancing with the Stars will continue to shrink (if not malfunction). The rules during sweeps week are straightforward enough: Overly outrageous draws ‘em in.
So how can we writers turn the vibrancy of sweeps week into something useful? We can write outrageous (and I don’t mean “outrageously”, so don’t email me about the proper use of adverbs). We should write the outrageous into our every scene.
Recently, I began writing a scene in which my antagonist (a middle-aged, Botox-pumped gold digger) cooks up a pot of cyanide-laced chicken soup for her bedridden honey. After a deep swig of her midday scotch, she scans the kitchen for a large enough ladle to reach the bottom of the stock pot, in hopes of better dissolving the precipitous poison.
She dismisses the broomstick in the corner and reaches for her Sugar Daddy’s brass-handled cane. She dunks it in, stopper side down, and stirs like a witch agitating her brew. The only thing missing is the cackle and the howl, never mind the hairballs and dust bunnies likely stuck to the cane’s cork.
Does this character’s choice of stirring utensil affect the scene all that much? It does in two ways:
1. It enhances the outrageousness of the point of the scene which is to show the mental imbalance of a killer.
2. The scene becomes more memorable. You can bet the next time the reader sees someone walking with a cane, he/she will check out the bottom of it and imagine what might end up floating in a stew stirred with that particular walking aid.
I invite you, then, to weave the outrageous into your works, whether fiction or nonfiction, long or short, in-progress or complete. Take a look at what you’ve got and pump it up. Make it more dangerous, more devastating, more hilarious, or more bizarre. Go ahead. Create outrageous with the likes of Dr. Phil and Oprah. Better yet, follow in the footsteps of James Ellroy who once said, “I put on such a good show, the story is outrageous, and people don't want to hear that I'm basically a reasonable human being. As long as it continues to get me print, I'll continue to perform in an exuberant manner.”
Good luck adding exuberance. Let me know how it goes!
Posted by Judy at 09:34 AM | Comments (9)