I'm still in overhearing mode (following on from an exercise idea in yesterday's post) and it occurs to me that just as visual artists make works out of bits and pieces that they stumble across, writers can make stories or poems out of scraps of conversation that they overhear. It's a bit like being an aural magpie: thieving from here, stealing from there and I struck gold twice in one day earlier this week.
The first was a mere phrase that I caught as two young girls walked past me. One said to the other, "I caught a disease off the boss," and immediately a whole wide savannah of possibilities opened up, involving illicit affairs, office politics, power dynamics, sexual sleaze, exploitation, manipulation, all of it to be mined from seven simple words. Just one brief sentence, and there is a whole short story fighting to get out.
The second little pearl came my way via a waiter in a hotel bar, who commented to his colleague, "I've had some weird ones tonight -- a room service who just wanted potatoes." He's right, it is weird. Why would somebody sit in their hotel room eating potatoes on their own? It speaks of faddishness, compulsiveness, greed, a terrible kind of loneliness, parsimony, perhaps; it's quite funny, in a sad way. It's certainly the seed for some character work of an interesting kind.
The point I making is one of thrift - if something comes your way, make use of it, recycle it for writerly purposes, save it up for future use. Never throw anything out, as you don't know when it may come in handy.
No comments:
Post a Comment