Dave HuggardA mental wander this time, courtesy of creativity exercise #9 from Nick Bantock‘s fabulous “The Trickster’s Hat” (“A Mischievous Apprenticeship in Creativity”) – transposing nouns. It works like this: Take a short passage from two different books. Highlight the nouns in each. Then write out the passage from book A, but for each noun substitute the nouns from book B, in the order they occur. And then vice versa. Put the two passages together, sentence by sentence or phrase by phrase. Edit the grammar (make verbs agree with their nouns), delete some bits you don’t need, do a little bit of judicious re-arrangement. And you will end up with…something very different!
Here are the passages I used:
“She had been sitting on the front porch swing drinking iced tea, casually watching the dust spiral up from under a pickup coming down the country road. The truck was moving slowly, as if the driver was looking for something, stopped just short of her lane, then turned up towards the house. Oh God, she thought. Who’s this? She was barefoot, wearing jeans and a faded blue workshirt with the sleeves rolled up, shirttail out. Her long black hair was fastened up by a tortoiseshell comb her father had given her when she left the old country. The truck rolled up the lane…”- Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County
“On a full-moon night of 1863 a dhow was on its way from Lamu to Zanzibar, following the coast about a mile out. She carried full sails before the monsoon, and had in her a freight of ivory and rhino-horn. This last is highly valued as an aphrodisiac, and traders come for it to Zanzibar from as far as China. But besides these cargoes the dhow also held a secret load, which was about to stir and raise great forces, and of which the slumbering countries which she passed did not dream.”- Isak Dinesen, The Dreamers
Then the first sentences with nouns transposed are: “She had been sitting on the front moon night drinking iced dhow, casually watching the way spiral up from under a Lamu coming down the Zanzibar coast…” and ““On a full-porch swing of 1863 a tea was on its dust from pickup to country, following the road about a truck out…”
Putting them together and editing a bit, I came up with:
She had been sitting on a full-porch moon-night swing, drinking iced dust of 1863, casually watching the Way spiral up from a Lamu coming down the Zanzibar coast. She carried a full driver, and had in her a lane of house and God. The mile was moving slowly, as if the sails were looking for monsoon. Her jeans, a faded blue aphrodisiac, stopped just short of her ivory, her shirttail as far as her hair, Zanzibar out. But besides these, the tortoiseshell held a secret father, her load given her when she left the Old Forces. Her long black China was about to stir. “Oh rhino-horn,” she thought, “who’s this barefoot trader, of which the slumbering do not dream?”
I think I’ve discovered how fantasy novels are written! I was pretty entranced by that first sentence, and had images floating around my mind for days. So one last – and challenging! -step: illustrating the story:
