REED RIGGS 芮尚勤
  • About
  • Teaching
  • Publications
  • Presentations
  • Projects
  • Blogs
  • CV
  • Contact
  • About
  • Teaching
  • Publications
  • Presentations
  • Projects
  • Blogs
  • CV
  • Contact
Search

​Builder's Blogsource

Simple story-writing: Hiding a dead body

12/19/2018

0 Comments

 
Here's a list of sentences forming a descriptive sequence of events that I intend to make boring for the first reading, but interesting the second time around, and then I change the meaning again in a third round:

Sarah went to the kitchen.
She washed the dishes.
She dried the dishes.
She checked that the dishes were clean.
She found one more dish in the living room.
She washed that dish.
She dried that dish.
She checked that that dish was clean.
She swept the kitchen floor.
She checked that the kitchen floor was clean.
Sarah thought about how good she was at cleaning.


Now I will copy this entire text, but add just a little extra to the beginning. Notice how the added beginning changes the implications of the entire reading copied from above:

Sarah came home from another busy day at the office.
Sarah's husband, Tim, always cleaned the house, but not today.
Sarah came home and found Tim's lifeless body on the floor, surrounded in blood.
Sarah held back tears.

Sarah went to the kitchen.
She washed the dishes.
She dried the dishes.
She checked that the dishes were clean.
She found one more dish in the living room.
She washed that dish.
She dried that dish.
She checked that that dish was clean.
She swept the kitchen floor.
She checked that the kitchen floor was clean.
Sarah thought about how good she was at cleaning.


Here it is one more time, but we'll make Sarah the murderer:

Sarah and Mike were lovers until Mike discovered Sarah's source of income.
Now, Sarah looked at Mike's cold frozen body in the basement freezer.
Sarah went to the kitchen.
She washed the dishes.
She dried the dishes.
She checked that the dishes were clean.
She found one more dish in the living room.
She washed that dish.
She dried that dish.
She checked that that dish was clean.
She swept the kitchen floor.
She checked that the kitchen floor was clean.
Sarah thought about how good she was at cleaning.


The reading should serve as a different experience with each change in the beginning because as we read we are not simply tracking actions, but tracking intentions along with those actions. Our understanding of the person's intentions in each iteration--first Sarah is simply cleaning, second she is doing her husband's work as possibly a kind form of denial of his death, and third she is doing normal housework to show how her life goes on as normal because killing is nothing special to her. Whatever they did just before the rest of the action marinates those actions in new meaning.
​



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Reed Riggs

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    July 2019
    December 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photo from Fr@nk 
  • About
  • Teaching
  • Publications
  • Presentations
  • Projects
  • Blogs
  • CV
  • Contact