Free Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark Page B

mind. What value is there in the story of a renegade rooster that falls back on "foul play," or, even worse, "fowl play"?
    Fresh language blows a cool breeze through the reader. Think, for example, of all the religious cliches you've encountered about the nature of prayer and compare them to this paragraph by Anne Lamott, from her book Traveling Mercies:
    Here are the two best prayers I know: "Help me, help me, help me," and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." A woman I know says, for her morning prayer, "Whatever," and then for the evening, "Oh, well," but has conceded that these prayers are more palatable for people without children.
    This passage teaches us that originality need not be a burden. A simple shift of context turns the most common and overused expression ("Whatever" or "Oh, well") into a pointed incantation.
    WORKSHOP
    1. Read today's newspaper with pencil in hand, and circle any phrase you are used to seeing in print.
    2. Do the same with your own work. Circle the cliches and tired phrases. Revise them with straight writing or original images.
    3. Brainstorm alternatives to these common similes: red as a rose, white as snow, blue as the sky, cold as ice, hot as hell, hungry as a wolf.
    4. Reread some passages from your favorite writer. Can you find any cliches? Circle the most original and vivid images.
    The day after the vice presidential debate of 2004,1 read a clever phrase that contrasted the appearance and styles of the two candidates. Attributed to radio host Don Imus, it described the differences between "Dr. Doom and the Breck Girl." Of course, the dour Dick Cheney was Dr. Doom, and, because of his handsome hair, John Edwards was likened to a pretty girl in a shampoo ad.
    By the end of the day, a number of commentators had riffed on this phrase. (Riff is a term from jazz used to describe a form of improvisation in which one musician borrows and builds on the musical phrase of another.) The original Imus phrase morphed into "Shrek versus Breck," that is, the ogre versus the hair model.
    What followed was a conversation with my witty colleague Scott Libin, who was writing an analysis of the language of political debates. The two of us riffed on the popular distinctions between the two candidates. "Cheney is often described as 'avuncular,' " said Scott. The word means "like an uncle." "Last night he looked more carbuncular than avuncular," I responded, like an angry boil ready to pop.
    Like two musicians, Scott and I began to offer variations on our improvisations. Before long, Cheney versus Edwards became:
    Dr. No versus Mister Glow Cold Stare versus Good Hair Pissed Off versus Well Coiffed
    I first suggested Gravitas versus Levitas, gravity versus levity, but Edwards is more toothsome than humorous, so I ventured: Gravitas versus Dental Floss.
    Writers collect sharp phrases and colorful metaphors, sometimes for use in their conversation, and sometimes for adaptation into their prose. The danger, of course, is plagiarism, kidnapping the creative work of other writers. No one wants to be known as the Milton Berle of wordsmiths, the stealer of others' best material.
    The harmonic way is through the riff. Almost all inventions come out of the associative imagination, the ability to take what is already known and apply it as metaphor to the new. Thomas Edison solved a problem in the flow of electricity by thinking of the flow of water in a Roman aqueduct. Think of how many words have been adapted from old technologies to describe tools of new media: we file, we browse, we surf, we link, we scroll, just to name a few.
    The notion that new knowledge derives from old wisdom should liberate the writer from a scrupulous fear of snatching the words of others. The apt phrase then becomes not a temptation to steal — the apple in the Garden of Eden — but a tool to compose your way to the next level of invention.
    David Brown riffs on familiar political slogans and ad lingo to offer this devastating critique of