Response to Concept: Wk 6; M, 9/16

While we all gravitate towards familiar phrases, it is important to reach for the new. String together the familiar with the unfamiliar and create something oddly refreshing. One of the exercises in my intro creative writing class peaked my curiosity. We were to use a familiar phrase such as "raining cats and dogs" and switch out a few words. The intention is almost the same, but the execution is grandly altered. I read to the class my classic twist: raining men and hookers. I thought it was clever at seventeen. Although, I can't say much else at eighteen. I still laugh at it while simultaneously feeling embarrassment cloud my memory. Now, I took some something familiar like "men" and "hookers: and put it into a familiar phrase. Yet, the result was something new. The same can be said with similes and metaphors. You can use a familiar phrase, but replace the words. Or, you can add more to the phrase for a personal vendetta. Ah, yes, I will ruin you with my own personal touch you filthy, cliches! "Simile and Metaphor" expands on this piece of advice. It is important to use all sorts of interesting similes and metaphors in your writing to make it interesting! Or else, the writing would be taken more literally. At the root of it, do we want our writing to be taken absolute literally? Of course not. So, include similes and metaphors and idioms and other figurative language. Copy the old and paste something new.