A writing exercise proposed on LinkedIn: pick a few authors or characters with a distinctive voice, and a few everyday or commonplace events, and write about those events in those voices.
The first three voices I thought of:
- Jackson Lamb (from “Slow Horses”)
- Raymond Chandler
- Jane Austen
Three top-of-mind events:
- finding out my mom’s health is failing
- our air conditioning is dying
- I love chicken nuggets
If we cross-table those, I have 9 options. Here are 3.
First, the worst possible combination: finding out my mom’s health is failing—as Jackson Lamb, the reprobate leader of the failed in “Slow Horses”, as portrayed by the perfectly chosen Gary Oldman:
Old dame’s been dotty some time. Should’ve pegged it long ago, made room for someone useful. Why do we have mothers, eh? Horrible creatures, pushy and whining, making fathers and sons miserable in equal portion. The ancient Greeks had it right: spontaneous generation. That’s the ticket. Take the sniveling ’emotions’ right out of it. Now shut up and shove off.
(I have, ahem, polished his colorful metaphors a bit for a public venue.)
Raymond Chandler writing about air conditioning problems:
Sweltering. My desk blotter was crying for mercy. Shirt cuffs had wilted like last week’s daffodils. And the smell. Let’s just say no one was bottling what I had to sell.
Jane Austen expressing her love for chicken nuggets:
There, plated oh so serenely next to properly charred Brussels sprouts and a lovely portion of creamy buttery mashed potatoes, the real purpose of the repast: bite sized morsels of yard bird, properly encrusted with toasted bread crumbs, placed artfully next to a sauce of such divine tangy sweetness, a tomato-based smoky dip truly fit for these magnificent victuals.
The 6 left to do:
- Jackson Lamb on air conditioning
- Jackson Lamb on chicken nuggets
- Raymond Chandler on mom’s health
- Raymond Chandler on chicken nuggets
- Jane Austen on mom’s health
- Jane Austen on air conditioning
Jackson Lamb comments on the lack of air conditioning:
AIR CONDITIONING? Listen, you mewling little girls, you should have been with us in Berlin. I drowned three massive rats in a tin can just with what dripped off my hairy fat white backside. Poured off so fast they didn’t have a chance, poor beggars.
Raymond Chandler on hearing about my mother’s failing health:
Destiny. Our mothers give us life and then leave. No point crying over blood being thicker than water. No point crying at all. Life circles like a moth, like a wolf, like a drain.
Jane Austen on air conditioning failing:
Goodness. What little breeze had sprung up is but a memory, the remains of Sunday supper, gone, forgotten. The oppressive weight of damp air, too too warm for polite society, prevents any thought of dance or even a turn about the room.
And 3 left:
- Jackson Lamb on chicken nuggets
- Raymond Chandler on chicken nuggets
- Jane Austen on mom’s health
Jackson Lamb on chicken nuggets:
You are flipping kidding me. Not slapped enough as an unwanted stepchild, looking to fill your quota? Take one step closer. I really mean that. No, I’ve changed my mind. You eat them and see which of us dies sooner.
Raymond Chandler on chicken nuggets:
About as chickenlike as road kill and yet so addicting we’ll both be living under a bridge hawking window washes before long.
Jane Austen on mom’s health:
Oh my dear, you must be devastated. To be conflicted about familial love is to question how to be oneself. A son’s love should be precious to his mother—but how can one build a bridge with no riverbanks to anchor it?