THEME – Day 6
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THEME
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Design • Photography • Copy
Workbook pages 1-2
VOICE
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Choose the right voice and tone for
your theme.
VOICE
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• Your "voice" is the way that you "speak" on
paper. It is how your words come across to the
reader, and it will be different for every writer.
• Voice depends on the style you choose –
formal, informal, technical, chatty, poetic.
• Voice depends on the words you choose to
express this style - simple words, scientific
words, slang words.
The
st
1
Sentence copy
Theme
• Make the first sentence memorable.
• Write a sentence so good that the reader
continues reading.
• Hint at what will follow.
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“Call me Ishmael.”
—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
• This account will be personal.
• The speaker directly addresses the audience.
• There appears to be a clarification of identity.
• There is a biblical allusion.
Ishmael was born at Mamre, when Abraham was 86, 11 years after Abraham's
arrival in what would become the land of Israel (Genesis 16:3). He grew up to be a
man of the desert wilderness, with a wild and hostile attitude toward people, exactly
as God described him to his mother before he was born.
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It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks
were striking thirteen.
—George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
Something is up.
Things aren’t quite right.
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IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR about it, the first thing
you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what
my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were
occupied and all before they had me, and all that David
Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if
you want to know the truth.
—J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
• First-person account.
• It is very conversational in tone.
• The speaker is cynical.
• The speaker knows what is expected,
but he doesn’t have the inclination or energy
to play the “game.”
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Time is not a line but a dimension,
like the dimensions of space.
—Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye (1988)
• Very philosophical statement that causes the reader to
ask, “What do you mean? Can you give me an example?”
• It is about simultaneous happenings.
•
It is not a day-by-day or month-by-month account.
• The material is organized around something
other than time.
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All this happened, more or less.
—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
• This is not a reliable narrator.
• What would you think if someone asserted
that “all this happened” and followed it
with a disclaimer like “more or less”?
• What is he/she leaving out?
• What is he/she adding?
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Now you try? What do you know about this novel?
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
—Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
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NOW TRY SOME SONG LYRICS
Is the first line memorable?
Did you readily identify the song and the group?
Share some memorable 1st lines from current
songs. (Make sure the lyrics are appropriate.)
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“You Belong to Me “— Taylor Swift:
“You're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset”
“Brown-Eyed Girl” — Van Morrison:
“Hey, where did we go/days when the rains came?”
“Treasure” — Bruno Mars:
”“Gimme your, gimme your, gimme your attention, baby.”
“Live Like You Were Dying” — Tim McGraw:
“He said I was in my early 40's,/With a lot of life before me”
“Free Bird” — Lynard Skynard:
“If I leave here tomorrow will you still remember me?
“Fly Like an Eagle” — The Steve Miller Band:
“Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin into the future.
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“Bohemian Rhapsody” — Queen:
“Is this the real life? / Is this just fantasy?”
“Good Vibrations” — The Beach Boys:
“I, I love the colorful clothes she wears / And the way the sunlight
plays upon her hair”
“Friends in Low Places” — Garth Brooks:
“Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots
and ruined your black-tie affair.”
“Hotel California” — The Eagles:
“On a dark, desert highway/ Cool wind in my hair.”
“Blitzkrieg Bop” — The Ramones:
"Hey, ho, let's go!"
“I Knew You Were Trouble” — Taylor Swift:
“Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago.”
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NOW TRY SOME SONG LYRICS
Share some memorable 1st lines from
current songs. (Make sure the lyrics are
appropriate.)
Be specific
Be specific
Theme:
Outside the box,
Inside the box
Tone: candid
Consider lists
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From F. Scott Fitzgerald's story "The Crack-Up“
Seen in a Junk Yard. Dogs, chickens with few claws,
brass fittings, T's elbow, rust everywhere, bales of metal
1800 lbs., plumbing fixtures, bathtubs, sinks, water
pumps, wheels, Fordson tractor, acetylene lamps for
tractors, sewing machine, bell on dinghy, box of bolts (No.
1), van, stove, auto stuff (No. 2), army trucks, cast iron
body, hot dog stand, dinky engines, sprockets like watch
parts, hinge all taken apart on building side, motorcycle
radiators, George on the high army truck.
Try a list
Theme: splash
Tone: pride
Keep it short
Theme: without
Tone: inquisitive
Be a name dropper
Theme:
COLLECTIONS
Tone: assertive
Be a name dropper
Theme: bit by bit
Tone: provocative
Be a name dropper
Be a name
dropper
Theme: THINGS
LEFT UNSAID
Tone: thoughtful
Try 1st Person
(multiple)
Theme: I Go to Johnson
Tone: authoritative
Try a conversation
Theme:
En Route
Tone:
conversational
Try numbers
Theme:
It All Adds Up
Tone: reliable
Vary the length of sentences
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This sentence has five words. This is five words, too.
Five word sentences are fine. But several together
become monotonous. Listen to what is happening.
The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones.
It's like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.
Vary the length of sentences
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Now listen. I vary the sentence length and I create music.
Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a
harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of
medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the
reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of
considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and
builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the
drums, the crash of the symbols, and sounds that say listen
to this; it is important.
Gary Provost on the Rhythms of Sentence Length
Vary sentence length
Theme:
amplify
Tone: animated
Use repetition
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-Leo Buscaglia
thought
you'd hit me, but you didn't.
Experiment with:
repetition
repetition
Theme: ‘bout time
Tone: assertive
Experiment with:
parrallel structure
Use prepositional phrases as in
•
"History will show that he walked away with _____with
_____and with _____.”
or
•
"She walked down the _____through the _____ and across
the _____."
Try parallel structure
Consider an embedded message
Theme:
unforgettable
Tone:
1stperson inanimate object
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(continued)
Theme
Am I just a school?
I am senior square at lunch.
l am A-1O at test time.
I am Newman Field at kickoff.
I am the stage at curtain call.
Am l just a school?
I am six building sections A-F.
I am your teacher who helped you after school.
I am the step you broke your heel on at Homecoming.
I am what you have made me.
Am l just a school?
1stperson inanimate object
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(continued)
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I am six feet of green separating you from a birdie.
I am the three-point line at the buzzer.
I am fourth and goal and no time-outs.
I am a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded.
Am I just a game?
I am a grandma with a giant foam finger.
I am a watered-down cup of “The Thirst Quencher.”
I am two skinned knees and a bruised ego.
I am a double-fault at game point.
Am I just a game?
1stperson inanimate object
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(continued)
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I am a high-stepping, prime time trip to the end zone.
I am Air Ball, the grim specter of basketball death.
I am the inappropriate word that was worth the red card.
I am “RAMS!” on the count of three.
Am I just a game?
Do you know the depth of defeat?
Have you scaled the peaks of victory?
Am I just a game?
Go deep.
Ace the serve.
Swing for the fences
Sink the long one
Then you’ll know, you can tell me
Am I just a game?
1stperson inanimate object
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(continued)
Do you remember your finest hour?
Do you remember your worst?
Maybe you don’t.
I do.
So, am I just a school?
Cheer wildly.
Slap on the Ram bumper sticker.
Paint your faces blue.
Make me proud.
Then tell me, am I just a school?
Well, am I, friend?
Am I?
Theme
Alliteration
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All last year, anytime we asked about the new ABC schedule,
administrators gave us an artful answer, which left us anticipating
academic agony.
But when the buildings closed for summer break,
believers in this new set of ABCs broke the news that we’d be
battling the books for an extra hour. Built in
to the new schedule was a seventh period to break the
boundaries of boring academic basics.
Certainly, changes loomed ahead. Contact period
now came at noon instead of the close of the day, and classes
commenced an hour before the rooster crowed. Clearly, we were
learning a new set of ABC’s.
Onomatopoeia
AWFUL THEME COPY
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… How Often I saw Where I should be going,
Only By Setting Out For Somewhere Else.
Our four years of high school provide many opportunities to set out in various
directions. Bay High has established many programs so we may become familiar
with different areas. However, we are also given other alternatives. Everyone tries
at least one direction, wherever it may lead. By trying a particular direction, we are
able to develop an interest which may in turn lead to another area of interest, and
eventually direct us where we are destined to go.
We may take part in many activities: music, athletics, jobs, clubs, school work,
or just taking it easy. Many times these high school activities are group affairs, but
actually we are individually pursuing our own personal interests. Most of us are not
even near the end of our journey, and some of us have not yet begun. Difficulty in
finding the place where we are headed should not discourage us. We will have
to stop and do some serious thinking once in awhile when we have more than one
path available; and we may follow only one.
High school is just one of the legs in our journey to find out where we should
be headed. At the end of the year, we will continue our search in other directions.
Each one of us in his own way will explore the new dimensions discovered this
year together.
NO ONE WILL READ IT!
YOUR TURN
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What is your theme’s tone?
What voice will work with the tone?
What format will you use?
Brainstorm. Write a 1st draft. Read it to staff
members and have them offer suggestions.
Rewrite until it works.