  Drama
This week: Argumentatively Speaking err Yelling Edited by: fyn  
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A handful of soldiers is always better than a mouthful of arguments.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.
Miguel de Unamuno
Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions.
Booth Tarkington
Arguments, like children, should be like the subject that begets them.
Thomas Dekker
Be able to defend your arguments in a rational way. Otherwise, all you have is an opinion.
Marilyn vos Savant
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I was at the store the other day and I saw a mom, dad and their three children,( all of whom were under the age of six.) Picture this: one child in the seat of the shopping cart, one inside and one hanging off the end. Mom and dad standing in the candy aisle (of all places) having an argument. Their voices weren't merely raised, they were flat out yelling at each other over something to do with his having to come shopping with her because he stayed out too late the night before. Red faces, strained vocal cords and two adults (presumably) screeching and swearing over each other. The kids meanwhile were taking the candy that big sis on the end of the cart reached for, opening it, and happily mowing down while their parents were too self absorbed to even notice what they were doing. Sadly, the kids didn't seem at all upset by the noise and anger, they were blissfully ignoring them. The other shoppers were less amused and finally a manager appeared. At least three different customers offered to pay for the candy the kids had eaten.
While it was difficult to understand what the parents were screaming at each other, what was easy to hear was the fact that neither heard a word the other said, nor did either one care in the slightest. It was an 'I can yell louder than you can yell' screamfest. The whole episode was pointless, moot and embarrassing. I felt horrible for the kids who stayed smiling throughout.
Maybe it was a bad day to go shopping. Two stores later, another couple was fighting out in the parking lot because he just stood there while she wrestled the twenty-five pound bags of dog and cat food into the truck. The fight seemed to come down to, "If you want the 'bleeping' animals, you get the food in the truck, I won't." Answered of course with something to the effect of, "Some big man you are."
I pull into the driveway thinking how glad i am that after almost six years together, hubby and i have never had anything resembling what i had seen earlier, when I hear our neighbors next door having it out in the house. The car windows were closed, as were their house windows. They got high points for diction as i could understand every single swearing word of it. By the time i got out of the car, hubby had come outside to see what the ruckus was about; he'd been at the other end of the house and he doesn't hear as well as he used to! Neighbors both across the street and further down the block were now coming outside as well. It didn't sound violent; just incredibly loud. She'd blown money on something he hadn't known about and now he didn't have money to go out with his buddies. Then their teenaged girls jumped into the fray; one screaming at mom, the other at dad. Sad thing is, their language was no better than the parents. I guess the neighbors behind them called the police because they showed up moments later and things calmed down.
Maybe the moon was full or something.
But I got to thinking about it later as I was trying to write a scene where three people were having an argument that was to end up with one of the people walking out and leaving home for good. It didn't hold a candle to the fights earlier in the day. It didn't feel real to me. It felt forced. Yet the characters certainly had something worth fighting about and, more so, for. The descriptions of how they looked and acted was easy, but the words were the difficult part. I finally figured it out; my arguments needed to make sense to me and to the characters, unlike what I'd witnessed earlier. (Although I'm sure all involved thought they did at the time.) I needed to find a balance between what a written was like and what a verbal argument is.
Finally I asked my hubby for some help. I gave him the scenario, asked him to take one of the parts and, given what the character needed to accomplish, just act it out with me. It took a few tries, because it was really hard to fight with tears of laughter streaming down our faces. But eventually we got into the mode. Voices raised. At one point we were yelling at each other. Part of my brain was focused on the task at hand, the rest was trying to remember what was said, because my hubby threw some awesome arguments into the mix i hadn't thought of that would work really well.
Next thing you know, our next door neighbor (other side from the fighting ones earlier) was in the dining room 'breaking' up the fight. Poor neighbor. Hubby and I absolutely dissolved into tears. I have never laughed longer and harder ever! So did the neighbor when he figured out what was really going on. He said that he'd been amazed to hear us going at it because we never fight and he was afraid something was terribly wrong. Guess we hadn't realized just how much we'd gotten into the scene .It was interesting,later, we both felt pretty good. Hubby wanted to know if we still got to 'make-up' even though it was a pretend fight. I quickly jotted down a few notes and decided the writing could wait until the next day.
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NickiD89  wrote: I loved your examples of how different musical sounds would provide drastically different clues about what's about to happen in a scene. Your insights never cease to inspire me!
A.T.B: It'sWhatWeDo  sounds off: Wonderful NL as usual, Fyn. My iTunes is packed with playlists that accompany individual projects I'm working on, and it's perfectly fitting to realize nearly everything I've written has at least some reference to music in it. Really is a soundtrack to the work, isn't it?
{user;bonniemarie} says: Loved this newsletter, was thinking about a piece of music for a story, this has given me the help I needed and green light to go!
Thank you... :)
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Drama: November 08, 2011 Issue [#4707]
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