Page 6 - Write Away Magazine April
P. 6
ave you ever sat down in a hazardous to all the drivers. This was a
restaurant, and over heard a higher speed highway, and near dusk which
Hconversation coming from a nearby made it even more dangerous. The heifer was
table? Some of those conversations can be not cooperating, and did not want
between two or more people who are trying anything to do with anyone trying to control
to ONE UP one another. Though some of the its movements. I immediately got all the
stories may be true, the longer the information I needed to warn opposing traffic
conversation continues, it will become of the impending dangers. I called out over
obvious of embellishments. Some of these the citizen band radio with the dire warnings.
embellishments can be very entertaining, “Breaker breaker 1-9, be on the look out for
especially if they are plausible.I find it funny a big black heifer on the 101, mile marker 69.
when all participants of a conversation are She is running loose. She is running around
telling whopper lies in an effort to impress trying to mess up your ride. She is about 500
the others. I am sure we all know someone pounds of mess up your grill, if you cannot
who does this. Its like a competition to be avoid her. She has a bunch of people chasing
the bravest, biggest, most absurd, ridiculous, after her, but it is obvious at this point she
stunning, “You will not believe what does not want to be caught, and tied down.
happened to me”, and unusual story they If you meet up with her, she most certainly
could imagine. will cost you some serious money.” Lots of
laughter came back across the radio, as it did
Sometimes I encourage them to keep going not seem like I was telling the truth, though
just for the entertainment value of it all. Most I was. Had I changed a few select words, and
of the time when someone is telling a omitted a few direct details, it may have been
whopper of a story, if the story is untrue, more believable. Maybe if I merely stated
while in a conversation people tend to add the cow was up ahead of them instead of the
too much detail as if that specific detail will actual mile marker.
add validity to the story.
A good story should be believable to capture
Extreme details in a lyric can be good, while the vast majority of your listeners. It does not
extreme detail in a conversation is not. Why? matter if the story is true, or the characters
Sometimes the story being told is true, but are true. It must be plausible or believable,
the person telling the story is too excited or obvious it is fictitious. It’s like telling a
about telling the story that important details good joke. Everything before the punch line
are left out, leaving the listener with should draw in the listener, while the punch
questions. line of the joke is the gratification portion,
it is comparable to the hook portion of your
One day, I was traveling down highway 101, lyric. If you tell a story that is not believed,
when I noticed people on the other side of they may see you as the joke.Do not be a joke.
the highway herding something. It turned
out to be a big black cow. A large heifer at Written by Daryn Wright
that. It was running in and out of traffic on www.darynwright.com
the four-lane highway, and making it quite www.reverbnation.com/
06 www.writeawaymagazine.co.uk
