0 Filtering Blue Oxen

My writing instructor posts video lectures every week. They're brief but well done. So far most of what he's covered is not new to me. I didn't take this class looking so much for lessons in how to write as opportunities to exercise some atrophied muscles. But he did touch on something during one of his lectures that I am guilty of and if I get nothing else out of the rest of the course (and of course I will) this will be worth the time I invested in it.




He addressed "filtering" which means to describe all surroundings and events through the POV of the MC. There's a place and a time for this, but doing it too much weakens the effect. For example: 




He looked out the window and realized that there was a blue ox stood in his drive way. He was sure it was not there a moment before.  His coffee flew everywhere as he jumped backwards in surprise. Now he'd never get to read that paper, which was a shame because the headline would have explained the ox. 




vs




He looked out the window.  A blue Ox stood in his driveway;  one that wasn't there a moment before.  Odd thing about blue oxen; no one ever expects them. He yelled and jumped backwards. His cup flew from his hands, coffee fleeing the scene like it will when startled--down his front, into his lap, across the table, and onto the morning newspaper he hadn't read yet and now probably never would. Which was a shame because the headline would have explained the ox.  




Notice the stark difference? I did. Filtering weakens the effect of the image. And yes, I got excited about the second para. Excuse me. 




This week we learned about the power of metaphors and had to do an exercise that involved a list of intangible and tangibles words (love, park bench, jealousy, video games . . . ) that we were required to make similes with. We were then supposed to use our best metaphor and extend it by a sentence or two.  Using a prefab list is harder than you might think (it's a little like Scrabble).  I wrote a lot of weak ones that brought to mind greeting cards and I'm still not happy with the final results (sentimental fluffy tripe). Still--it could be worse (and was): 





Love is a park bench—where we sit and watch others who are hurrying past to all the places we all have to go—to the office to work late again because our boss believes in hiring martyrs; to the store to buy the only food the damn cat will eat; home to answer emails, to pretend we didn’t get that phone call from our great aunt, and eat our leftover ravioli in front of the TV. And those of us on the park bench (in love) feel sorry for them because we beat them to the best seat in the park—and while we still have to go all those places and do all those things when we get up, we won’t have to do them alone anymore.