Sunday, March 15, 2020

What We Dont Say

What We Dont Say We have opinions about so many things in our lives, but there are so many we dare not express aloud. For instance, these are sure to spark a conversation at a party: 1) Not liking Christmas.2) Not liking to read self-published books.3) Not liking Duck Dynasty.4) Not liking babies.5) Not liking marriage.6) Not liking gay marriage.7) Not liking Republicans (or Democrats).8) Not liking cats. Any one of those will have people verbally at each others throats in 2.3 seconds. So we keep our opinions to ourselves in a society thats supposed to be grounded in free speech. This is fertile ground for writing material. Magazine markets love having the common, acceptable way of thought turned on its ear somehow to make for a more intriguing feature piece. Novels become trendsetters when they take the etiquettely unspoken and elaborate keenly and obnoxiously on the subject. The common way of thought does not make for a bestseller. Yet we fear taking stands on controversial topics. However, you can take a subject, catch attention with it, and still come out on the other end not terribly unscathed. For instance: 1) You hate Christmas. However, what about a story that involves a bunch of Christmas-haters coming together? Makes for a good freelance piece, short story, or chapter in a book. 2) You hate reading self-published books. However, you can create a fabulous blog post or magazine piece on the specifics of what you disliked in, say, five self-pubbed books so that people realize that there are reasons so many self-pubbed books fall 3) You dont like Duck Dynasty. However, you can do an article talking about how your dislike for Duck Dynasty made you study why so many people from all levels of society still enjoy it? Whats the reason for such an anomaly? 4) You dont like babies. What a great piece about how society pushes people to live the standard family structure, and you show some very successful, happy, non-ba You get the picture. When a subject sparks debate, take notice. These are the subjects that command attention, and ultimately contracts and sales.