A Comment Misconstrued

By Christine Thackeray

Sometimes life is funnier than fiction. The other night our family had one of those laugh-so-hard-you-pee-in-your-pants moments. Here's what happened.

My daughter Anna went to a group job interview at Old Navy. About eight girls, mostly college students, were sitting in a row and asked a number of questions by the hiring manager. My daughter was feeling guilty for being the first to answer most of them so she vowed on the next question she wouldn't answer.
The hiring manager said, "I'd like you to sell me the clothes you're wearing, as if they are on a mannequin."
No one answered right away and then one stylish girl stood with her hand raised. "I'll do it."
The manager nodded and so the girl struck a pose with a hand on her hip, her chin in the air and the other hand in front of her with the palm raised and froze. Everyone waited.
After a few seconds, the manager said, "Okay, now sell me."
So the girl struck another dramatic pose and froze again.
Trying not to embarrass her, the manager prodded, "Can you do something else?"
Breaking from her stance, she asked, "Would you like me to walk, too?"
I remember reading The Comic Toolbox that proposed much of our humor comes from a feeling of relief that it's not me. It's the reason we laugh when we see someone slip and fall in Funniest Home Videos. The humor for me lies in the fact that it was such an understandable mistake. The only difference is that I doubt I wouldn't have questioned why anyone would want me to act like a mannequin in retail sales. Apparently, this girl never paused- just went at it full boar.

So my challenge is to use this concept somewhere in your WIP. I'm going to try. I suppose when you dumb it down, it's just stupid humor like Amelia Bedelia or Patrick on SpongeBob Square Pants where they either don't listen or take something over-the-top literally.

But a comment misconstrued could be used much more cleverly. A misplaced or dangling modifier could lead to a wide variety of plot points other a simple laugh. It could detour your character into danger, help him find unexpected love or have him be blamed for a crime he didn't commit. I'm facing a new scene where my MC has to be blamed for something he didn't do. I'll write in the comments how a comment misconstrued plays into it.

Fun and funny! Wow.

Introducing Christine Thackeray

I suppose I've always been an intellectual nomad, fascinated by the smorgasbord of life but never really willing to stay in one facet of it (which isn't that intelligent in the first place.) In college I shifted majors from pre-med to accounting to art to marketing and business. After serving a mission in London I looked at my transcript and realized that I had enough credits to graduate in English. Looking back on it, my love of language has been the one constant in my education.

Since I was little I have loved reading. I'm a voracious reader, usually finishing a book in a single sitting. When my children were young, that was great, but now I'm more careful about starting a book because once it's in my grubby paws, it'll be read in its entirety, usually late into the night at the expense of dishes and laundry.

A few years ago when my youngest son began kindergarten, I was thrilled to think about spending my time doing something meaty. I've always believed you can do it all- just not all at the same time. So when we moved to Portland, I landed a job at the local university that would offer me free tuition for their doctoral program in Psychology. I was thrilled and ready to start the following weekend when I went to the temple and felt black inside. After discussing it with my husband I called the school and turned down my dream job. In the next few weeks I went up to my sister's house in Seattle to lick my wounds. While there she discussed a manuscript she had been working on and asked me to look at it. I took it home and saw some improvements in structure and before long we submitted it, and it was accepted for publication.

Then Cedar Fort asked if I had any other manuscripts, and I sent them "Crayon Messages", a story I wrote based on a very difficult visiting teaching assignment I had. (I'm actually a little embarrassed by my first book. At the time I had no clue about head hopping, a writer's necessary aversion to anything ending in -ly or the bane of favorite non-words that clutter a story with empty drivel, but I promise you I am improving.) Anyway, they published that as well and asked my sister and I to co-author another book on C.S. Lewis. These events have started me on a whole new journey.

For now, I have a gift book coming out next mother's day called "Could You be an Angel?" and am in the third (and I hope last) complete rewrite of my next Visiting Teaching Adventure (it was too long, then too flat- third time's a charm, right?) I have a book being considered by another publisher and have begun research for a six book historical series that I'm thrilled about. I suppose like Anthony Trollope I've tasted "the addictive excitement of novel writing" and it is a great joy in my life.

But I couldn't end without specifying that I'm a mother first. I have seven fabulous living children, one celestial baby and the most patient husband known to man. Three of my boys are Eagle scouts, one is a returned missionary, one is currently on a mission in Albania and another will be leaving at the end of the summer. My four children at home still keep me plenty busy, along with doing cub scouts and being Enrichment Leader. Oh, and we have a puppy that chews on everything in sight including our old one-eared cat.

Lately, I've come to look at my writing as an incredible hobby that fills the quiet part of my days (too often spilling over into every other minute until I squish it back into its proper place.) Still, I like to look at my writing as quilting with words. It's a good thing I know a lot of quilters as obsessed as I am.