Creative Rhetoric Scenario

Alice's Creative Rhetoric Scenario

[ Introduction | Dialogue | Analysis ]

Introduction & Background

Who Is My Dialogue Partner and Why Did I Choose Him?

Contestant, Please State Your Name for the Viewers at Home

My dialogue partner is Joseph, and he's the youngest brother of my best friend, Margaret (whom everybody calls Mar). Joseph is 15, and I've known him since he was nine years old. He has Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) really bad now that he's a teenager, but he's really smart as well, so there are times (even off his medication) that he seems to have these little sparks of brilliance when you're talking to him. He'll state something or ask something so off-kilter that you have to take a minute to process what he said and then use it in the conversation.

A Little Tidbit of Relationship Background

He's also something of a con-artist, because he can finagle his way out of doing chores like a magician gets the lovely assistant to disappear out of the magic box. I'm one of the few people who calls him on his con-artist stuff, and he respects me for that. He refers to me as if I was just another older sibling, and insists on calling me Al. He hasn't called me Alice in two years, to my recollection, and I only call him Joseph if he's been off his meds for too long and he's irking me beyond all reason. I usually call him Joe, or Kiddo if I'm feeling benevolent.

Speech Patterns, Though Processes, and Dialogue Compatibility

I chose Joe because of how random he is when he talks. I've started a conversation with him about video games, and in the middle was trying to explain why high school girls wear too much makeup, and finished the conversation by talking about the differences between Marx and Lenin when it came to communism, with the promise to lend him one of my textbooks from a previous social studies class so he could read more about it...all in the course of a car ride through the backroads from Ann Arbor to Whitmore Lake, which takes about 25 to 35 minutes. I also chose Joe because I've been around him long enough to get his speech pattern down, so he's easier as a character to write, which is important in any dialogue. All in all, Joe is basically the perfect real-world person to make into a puppet for this particular exercise.

Dialogue: Talking with Joe

In which we discuss Homework, Aliens, Mae West, Rhetoric, and A Shakespearian Sonnet.

"Hey Al."

"Hey Joe...are you actually doing your homework?"

"Hey, shut up, I do my homework...sometimes."

"Sure you do, Kiddo. What subject are you on?"

"English. I gotta write a paper on this thing we read this mornin'."

"You mean you must write a paper on the subject matter you covered during English class this morning."

Slight pause to roll his eyes "You are ''such'' an English major."

"Thanks, I'm glad you noticed. So what was the subject matter you covered in English today?"

"We're going into some lame poetry stuff. It's all girly and stuff, so of course all the guys hate it and the girls love it."

"Naturally. Whose poetry did you cover?"

"We did some of Shakespeare's sonnet thingies; those are hard to understand 'cause they're in like, ancient English."

"Actually, William Shakespeare is considered a modern writer, due to the time frame in which he wrote. And the term you're looking for is 'Old English', not 'Ancient English', Joe."

"Why are you so smart about this stuff? Why do you even like it?"

"Well, you said yourself that poetry is 'all girly and stuff'; last time I checked, I am a girl...and I have no idea what the 'and stuff' alludes to, so I'm just going to ignore that part. As for why I like it...I think words are beautiful."

"...You're really a space alien who came to conquer Earth for the mothership, but then got distracted by how much there was to read, right?"

"What a silly question, Joe; you know I can't conquer Earth until the others arrive to fix my planet inhabitant annihilator. Now, which sonnets did you read?"

"This one about how he's callin' the girl ugly but meaning she's pretty."

"I know that one."

"Of course you do, so what does it mean?"

"Well, you actually gave an almost right description of it, Kiddo. He's comparing her to things that many poets would proclaim their love more beautiful than, but instead of saying she's prettier, he's doing the opposite, but in the end he's saying she's more beautiful than any of the women who were written about so ridiculously by the poets trying to woo them...and why are you laughing?"

"You said 'woo'. It's a funny word."

"Kiddo, please tell me you're on your meds tonight while you're doing your homework."

"I am on my meds! 'Woo' is just a funny word. Say it. Woo. WOO!"

"Oh criminey, Joe, only you would laugh at the word 'woo'."

"But it's funny! Not, like, rhetorical statement funny, just word funny."

"...Ooo-kay, you're going to have to explain that."

"What, 'woo' being a funny word?"

"No, I mean what rhetorical statements are funny?"

"Oh, that. Well, classic stuff like 'Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?'; isn't that rhetorical?"

Long pause while I try to get my eyebrows from escaping into my hairline due to shock "...Actually, that's a quote from a really famous and old movie actress named Mae West, as well as being a rather crude reference to male anatomy. I suggest you don't say that particular phrase...well, ever again, because I think you just gave me a reason to bleach my brain so I forget you even said it. Also, the construction of that phrase was more of what is commonly referred to as a rhetorical question, rather than a statement."

"What's the difference?"

"You should know what the difference is between a question and a statement by now, Kiddo."

"No, I meant how is a rhetorical statement differenet from a rhetorical question, since you can't really answer either of them 'cause they're rhetoric?"

"Joe, a rhetorical question is one that has an obvious wrong answer and right answer given to you, so you don't need to answer it because the answer is staring you boldly in the face and the inquistor knows it. A rhetorical statement is one that persuades the listener or reader to acknowledge the possibility that there are alternatives to what he or she might have thought was originally possible."

"And you know all this because...?"

"I'm a Philosophy minor and an English major, Kiddo; rhetoric is part of my everyday life."

"How does Philosophy go with rhetoric?"

"Rhetoric was a form of speaking used in Philosophy, and also in the law courts in ancient times, when there were no lawyers and everybody had to represent himself in court. Rhetoric was a persuasive style of delivery that helped people win cases, and also helped quite a few philosophers deliver their lessons to their students so that complicated matters could be understood easily. Over time, speaking rhetoric turned into written rhetoric, which has transposed itself into how we write today. That includes everything from the business emails I send at work, to the paper you're trying to write for you English class."

"How am I persuading my teacher by writing this paper?"

"You're trying to get her to see how you view these poems, right? That's a form of persuasion."

"Oh." looks at me, frowning a little "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Get me to learn extra stuff by just talkin' to me, and you don't try to lecture me or nothin', you just teach...and that's kinda weird."

"I distract you with something interesting and then ambush you with some related topic that's close enough to keep your interest so you pay attention. I can't believe you haven't figured that out sooner; I've been giving you college level information for years."

"Al, you have to be an alien."

"Have I ever said that I wasn't?" cheeky grin "Plus, you're helping hone my 'sneaking up on unsuspecting Earthlings and then ambushing them' skills. The Mothership will pay you in video games once we have brought your planet's civilization to it's knees."

Laughs at my bad joke "Awesome; can I have any console I want too?"

"Sure, Kiddo, but I doubt you'll want these silly Earth trinkets once you see the game rooms on the spaceships...once they figure out I'm done shopping for books and start the invasion, anyway."

"And how long is that going to take?" suppressing laughter as best he can

"Well, I'm not quite done collecting pieces of literature I think are significant..."

Slightly whiny voice, showing impatience "Al..."

"About ten more years or so. If your planet took interstellar credits, I could have done all my shopping in about two weeks, but no, you have your silly monetary systems and I'm posing as a poor college student, so I have to work to get all my book money!"

"Ya know, this is just a thought, but it probably wouldn't be takin' you so long if you stopped buyin' anime."

"Well Mr. Pot, that would be great advise to take if I didn't know for a fact that you spend money buying video games and then bemoan the fact that you can't afford an mp3 player...but that is just Miss Kettle's opinion."

"...Huh?"

"Variation of the pot calling the kettle black, Kiddo."

"...Huh?"

I roll my eyes at him "A form of expression where I tell you to take your own advice because you have the same problem, Joe."

"Oh...but it takes forever to get that much money for an iPod, and all these cool games are coming out, and I can never wait that long!"

"Joe, for a standard, small mp3 player, it costs the equivalent of maybe 3 or 4 of your new PS2 games. Think about that. If you want one of the new players that has the ability to play movies, well that's another 5 or 6 games. And really, what has ever kept you from renting the games when they come out? It's cheaper and you can actually figure out if you like the games before you blow your money on buying them."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." starts working on his homework again "Thanks for the tip, Al."

"You're welcome, and have a good night, Kiddo; I gotta go talk to your mom about work." gets up to leave stops by the door, and smiles "And Joe?"

"Yeah?"

"Think about how I just persuaded you about the video games using rhetoric, and then think about how you can persuade others to see things from a different angle while you finish your paper, 'kay?" I snicker loudly as I exit the room, waiting for...

"...Hey! That was sneaky! Stop teachin' me stuff, alien!"

mission accomplished; returning back to base

Analysis: How ADD Can Work For or Against You

or, Be Sure the Subject is on His/Her Meds While Having This Kind of Conversation.

The First Step: Picking A Partner for the Dialogue

The very first thing I knew when I heard about this particular exercise was that I had to write a dialogue with Joe, because I thought it would be fun to write for somebody with his personality quirks. I've done dialogues for short stories and such before, and I've always loved to write for people with a little more personality than most, or people who have quirks. Joe's just about the quirkiest kid I know, and smart enough to grasp any sort of discussion like this, so I knew I could make it believable.

Dialogue Writing Technique

The one thing I do about dialogue is I basically just start out simply and then continue until I either get stuck or I finish the dialogue. The great thing about Joe is that I've known him long enough so that imitating his speech style and bizarre jumps of logic from topic to topic could sound believable.

Draft Development, Road Blocks, & The Question

In my first draft, I set up the story, but I came to a road block; should I write Joe on his meds or not? I posted before I could decide, and basically had the intro set up. Then I took a gamble with my writing skills and tried to write Joe off of his meds. It went disasterously, and it was so horrific that I decided to delete it rather than save it in any form. Joe on his meds is random enough, but Joe off of his meds is a horror when trying to create a conversation, which I was forcibly reminded of when I was over that the house he lives in to visit his older sister Margaret that weekend, and he was off his meds and making hardly any sense at all because his logic was too hard to follow when it came to topic jumps. So I decided to write Joe on his meds and have this conversation with him, about the basics of rhetoric and what it is.

Summary of Dialogue, Part One

The whole of the story starts off with me visiting Joe's house and finding him actually doing his homework, which is a pretty novel concept when it comes to Joe. The reason I'm at his house is because I wanted to talk business with Joe's mom, who happens to be my boss; this explanation, however, is near the end of the dialogue, because it's just a tidbit of information and not necessary for the topic at hand. Joe is doing a paper on a few Shakespearean sonnets, which I immediately realize he needs a bit of help on, considering he bluntly asks me to explain one to him. The interesting part about this instance is that he gives a pretty good (though too short) answer for his question before he even asks me the said question. This leads to me giving a slightly more detailed explanation. I use a word he thinks is funny, and starts laughing at it while I basically do the older sister thing and roll my eyes at him, waiting for him to focus again. This is when he says that the word is funny, but not as funny as rhetorical statements. This both confuses me and intrigues me, so I ask him to explain. This is when I learn that 1) Joe has been watching old programming on TV that deals with Hollywood legends from the start of the 1900s, and 2) Joe doesn't realize that rhetorical questions (not statements, as he refered to them as) and crude humor are not the same thing. This is also where I should state that Joe did in fact ask us if the famous Mae West quote was a rhetorical question or not when he was 13, and I will never, ever forget it, nor have enough bleach available to wash my brain in to make myself forget it.

Summary of Dialogue, Part Two, Plus an Explanation of Speech Patterns, Inside Jokes, and Other Relationship Things

Once I fill him in on the differences of what is a rhetorical question and what is crude humor, and then give him a basic definition of rhetorical questions and rhetoric in general, we seem to go on to other topics. Here I feel the need to explain some things. When I talk to anybody in Joe's family (including the parental units, because they're cool), it is with an air of sarcasm mixed with a pinch of love, because they've basically adopted me as an extra kid. We do a lot of good-natured teasing, and sarcasm is an effective tool in this. Joe was taught sarcasm early on, and now he can snark with the best of us. Also, everybody in the house has their private jokes with everybody else in the house. Mar and I have inside jokes, Mar and Joe have inside jokes, and Joe and I have inside jokes. The most prevalent one to this conversation is that I'm an alien sent to take over the world, but I keep getting distracted by things. To this point, Joe hasn't called me anything other than Al (which can be short for either Alice or Alien) for about two years. I call him Kiddo, because he's nine years younger than myself, and as the "youngest brother" I'm ever gonna have, I had to have a silly nickname for him.

Summary of Dialogue, Part Three

Even though we're onto other topics, I still like to slip an extra lesson in somehow, so I use persuasive rhetoric to convince him to not buy video games and save his money for an iPod...and then tell him to think about how I went about convincing him to do so, and then trying to apply that kind of persuasive rhetoric to his paper. He hates it when I sneak attack his brain while he's interested in a topic, and teach him things when he doesn't realize it. When I say in the dialogue that I've been teaching him college level information without him realizing it, that part is true.

How the Final Draft of this Dialogue Came into Being

The final draft that I'm going with took about an hour and a half to type and an additional hour to edit so that Joe's parts sounded like Joe, mainly because I had to read it all aloud and then rearrange the words so it sounded more like his speech pattern instead of my own. I thought about what I wanted to say and then just typed it all out in dialogue format in one go of inspiration. Dialogue should flow, and if I had stopped every couple of lines and worried about if it looked right, I would have lost my discussion thread and been lost. That is why I love doing entire stories in dialogue, because everything moves as fast as one can talk (or read, if it's a written dialogue such as the one above).