There’s a special magic when someone writes something based on an idea you shared with them.
That’s what happened when Debbie wrote about the ideas from my funny/vulnerable workshop.
Alex explained that this is called a “tilt” – it’s when things get interesting. We talked about tilts a lot; they’re a common feature of improv comedy. It’s when you’ve got an established scene (two people on a park bench, for example), and then one says something that “tilts” the scene into absurdity. Tilts can happen in writing even when it’s not humor writing, per se. They’re what turn the “boring and obvious” into something surprising and intriguing.
I liked this definition of tilts that Alex gave us:
When your energy or tone suddenly shifts — a tiny crack that shows something real, something weird, something surprising.
It is when the music gets faster.
Here’s her full unedited post which you can also read here:
Permission to be boring
so much depends
upona red wheel
barrowglazed with rain
waterbeside the white
chickens
At 13, I was obsessed with everything about these 16 words. Presented to us by my 7th grade teacher, they make up the poem The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams. I was completely captured by the poem—its arrangement on the page, its ability to conjure a clear-as-day image, and the mysterious meaning of “so much depends.” (Mr. Sears wasn’t half bad either.)
I was an introspective teenager and thought I understood… “so much” meant that everything depended on a moment of beauty; and that moment was more important than striving for success (I was always an A student), or fulfilling my parents’ wish for the kind of person I should be (I was “too shy”).
But now I see there’s more.
Ordinary is good
The ordinary can be special. Slow down, don’t blink or look away; you might miss it. When you’re writing about nothing special, about “nothing,” it can be… something. Williams’s poem isn’t really about anything beyond a moment of noticing, in a particular place… and the beauty of those simple words.
How to notice more in your own writing, while you’re writing, is something we learned (or at least tried to) in a ”funny but vulnerable” writing workshop with Alex Dobrenko.
Ostensibly, the workshop was about how to write “funny,” what Alex is known for. But it was really about a different way of writing: go slower, look between the cracks, develop a gentle self-awareness as you’re writing (different from letting your mean inner editor pipe up); look for the surprises and be sure to answer any “unanswered” questions which you might otherwise skip.
How to be boring and obvious
In the workshop Alex gave us a five-minute writing exercise: write something boring and obvious… don’t worry about where you’re going with it. It was hard; most of us started with something like:
I don’t know what to write. How do I write about something that’s boring and obvious. Is it boring and obvious to say that? etc.
But a number of our “boring” riffs turned into something… Substack celebrity Nikita Petrov , a fellow student in Alex’s workshop, wrote a Note about how swimming can be boring, but at “other times it’s a perfect harmonious flow of movement and breath and thoughts that come and go… I never know when or why it’ll feel more like the former (boring) or more like the latter.”
He continued, “I suppose the same is true about life in general. Sometimes I wake up, and it’s another fucking day to deal with. Other times, I wake up into an open-ended playground of a world…”
Nikita sounds literary describing the harmonious flow. But his tone, and the rhythm, switch when he says “another fucking day.” Then we’re right there with him, nodding, giggling; he’s punctured his careful explanation of swimming and surprised us.
Alex explained that this is called a “tilt” – it’s when things get interesting. We talked about tilts a lot; they’re a common feature of improv comedy. It’s when you’ve got an established scene (two people on a park bench, for example), and then one says something that “tilts” the scene into absurdity. Tilts can happen in writing even when it’s not humor writing, per se. They’re what turn the “boring and obvious” into something surprising and intriguing.
I liked this definition of tilts that Alex gave us:
When your energy or tone suddenly shifts — a tiny crack that shows something real, something weird, something surprising.
It is when the music gets faster.
Looking for my own tilts
Writing about The Red Wheelbarrow, I stumbled upon one: I think my seventh grade English teacher had a thing for me. I figured it out later when I was a freshman in college and he sent me a postcard saying he had a “sneaker” for me. I was astonished and puzzled over the card, but finally someone explained that it means a secret crush. I remembered him as a clean cut guy, hair swept back. All the girls tittered1 over him.
But mostly I remembered the red wheelbarrow and how much I loved the poem. Which I guess is why I also had a little crush on Mr. Sears, because it felt like he understood me. Nothing ever happened after the card.
Another tilt revealed itself when I posted this Note. Here’s an excerpt:
“I’ve been writing about my current sex life and lamenting how my libido is not like it was in my “hot” youth. That’s either way too private, or it’s boring and obvious. But for me, it feels like a huge thing… “
Alex saw the note and replied that, for him, “That’s either way too private, or it’s boring and obvious” was a tilt:
“Because of how different in tone it was to the sentence before (which is v honest) and after (which is vulnerable),” he explained. “Hidden in that line is a key to understanding WHY you’re maybe judging all of this writing and how you actually feel about it (the writing and the topics the writing is about).”
Wow. A lot to think about. The biggest message for me is that I went tripping right by a sentence that had a lot more in it than I realized. Why am I writing about stuff that’s private? Why am I doubting that my “private” life is interesting? The usual reasons: to try and be open about a topic that’s not discussed enough in [b]old age; but, still, to doubt whether it’s a worthy subject. To answer Alex, maybe it comes back to the central conundrum of memoir: how and why is my little experience also a universal experience?
Okay, so that’s maybe a bit too meta: writing about writing that’s about writing.
Wait, what was my topic today?
It was about a moment of noticing, finding beauty in what’s simple, letting writing be “boring,” and the pleasure of playing around with words. What else? A secret crush that goes nowhere? A tilt that never rights itself? Or, maybe just an exploration with no real end.
Be sure to check out
if you’re not already a fan. I bet he’ll offer another writing workshop.
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