Throw a Delicious Tantrum

In which I pitch a fit, and so do you.

Welcome to the second installment of our new feature: No, Seriously, Just Try It. For background on all this fun, click here.

I got to pitch a fit this week. Aren't they delicious sometimes? I mean, most of the time in the world, we go along, acting all mature (well, most of the time, er, oh, and this too, heh heh) and trying to teach children not to have tantrums and to be fair to others and blah blah BLAH. The fact is, we all have tempers. We can control them, of course. But every once in a while it's so good to blow your top, isn't it? Yum.

On the other hand... you may also know that I used to be a teacher. I never ever flipped my lid while teaching. In fact, I was remarkably unflappable, I have been told. I was talking with some second graders one day and one of them complained that her teacher had yelled at her class. One of my students said, "Oh, Ms. Jacqui doesn't yell." I was so proud. Then he went on. "She whispers. It's much scarier."

He was right. As fun as it is to go postal,* sometimes it's much more effective to go small. To whisper, to refuse to answer the questions, to drop a silence so hard on someone she can hear your blood boiling. Sometimes, it's better to say as little as possible, and to let the listener (or reader) fill in the rest.

Here is your challenge for this week: try it both ways. Take a scene on which you are working and write it twice. In the first, have a character totally lose it, over the top, let it all out melodrama. It doesn't have to be anger or rage; if it's a confession scene, make her tell it ALL. If she's finally expressing her lurve for someone, give her a soap opera star worthy speech.

Then, put that version aside and make her do it again much much smaller. Whispers, not letting anything out, the minimal possible dialogue she needs to keep things moving.

The final version will probably be somewhere in the middle, but I'm always surprised by what my characters say when I let them lose it, and by what they do in the face of the silent treatment.

No, seriously. Just try it. And come back and tell us how it went.

* And to think of fun ways to say it. Does "go postal" offend postal workers, I wonder? I mean no offense; it's just so descriptive. But if it hurts my mailman's feelings I'll stop using it.