As you may have realised, I TOTALLY
forgot it was my MiE blog today. (Bad writer, no biscuit!)
And forgetting something so important
reminded me of something I read a few years ago, in a book by Derren Brown called TRICKS
OF THE MIND, about dramatically improving your memory. Derren Brown, for
those of you who are not aware of him, is part illusionist, part psychologist,
and all showman. The Guardian newspaper
described him as, “Clearly the best dinner-party guest in history—he’s either a
balls-out con artist or the scariest man in Britain.” His various TV series
over here have dumbfounded and entertained in equal measure, and while the
knowing style of his book has taken a bit of getting used to, the information
contained in it is just fascinating.
And why is this relevant here? Because,
if I understand him correctly and extrapolate accordingly, fiction writers
should have the best memories ever. Elephants should be as fickle goldfish
compared to us lot.
Why? Because we exercise our imaginations
on a regular basis.
Ye-es, it foxed me to begin with, but
stick with me on this one, OK? And do give this a whirl. I tried the example in
the book and was amazed that it worked flawlessly.
You see, Brown claims that most people,
given a list of twenty disparate, unconnected words, can recall about seven
with any degree of accuracy. He gave such a list and suggested that you read it
through, and then try and jot down as many as you can recall, in the same
order. I took the liberty of substituting my own words. Or, rather, so I wasn’t
subconsciously picking words that I might find easy to remember, I asked
someone else to do provide the list for me. And here they are:
bicycle
cabriolet
fridge
rollercoaster
muckspreader
pincushion
blotter
hemlock
Shakespeare
thingamabob
nonagenarian
Rolex
Skyline
filter
cauliflower
grandfather
cuckoo
tortoise
carpet
blitzkrieg
So, having read through them, try and
write them down, in the same order they’re listed here. Please give this a try.
How did you do? If you got past seven, you’re Marvo the Memory Man and you
don’t need to read any further. Put it aside for a bit, and then try again,
without re-reading the list, but in reverse order this time. It’s a stumper,
isn’t it?
What you do, according to Brown’s book,
is create a link from one word to the next by producing an image that connects
the words. A vivid image, with smells and emotions attached to it. If the image
is of something that stinks, sniff it. If it’s funny, find it so.
The elements need to interact in some
way, and each little scene needs to be odd enough to be memorable. Some people,
apparently, don’t like visualisation and claim not to be very good at it, but
we’re writers, for heaven’s sake. We spend our days making stuff up—that’s what
we do.
So, here’s my own list of connections
between the above words:
bicycle/cabriolet
A group of Edwardians in striped blazers
and straw boater hats, riding along on their bicycles, very slow and stately,
but in case of rain they all have cabriolet tops they can raise over their
heads, with big curved hinges on the sides like an old-fashioned pram, and
tassels along the front.
cabriolet/fridge
A nice little VW Cabriolet, gleaming in
white, all colour-coded, and when you climb inside it’s still white like you’re
sitting in your fridge, with wire racks and dairy products on the shelves and a
light that comes on when you open the door. There’s a big bottle of milk
strapped to the passenger seat. The air con keeps it frosty cold.
fridge/rollercoaster
You open the door of your fridge and a
rollercoaster track unfurls out of the salad drawer, complete with screaming
passengers, and goes careering round the kitchen, making it impossible to sneak
down for a midnight snack without waking the entire street.
rollercoaster/muckspreader
The farmer next to the amusement park
hates the people who ride the rollercoaster making all that racket, so he
always drives his muckspreader along the hedge next to the bottom of the first
drop, and sprays them all with cow manure as they hurtle past. Particularly
nasty if you’ve got your mouth open as you go.
muckspreader/pincushion
Someone’s come up with a new way of
recycling cow manure, which instead of being scattered is reformed inside the
muckspreader into neat round pincushions, the size of pillows, which it
deposits in a neat orderly row as the farmer drives his tractor through the
local ladies’ sewing circle.
pincushion/blotter
The only trouble with the cowpat
pincushions is when you stick a pin in them they let out a great cloud of
stinking vapour and leak a nasty greeny fluid all over the place, which you
have to soak up by putting a blotter under the pincushion wherever you go.
blotter/hemlock
An ingenious murderess decides to soak
the blotter on her husband’s desk in hemlock, so he will be gradually poisoned
as the hemlock leaches out and into his hands whenever he works late into the
night.
hemlock/Shakespeare
The entire cast of a Shakespeare play
toast each other with hemlock-laced glasses of wine, thus dying tragically at
the end of the first act, not realising that the leading man is a method actor
who has genuinely dosed them all with real poison.
Shakespeare/thingamabob
Will Shakespeare finds himself
momentarily lost for words and invents a new one—thingamabob—which instantly
becomes all the rage in Elizabethan England. Queen Elizabeth instantly demands
he produce one, by royal command, and he has to cobble something together or
lose his head.
thingamabob/nonagenarian
Nonagenarian little old ladies can be
easily identified by the fact that they’re each followed about by a
thingamabob, which is a little bouncy, squeaky thing, like a cross between a Space
Hopper and a Tribble, which won’t leave them alone. There they all are in the
park, swatting at these troublesome thingamabobs with their umbrellas.
nonagenarian/Rolex
When anybody reaches the ripe old age of
90, their nonagenarian status is celebrated by awarding them a Rolex watch. The
only trouble is, it’s a big garish one, plastered with diamonds, and the
streets are filled with old folk dressed up in flashy watches and gold chains
like gangster rappers.
Rolex/Skyline
All Nissan Skyline sports cars comes with
a Rolex attached to the front of the bonnet so the driver can time themselves
as they lap the Nürburgring in Germany. It’s also used as a means of
handicapping the faster ones. The quicker you drive, the bigger watch you have
to have, thus not only increasing drag, but also preventing the driver from
seeing where they’re going, and slowing them down. At least they know exactly
what time they crashed.
Skyline/filter
As a party trick, someone drives their
Skyline around the inside of their filter coffee machine, like a wall of death.
Round and round they go, until they’re almost vertical up the sides, kicking up
great rooster tails of coffee grounds and leaving tyre tracks in the paper
filter.
filter/cauliflower
After heavy rain sluices cauliflowers
into the drains, you have to insert big filters to stop them clogging
everything up, otherwise they create the most awful stench of rotting
vegetation.
cauliflower/grandfather
When your grandfather gets on a bit and
loses his teeth, the only thing he can eat is mulched up very well-pureed
cauliflower, which you have to cook for him in giant vats until it goes grey,
and then put through a blender, at which point he packs it into his cheeks like
a hamster. Grandfathers only have to be fed once a week using this method.
grandfather/cuckoo
Grandfathers are not acquired in the
usual way, but introduced into the family nest like cuckoos, in the hopes that
they’ll be cared for like the other family members. Of course, grandfathers can
be bigger and more aggressive than other relatives, and often push them out of
the nest using their Zimmer frames.
cuckoo/tortoise
Swiss cuckoo clocks are using tortoises
instead of the more traditional birds to call the time. At the top of the hour
the doors open and a tortoise emerges, very, very slowly, on the end of a
spring. It can take these clocks several days to strike noon and midnight.
tortoise/carpet
To keep your tortoise warm in winter, you
cover his shell in carpet, preferably shag pile, so there’s all these tortoises
ambling about with multicoloured carpet stuck to their backs.
carpet/blitzkrieg
Brings a whole new meaning to carpet
bombing. There’s the archetypal RAF squadron leader with handlebar moustache
and flying helmet, piloting his bomber through flak-ridden skies over war-torn
Europe, waiting for his bombardier to give the word that he can release his
load of Axminster and Wilton. Once away, these rolls of carpet plummet through
the clouds in a lightning attack on the terrified populace.
I have to say that Derren Brown’s own
list—and the explanation of the links between the words—was probably much
better and far more amusing than my own. But you get the idea. If anyone can
come up with sillier or more vivid connections, please feel free. But let me
know how you get on. Isn’t it nice to know that this fertile imagination we
have can be put to other uses, isn’t it?
Oh, and before I forget, this week’s Word of the Week is zeroable, which is a word that is able
to be omitted from a sentence without any loss of meaning. I try to eliminate
all zeroable words at the copy-editing stage. Doesn’t always work, though …
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