Writing Right with Dmitri: How Not to Write like Snuffles the Dog
Created | Updated Jun 1, 2020
Writing Right with Dmitri: How Not to Write like Snuffles the Dog
Before I start, please watch this 26-second video. I'll explain why in a minute.
Saw it? Okay.
That cartoon dog is Snuffles. Snuffles loves dog biscuits. He adores dog biscuits. He is the #1 dog-biscuit fan in the whole universe. If you feed him a dog biscuit, he hugs himself with glee. Then he rises to the ceiling in a transport of dog-biscuit-induced joy, exclaims 'ah!', and floats gently down again. This happens every time.
This cartoon clip demonstrates two things: why I hate most cartoons, and what involuntarily springs to mind every time I happen upon an online discussion between two Diehard Fans of anything.
These Diehard Fans could be talking about marmite. Or action films. Or a rock band. Or a children's show. Or Doctor Who. It doesn't matter what it is. After a couple of posts I see and hear Snuffles in my head.
Back in the late 90s, there was a group of people in Princeton, New Jersey called the Prydonians of Princeton. They were mostly Princeton University students. They weren't obsessive about it. They just liked Doctor Who enough to nag the local PBS station into showing it. The old Doctor Who, the new one hadn't been thought of yet. We were still reading those Virgin novelisations and watching Tom Baker on the PBS station out of Princeton, natch. I even got their newsletter, which asked questions like, 'Would you like to live in a universe where The Doctor was real, or do you prefer to watch him on television?' Surprisingly many preferred the television option.
Not once in all that time did I think of Snuffles. I wonder why that was? Not even when the president of the club went on PBS for their fund drive wearing a 20-foot scarf his wife knitted. Not even then.
See, their love for their nerd-subject was inclusive. It drew in, rather than shut out. They were good at sharing the fun. If I hadn't already seen Doctor Who in Europe, I'd have wanted to find out what the fuss was all about.
He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in!
– Edwin Markham
The problem is that our fan obsessions and whatnot tend to bleed into our writing. We tend to write about what we like, and assume everyone else likes it, too. We also assume that if we wax lyrical about this thing we love, everyone who reads it will be edified. This, alas, is not so. We readers may not be eating the same brand of dog biscuits.
Friends, do not ever read a social media thread about chocolate. Just…don't. I like chocolate as much as the next person, unless the next person associates eating it with words like 'sumptuous'.. Or says 'it's better than sex.'
There are people who will talk about this edible substance in a way that will make you blush. Seriously. There's a h2g2er I dearly love who will do the same thing on Twitter about football.
I can no more share your enthusiasm for football than I can experience within myself the appetite of a bunny rabbit. I mean, I can tell by looking that Mr Bun much prefers clover and young dandelion to other kinds of grass. But to look at a patch of clover and salivate requires a different set of genes, or the shapeshifting talent I haven't managed to perfect yet.
But, as the bioresearcher once wrote, 'Everything is interesting, and everything alive is endearing.' That goes for bunny rabbits and football fans and people who eat marmite. And it goes for whatever you want to tell your readers about.
The trick, friends, is to make it sound interesting. You cannot make it sound interesting by acting like Snuffles. All Snuffles can do is make you laugh at his all-consuming enjoyment of his favourite treat. What you want to do as a writer is share the joy, spread its contagion. So share, already.
Find out what is interesting about marmite to someone who's never tasted it, and is unlikely ever to do so.
Marmite: Britons either love it or hate it. 97% have heard of it. According to a recent poll, 47% regard it positively. The older they are, the more likely they are to enjoy it. The spread enjoys highest positivity ratings among British Baby Boomers.
Oddly, this yeast extract food spread was invented by…a German. In the early 20th Century, this beer-brewing byproduct (say that five times fast) was prized for its vitamin-containing goodness. It was taken to ward off malaria and fight anemia.
In more modern times, the words 'love it or hate it' became controversial when parent company Unilever threatened the British National Party over use of their slogan.
Want to try this stuff? Go ahead, unless you have celiac disease (it's not gluten-free) or are taking MAO inhibitors. Then it's definitely not good for you, no matter what the advertisers say.
There? Are you asleep yet? Go watch a dog eat a biscuit.
Writing Right with Dmitri Archive
