(http://food4thought21.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/cookie_dough.jpg)
Just a massive mass of unfinished, mixed stuff. Just like a pile of ideas: any good writer, like any good cookie maker, has a lot of dough that is unfinished. Like dough, ideas can be consumed as is - just finished there, and often times that is sweet because the idea will never finish as well as it is just as a pure idea. Many stories can sound good on the surface, but then when you try to write them out, work out the nitty gritty, it just doesn't work. But what of the ones you do finish?
(http://barfblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/raw-cookie-dough__59353_zoom.jpg)
Now look carefully at these hunks of cookie dough - none of them are of the right shape, they don't have the chocolate chips in the same spots. All stories are different; every idea shapes out differently. Sure, you can cookie cutter a story, but why? As good as all cookies are, not every cookie is as good as other cookies. Store bought, perfectly matched cookies just aren't nearly as good as homemade goodness.
You've made your delicious cookies. Not what?
(http://tryityoumightlikeit.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/chocolate-almond-cookies.jpg)
Stories always need a good proofread. It may be less common with cookies, but you know what? It is still always possible to add more ideas to it. Great idea.
(http://dinnersdishesanddesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Cookie-Dough-Sandwich-Cookies-3_.jpg)
I just wish I didn't cook all my cookie dough earlier. I want to do this. So I guess I'll just need to do what any good story writer does - get some new ideas, and get working.
Ah, but how many cookies can you click?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though-- what would cookie flavors be, then? Genres? And what's the literary analog for eating too many cookies and getting sick?
I like the analogy. Cookies are delicious!
Flavors are genres.
DeleteYour eyes hurting from the strain of being open too long.
So are books if you make them out of sugar paper.
This is really cute; I like it. The part about "cookie cutter" stories was spot on. It made me think of the "commercial fiction" that writers sometimes go with just to make a profit. Although they can be satisfying, nothing matches the homemade goodness of an original freshly baked cookie.
ReplyDeleteEating cookies is like the reader response to a story. We all have slightly different taste buds and therefore interpret the taste differently from everyone else.
I never thought of the connection between writing stories and baking cookies, but now that this is on my mind, I'm really craving some cookies. Maybe you could bring some to class tomorrow :)?
On a slight tangent, the school blocked cookie clicker and now everyone is sad.
With the level of procrastination I have had tonight Cookies are out of the question for tomorrow. Though at the rate I have been buying them lately I will probably have some at school with me at some point in the next week.
DeleteWhy would they block such an amazing website?
Ugh, I'm in study hall and it's an hour and a half till lunch. This blog will be the end of me.
ReplyDeleteA question, though -- were you comparing storebought cookies to genre fiction? You put a lot more of yourself into the homemade cookies, a lot more work and ingredients, instead of just buying pre-packaged (pre-planned,as a collection of tropes not quite so interestingly-used as your homemade literary fic) cookies for the sheer pleasure of devouring them with gleeful abandon in one sitting and not really thinking about it.
Either way, great post! I look forward to more food metaphors, even if it makes me want cookies that I can't have.
Thanks! I am comparing good stories to good cookies; most storebought cookies are basically cookie-cutter cookies that are, as stated in the blog, obviously inferior to other cookies.
DeleteI always want cookies I can't have. It's a terrible feeling, isn't it?
I like the connection to cookies. It's weird how food can be connected to everything we do in Literature. We have your analogy of a cookie becoming a story but we could also look at this through another type of food: A sandwich. You have all different parts of the sandwich which come together to make the final product of an awesome story.
ReplyDeleteThat does work well; also, to a certain extend you can extend the analogy even further to paragraphs (layers of the sandwich) in ways that you cannot with most cookies. Though I still contend that cookies are better than sandwiches simply because they are cookies and thus are the most amazing foods in the worlds.
DeleteExcellent metaphor for the writing process. Reminds me of when we had to create the writing process metaphors in Mrs. Perry's class.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely remember doing something like that... I also think I used food then too.
DeleteI love the metaphor of the writing process to cookies (as I eat my cookies 'n cream ice cream). It reminded me a lot of the ideas that didn't exactly pan out our freshman year. Although I have to ask, the analogy is extended to individual cookies, however wouldn't the metaphor be more appropriate for a batch of cookies? As very few bakers make single cookies and it would give the opportunity for the mixing of different genres, styles and incorporate mistakes that may be made. For example, a writer may mess up a chapter or two in an attempt to make the book. Just as if a baker were to mess up a cookie or two.
ReplyDeleteThat would work; each cookie a paragraph not a story with the batch instead being the story.
DeleteI like your metaphor a lot- it's unique! I'm inclined to agree with James- but I'd go a step further. Sometimes, you try to start writing something (like a thesis statement!) and just end up scrapping the whole thing and starting all over- like burning a whole batch of cookies and throwing them away. You still learn something- turn the oven down, don't leave them in too long, etc.- but need to start over to make it better.
ReplyDeleteAgreed; there is trial and error in making good cookies as well as in making a story, thesis, paragraph, essay.
DeleteOf course, you eat the cookies as well. Cookies are always cookies.