Chapter 8:1-9 and the Muses

As mentioned in a previous post, writing dialog for Chapter 7 was taxing. It took several days of hard thinking and problem solving. I finished chapter 8:1-9 in several hours. Why the difference? I was either extra creative or extra lazy. Here's the background.

I approached 8:1-9 with a tired brain, stuffy nose (I'm fighting a cold), and weariness from a busy work week. Dealing with people's intense emotions usually doesn't drain me but this week was especially challenging. Given this depleted state I took some short cuts on 8:1-9.

8:1a says, "Who is like the wise man?" Rather than create dialog of students answering this question I drew 5 thumbnail sketches of five wise people from history, each making a famous quote. Chapters seven and eight raise issues of gender equality and I used many females in chapter seven. To keep things relatively balanced I chose five men for chapter 8.

8:1b, "Who knows the explanation of things?" Because I used five men whom I admire in the previous five panel strip I chose to put five controversial figures in this strip, those who claim to be able to explain things. No student dialog, just five caricatures with one of their (to me grandiose) quotes. I'm no big fan of certitude, pontification, or smug cockiness for assertions. Finding five imperative smug folk was easy. 

8:1c, "Wisdom brightens a man's face and changes its hard appearance." For this I wrote student dialog with a weak joke at the end. It needs to be improved later. 

But for verses 8:2-8:6 I created 6 full page strips, the words of Qoholeth interwoven with the writings of a famous document in American history (spoken by students directly to Mr. Q). Thus I originated no new dialog but merely cut and pasted dialog in point counterpoint. It was a fun process and saved me a ton of time. I actually think it works well. I hate to be so cryptic in this post but I'm not ready to go public with this first draft. We'll see how I feel about it after it's marinated for several weeks.

I summed up the chapter with 4 more pages of student dialog and then then wrapped up the whole thing with one last page of quotes from that historical document. 

Putting famous faces in the classroom is a gamble. It makes writing dialog easier but it adds a surreal bent to the class. In chapter 1 Ernest Hemingway makes an appearance. By chapter 8 the philosophical ramblings of Mr. Q have become so convoluted it may not pose any problem at all to add a touch of fantasy to the plot. 

Remember the film, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid by Steve Martin? He cleverly wove old clips from film noir into his modern movie. It was quite effective. Zelig, too, by Woody Allen had a documentary feel to it as he cut and pasted interviews into the narrative. Ecclesiastes U is my attempt at doing something similar. Mr. Q is speaking the words of the book of Ecclesiastes and student banter back and forth with each other and with him. Thus the student dialog I write is both responsive and anticipatory. Again I apologize for not showing samples yet. That'll have to wait until the happy day I begin to add graphics to the novel. Words first, pictures later.