24 August – Waffle Day

 

Wonderful squares within a bigger square.  Simple pancake batter but they come out this way because you process them through a machine. Or you can buy ready-made ones and warm them up.

Breakfast treat? What would you serve them with?  Or better in the afternoon with lashings of cream?

Can you use waffles to the background of a story? Or even a bigger part of it?

Here are a few ideas:

Boy meets girl at the place that makes waffles

Boyfriend hides ring in waffle.  He is intending to propose. Girl almost chokes on the ring.  

Someone is running a café and today there is chaos ending up with the dog running off with a waffle on its head.

A child with a disability learns to cook.  Their first success is some sweet waffles

Try a children’s story about a child encountering waffles for the first time.

Try a piece of memoir that involves a waffle.  Don’t forget the taste and smell.

Try to describe a waffle to someone who has never tried one before.

Write a piece of creative nonfiction than contains a description of the making of a waffle.

Research the history of the waffle and write a short article about them.

The very next idea you think of will probably be better than any of these.

Why not treat yourself to a waffle to get yourself in the mood?         

Rhyming schemes

 

Let your eyes rest on something in the room where you usually work. Now write a poem about it with the rhyming scheme ABA BCB CDC. 

Sonnet

Or go out for a walk and collect sights, sounds and smells.  Now weave those into this form: ABAB CDCD EFEF. .

 

Haiku

Take a stroll through town. Now write a haiku - three lines and a total of seventeen syllables, i.e. five syllables in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third?  Normally a haiku is about nature.  Can you find forms of nature in the shopping centre?

 

Ballad

Look for a news item and write a ballad about that. A ballad is made up of verses each four lines long with the rhyming scheme ABCB.

 

Villanelle

This is a complex French form- so why not use it to write about something French?  Nineteen lines are made up of five three-line stanzas and a final four line verse. The first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated alternately in the succeeding stanzas as a refrain, and form a final couplet in the four line verse. Phew!

 

Ottava Rima

Italian this time so use it to write about Italy. It is made of eight-line stanzas rhymed ABABABCC.

 

Rhyme Royal

Use this one to write about a prominent public figure. It is seven lines long and rhymed ABABBCC   

 

Heroic Couplet

The ‘heroic couplet’ is the name given to rhyming couplets written in iambic pentameter, one lightly stressed, followed by one heavily stressed syllable. Use this to write about a hero. (That was what it was always used for.

 

Blank Verse

Iambic pentameter with no rhymes.  Use this to tell a story. Maybe something you would usually relate to your mates at the pub?

Free verse

This is unrhymed and also has no regular metre. Lines may vary in length. Often part of the effect of the words is how they look on the page. Use this to retell a well-known story.

Feel free to match forms with other content or mix and match the above.     

Working with nursery rhymes

 

Take a good look at children’s nursery rhymes.  Research them a little. Many of them have a political meaning or are a commentary on society or something that happened in history.  Write an article about a nursery rhyme. Write the story behind it. Or use a line from it as a title to inspire a poem, story or script.    

Here are a few starters:

 

Baa Baa Blacksheep

Who was the master and who was the dame? And the little boy who cried down the lane? Why was the sheep black, anyway? Who is the back sheep in the family?

 

Hickory Dickory Dock

Which mouse and which clock? 

 

One Two, Buckle My Shoe

A counting rhyme. Could you make up a new one? There is a theory that this is to do with lacemaking. Can you base a story around a group of people working together making lace? What do they talk about? Are they competitive? What happens to the lace when it is made?

 

London Bridge is Falling Down

Can you retell this as a story? Does wood and clay work? Do iron and steel work better? What happens when the bridge is built from silver and gold? Or is this a metaphor for money being spent on it?

 

Humpty Dumpty

Good egg or bad egg? Why can’t all of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men put him back together again? Is this a symbol for a failing economy?

 

Polly Put the Kettle On

How disappointing that the tea party never happens.  Can you write the story of a failed social occasion?

 

Jack and Jill

Is there a feminist agenda here? Jack goes home and is made a fuss of.  Jill just has to get on with it.

 

Little Miss Muffet

Who is she and why is she so scared of spiders?

 

Dark sides

This vide discusses some of the darker sides of nursery rhymes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzUO_AohGLc  . However, be aware; this is just an opinion. You could even make up your own interpretation of nursery rhymes. You can find some more interpretations here: https://www.education.com/magazine/article/hidden_history_of_nursery_rhymes/               

 

Mash-up

Can you put several of the characters together and see what happens?

 

Do it yourself?

Nursery rhymes have strong rhymes and a lot of repetition.  Can you make up a new one? 

Image by Vicki Hamilton from Pixabay