“Let’s Not Be Boring On Purpose”
Joe walks into the room with a bounce in his step and a twinkle in his eye—the kind of twinkle that says, “Today’s going to be fun, so buckle up, creative geniuses.”
“Alright,” he says, clapping his hands once. “Today’s a fun one. Energy’s high, stories are sharp, and your characters are just about ready for their close-up. You've shaped real plots. Tested real ideas. You’ve earned the right to move forward.”
The class leans in.
“We’re almost ready to build our sets and animate. But before we grab scissors and cameras—”
He pauses dramatically.
“—we’ve got to give our characters something very important.”
A student guesses, “Shoes?”
Joe grins. “Close. But nope. Dialogue. Words. Their voices!”
The room is buzzing.
“Not just any words,” he says, “but dialogue that shows who your characters really are. Words that bounce, twist, joke, jab, and mean more than they say. Puns, slang, idioms, irony. That’s where the magic happens. That’s how we animate who they are.”
Joe gestures to the whiteboard. “Let’s start with something simple.”
He writes “Good Morning” in huge letters.
“Okay. Good morning!” he says brightly. “What’s wrong with that phrase?”
One student squints. “Uh… nothing?”
“Exactly!” another yells.
“True,” Joe nods. “But if that’s all a character says, we’ve wasted an opportunity.”
Pause.
“If we’re being creative—if we want to grab attention, entertain, surprise—are there better ways to say ‘Good Morning’?”
He turns ready to scribble in dry erase marker.
“Give me 'good morning' in different languages! Go!”
They shout.
Spanish:Buenos días!
French:Bonjour!
German:Guten Morgen!
Italian:Buongiorno!
Japanese:Ohayō gozaimasu!
Chinese:Zǎo!
Portuguese:Bom dia!
Russian:Dobroye utro!
Arabic:Ṣabāḥ al-khayr!
Joe nods, writing like lightning. “See? Already more colorful than just ‘hi.’ Now—what have you heard at home? Weird ways your parents say good morning?”
The kids erupt:
Mornin’!
Wakey wakey!
Rise and grind!
You alive yet?
Time to adult!
What’s crackin’?
'Sup, sunshine?
Look who joined the land of the living!
Morning, buttercup!
“YES!” Joe says. “Now we’re talking. Language isn’t just functional—it’s fun. These are the kinds of things that make characters feel real.”
He paces the room, pointing like a director. “Let’s take the turtle movie. If one turtle says ‘Good morning’ to another turtle, how could they respond?’”
“Shell-o, slowpoke!” says one.
“Sun’s up—time to bask!” says another.
“BOOM!” Joe jumps in the air. “That’s it. You’re not writing dialogue. You’re writing personality.”
“Now,” he says, “each group, we already nailed your story’s basics. Now let’s brainstorm what your characters might say—based on who they are. Even if it’s not in your scenes yet.”
Someone calls out: “What would a bowling ball say if it went in the gutter?”
Laughter. Then:
“I meant to do that!”
“I blame the shoes!”
“Get a grip—literally!”
Joe is delighted. “Exactly! Write it all down. Idioms, puns, weird phrases—anything that sounds like your character. Rockets, turtles, texting diapers, guttered bowling balls! Fill the page.”
Another student yells from the turtle group: “What the shell?!”
“Yes! That’s what I’m talking about. Scribes—be fast and at least… legible. Go!”
Pandemonium erupts in the best way. Pencils fly. Laughter fills the room. Bits of wordplay, accents, and bad impressions bounce off the walls.
After 20 minutes, the storm settles. Each group has a wild, brilliant page of random phrases.
Joe steps to the front. “Alright. Here’s the deal. We’re not using these lines yet. We’re going to set them aside.”
The kids groan.
“But not forever,” he says. “These ideas are now incubating. Like eggs. Or popcorn. Or suspicious leftovers.”
A giggle rolls through the room.
“Later—when we animate—some of these will hatch. They’ll be the perfect line. Or the perfect joke. But only because we wrote them down now. Out loud. On purpose.”
He taps his head. “That’s how creativity works. Get it out of your brain so it can start doing weird stuff on its own.”
The kids nod.
“Now,” Joe says with a grin. “Let’s put the dialogue pages somewhere safe. Don’t wrinkle them. We’ve got baby ideas growing in there.”
They carefully tuck their pages into folders, already looking at their stories with new eyes.
Creativity, it turns out, is just another word for playing with words on purpose.