I Can Write That Great Work in ONE PARAGRAPH...

Now, don't get me wrong... I'm a writer -- so I can totally relate to poetry, clever prose and the well-turned phrase... I LOVE words... I love USING words... I love SAYING words and WRITING words... I also love turning my brain inside out to come up with THE "perfect word" to describe something I'm writing about...

I realize, as a writer, I'm waaaaaaaay too "wordy". . . I know this because my mother -- also a writer -- has been saying it since I wrote my first children's stories at the age of four. (Heck... What does SHE know? SHE writes for newspapers...)

In contrast to that of my mother, my writing-motto is:

"Never say in ten words what you can drag out for three and a half paragraphs."

Be that as it may (...see there? I cudda just said "so"...), this dubious talent that I have for "overstatement" (shall we say?) got me to thinking:

What if some of the great literary works of yesterday had been written by writers like my mother?
(You know, the ones who are constantly babbling about "economy of words" or some such malarkey...)

So (...see? sometimes I use "so"...), here are a few examples of how I think that would work out:

Edgar Alan Poe's "Annabelle Lee":

I yoostah know this girl. Her name was Ann. I liked her a LOT. She died -- I didn't, so, sometimes, I go over to her tomb and sleep there. . . Weird, huh?

"Woodsman Spare That Tree" by George Pope Morris:

HEY! YOU! That's right! YOU -- with the axe... Get the HECK away from MY FREAKIN' TREE!

"Two Roads" by Robert Frost:

I like to hike. Lotsa times I go a different way. You know, different than most other guys. I kinda like to do that. It's different... Cool...

"The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

You know that crazy dude named Paul who likes to ride his horse around town at all hours? Well, he was having another one of his "episodes" last night and managed to wake up every, single person in Boston so we're all gonna get our muskets and pitchforks and stuff rounded up and go after him. . .

"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway:

This weird, old guy lives down by the beach. He tells everybody he caught a really BIG FISH but (get this) that a shark ATE it before he could get it back home... (How con-veeee-nient.)

"Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell:

Imagine Paris Hilton. Now, imagine Paris Hilton in the South during the Civil War... Now, imagine Paris Hilton in the South during the Civil War with a "thing" for one of her best friends' husbands -- (shouldn't be TOO much of a "stretch"). Yep, that about covers it...

"Oh, Captain, My Captain!" by Walt Whitman:

WHOA... DUUUUDE! SOMEBODY SHOT LINCOLN!! Hmmm... Yep, he's dead, alright... Fer sher...

"War & Peace" by Leo Tolstoy:

There's this Russian guy who likes this chick who's kind of an "enabler". She dis's him and goes off with this OTHER dude who's definitely "got issues". The first guy trips out and goes through a whole bunch of changes. Then he happens to run into the enabler-chick again while everybody's freezing their behinds off cuz it's really, really, really, REALLY cold in Russia...

"A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams:

There's these two sisters. One of 'em is married to a guy who acts kinda like Ray Romano's Dad and thinks he's some kinda "prize"... (Don't they ALL?) The other sister's so far "out there", she makes Saturn look like a next-door neighbor and she's pretty much of a mooch, too, cuz she got kicked outta the LAST place she was living so she hasta move in with the first sister and the Ray-Romano's-Dad-Guy-Husband.

Hijinx ensue...

"Economy of words"... My foot...

(Edited on 06/18/07 to include Humor Writers group in distribution.)