{"id":378,"date":"2012-09-30T13:17:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T20:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/?p=378"},"modified":"2012-10-02T11:02:15","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T18:02:15","slug":"novel-ideas-a-wordle-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/2012\/09\/30\/novel-ideas-a-wordle-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Novel Ideas: A Wordle Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

At slightly past\u00a0midnight, I’m still sitting behind my illuminated\u00a0computer screen hammering away at the keys. And then I\u00a0feel it – a sudden niggling sensation that\u00a0tugs my attention away\u00a0from\u00a0the words I’m\u00a0typing.\u00a0It’s a familiar feeling that\u00a0usually strikes me this time of day, when\u00a0my body\u00a0hovers somewhere between exhaustion and the illusion of productivity.<\/p>\n

It’s the\u00a0urge to procrastinate.<\/p>\n

I justify the need to lean back in my chair and update my Facebook status, because surely my friends in\u00a0Bosnia need to know what I do at\u00a0one in the morning. “Drinking coffee,” I type. “With French vanilla cream.” I type these words with reverence, as if they are my gift to the world – words of deep thought and enlightened knowledge, as my sleep deprived brain tells me.<\/p>\n

Assuming that it is safe to wait another minute before I update my status and let my eager audience know that I have finished my coffee, I let my fingers glide over the keyboard and find their way to Google. Another blank rectangular box mocks me as I think of the words to fill it. I let my mind free associate letters and phrases before it settles on “Wordle.” I have a vague recollection of having heard it somewhere recently and type it in.<\/p>\n

I look at the\u00a0little screenshots of other Wordles on the site and silently seethe with envy,\u00a0but the phrase “copyright infringement” prevents me from immediately creating my own. I look for text to paste across the public domains, but nothing intrigues. I float in a black cloud\u00a0of despair until a small portion of my brain – a diminutive speck, really,\u00a0not yet poisoned by caffeine overload or sleep deprivation – tells me I have a folder of original work.<\/p>\n

With a smile wider than the Cheshire Cat’s, I paste\u00a0half a\u00a0chapter of my novel into the box and look on proudly as\u00a0my computer\u00a0screen fills with colourful words.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Satisfied that I have the most beautiful Wordle in the world, and my urge to procrastinate abated, I begin to\u00a0think of the more practical applications of my Wordle besides bragging…<\/p>\n

Since the Wordle was created from the first half of the first chapter of my novel, the number of times a word occurs could be associated with setting, mood and character. Usually the main character of a young adult novel is introduced in the first chapter, so the size of “Delphyne” or “Apollo” could suggest something about the importance of these characters.<\/p>\n

Likewise, if I was going to use\u00a0a Wordle as an anticipation\u00a0exercise for a novel I may\u00a0be teaching in class, I could ask the students to guess the events that may occur in the first chapter by piecing together some of the larger words in the novel. The students could connect their stories by the themes suggested by some of the words, in this case “sword,” “oracle” or “god.” The students\u00a0could later compare their guesses to the actual chapter of the novel they will be studying – and in actuality, they are more likely to do this now that they are personally invested in the reading.<\/p>\n

On that note, you are all\u00a0welcome to guess the events of the first chapter as suggested by my Wordle. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

-Kiran Heer<\/p>\n

(Click on the Wordle to see a larger image.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At slightly past\u00a0midnight, I’m still sitting behind my illuminated\u00a0computer screen hammering away at the keys. And then I\u00a0feel it – a sudden niggling sensation that\u00a0tugs my attention away\u00a0from\u00a0the words I’m\u00a0typing.\u00a0It’s a familiar feeling that\u00a0usually strikes me this time of day, when\u00a0my body\u00a0hovers somewhere between exhaustion and the illusion of productivity. It’s the\u00a0urge to procrastinate. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564416],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblog-activities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":473,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/lled368\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}