Dunking the Differences

I love Oreos. Milk’s favorite cookies are great on their own, but they’re over the top when combined with other ingredients. Imagine my excitement when one of my public speaking students announced she wanted to make Oreo Balls (or truffles, for you city folk) for her process speech.

Score!

If you have never had this treat, here’s how it goes: you crush up the delicious cookies, mix them with cream cheese, form them into a ball, and then dip them into melted chocolate.

Basically a diet food . . . if you are trying to add more calories and fat to your diet to gain weight.

In my day job as a professor of communication, I count process speech time as a highlight of each semester. Because I am a chubby professor of communication who enjoys food, I strongly suggest that those doing cooking speeches bring us a sample. I’m smart like that. I’m also fat like that.

This particular student told me her idea at the end of class, but I was frazzled and didn’t write it down. When the official topic signup sheet went around the next week, a different girl indicated she wanted to make Oreo Balls. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for a healthy boy like me, but it violated my hard, fast rule about no two people doing the same topic. By the time I realized the oversight, it was already too late, so I decided to be like Elsa and “let it go.” After all, I love Oreos (see above), so we had two speeches about Oreo Balls on the same day.

What happened was fascinating.

The speeches were a study in contrast for both approach and tone, and the samples could not have been more different. One girl made petite treats dipped in white chocolate; the other student’s finished products were huge (we’re talking Ernest T. Bass-size rocks), dipped in milk chocolate. I was in Oreo heaven.

That’s a long set-up to say, as writers, we are different. If I gave two of you the same writing prompt, I guarantee the two pieces would not resemble each other in the end.

I view the world and the things around me through a different lens than many of my writer friends. If you read this blog regularly, you have realized I can find the funny in almost anything; it is hard for me to write in any other way. I cannot explain it—it is simply how I am wired.

I have friends who write historical fiction, while others write suspense. Some write serious Bible studies, and others write children’s books. God made each of us unique, and that uniqueness spills over into our writing. It is up to us to find that one-of-a-kind voice and to cultivate it.

I’m off to write another wacky piece—as soon as I clean these Oreo crumbs off my keyboard.