The Rat Who Sliced and Diced as a Chef
Cutting slices and dicing the slices
Mary kept slicing the pineapple, it was tricky taking the outer-covering of the fruit, but the family really enjoyed it. She was ready to dice the slices and serve it as a dessert for a Sunday meal. I have witnessed the cutting, slicing and dicing of a pineapple, and it is definitely something worth observing. Have you cut, sliced and diced a pineapple successfully, and how was the experience? This made me think about all the things we cut, slice and dice in life. Have you tried doing this to a story that you enjoy reading?
This makes me think about Remy, a rat, who loved cooking. He moves to Paris to learn and practise his culinary skills. He is a rat and so faces a lot of opposition. Remy undergoes an identity crisis. No one wants a rodent, that unclean creature preparing food in a kitchen.
Remy does make progress in a Parisian kitchen and after a while, he needs to have his food judged by an expert. Watch the movie “Ratatouille”, to see how this story unfolds. This character loved cooking. This reminds me of writers, who need to learn or catch a glimpse of how different things work and then, like a chef, put them all together in a delectable presentation for readers to read and enjoy. What are your views about cooking and writing, do you find any similarity?
A chef always breaks down a large portion of meat into smaller portions by slicing it, and then into smaller pieces by dicing them into squares. The best way to learn how to compose a large literary piece is to know how to create one from smaller parts. An idea can grow, as it develops and evolves. If you have a favourite story, you can dissect a story into smaller part by first slicing them into parts and then analysing each part.
The best way to know how a story works, is to study its parts and components, like an engineer would study a car, a bridge, a building or a computer. Have you recently studied a story and broken it down into parts, or created a literary piece, from an idea, into a plat, into an outline, then went forward to create chapters and develop it into a novel or a novella? I enjoy slicing and dicing stories and ideas as a writer, and also as someone who enjoy cooking.
