Franken Barbie Baby Doll - Exercise technique: word association

Franken Girl she drives a Cadillac
White walls and when Darkness Falls
She gonna drive all night
To find someone just right

This Barbie Doll likes fluffy dice
Human flesh and all things nice
Test tubes, green runny goo
Her thigh high boots and plastic boobs

And she is Cruising for a Bruisin’
It’s Friday night,
The devils night
And you got no one to blame

Franken Barbie Baby Doll

She’ll give you such a fright
White wall caddie shack delight
In six inch Spikes
Stepping on the hearts that she steals tonight

She’s a green skin scream queen
Tearing down the free way
The Devil in her eyes

But she got nowhere to go
She’s all dressed up and ready to blow
She’s got nowhere
Got nowhere to go
This undead girl she got nowhere to go

Rotting from her head down to her toe
She’s all dressed up
And got nowhere to go

And if you try and kiss her
This bolt neck little sister
Then you got no one to blame
Say goodbye to little mister
You got no one to blame

The undead prom queen
Franken baby horror scream
This psycho Barbie terror
Is green and mean

Exercise technique used: word association.

Start with a word of your choice. Or a thing. Brain storm words that relate in some way. Sound is a good option to start with.

Example word: Green

Green ghost
Green grate
Green gristle
Green grain
Green grim
Green real
Green agreeable

Next try words associated by meaning

Green blue
Green sick
Green glow
Green inexperienced

Dissociation - unrelated:

Green falsehood
Green milk
Green impulse

And lastly leapfrog word chains. Each word leading the next:

Green
Greenpeace
Peace talks
Talk back
Backdrop

This last method can go off the tracks in fantastic ways. But you can always come back to the original word or idea, and start again half way through.

You now have a huge pool of words to draw from. Some might have given rise to striking imagery that perhaps would never have occurred to you otherwise. You might end up somewhere totally unexpected. This can be done with themes, objects, names, faces, just about anything. Remember you don’t have to use it all, use what strikes you. Think about some the patterns you have just created. What does “Green impulse” mean to you, it was totally random, but it conjures, to me, issues of modern environmental conscience, or natural impulsiveness of a free spirit.

You can vary this technique in many ways. Just pay attention to how these words, seemingly unrelated or at least chosen quickly from the top of your head, when placed next to one another form connections.

Here is an example of the all of these sub-strategies use in one piece, a raw string of words, some phrases off the top of my head. You can see the structure appear and perhaps potential for application for use in your own work.

“Book of word writing text ink stain cloth shirt brown coffee starbucks tables stables barns and hey grey sky light lying floating 15k a bird in the hand 17:56 am pm day and night dark and bright baby girl 13 young strung slung burnt out beanie baby old lady vitamins b4 banana curved carved wrist scar scare block cock cocks in frocks cloth glue blue stew dye blue movie tube pool wet screw”

See Hazel Smiths "The Writing experiment; strategies for innovative creative writing" for more details.