I still love brown buttons

Another memory from the shoebox...

Teacher gave many lectures about writing that made it to the shoebox. One of my favorite ones was about buttons.

She taught us about how rhetorical devices serve a piece of writing mirrors the same way buttons function on piece of clothing. Aesthetics. Functionality. Audience appeal. The shape, size, number of holes, color, and context of a button all make a difference in whether or not it will serve its purpose.

Then she pulled out a few buttons in order to talk about them more specifically.

What can you tell me about this one? she asked as she turned on the overhead and placed a heart-shaped up on the projector.

It's symbolic and it has two holes, I think now as I look back. A good button for Symbolism because less holes means less effort to attach, and I shouldn't try to overthink the symbols, or reach for them where they don't exist.

What about for a pink sweater? What kind of button would you use for that? she asked us.

White, muttered one person. It depends, said the people who weren't sure and the people who actually meant it. Orange, said the hell-raiser of the bunch.

It depends on what? she asked.

The rest of the outfit, we replied.

Exactly. The color of the button doesn't matter because every color will work, she explained. It all depends on your style. Some writers can pull off putting an orange button on a pink sweater. Some can't. It all depends on the writer, not the colors of the button or the sweater.

Which brought her right to her next point.

Buttons have rules and conventions, she stated as she fingered the buttons she had spread on her overhead projector. Even when you use them in new creative ways, that doesn't change the nature of the button. A brown button is still a brown button even if you put it on the prettiest of sweaters. The button itself, she said as she picked up a plain brown button, is not pretty.

And of course I felt the need to come to the brown button's rescue.

But what if the brown button derives its beauty from its simplicity and plainness? asked I.

No! she replied adamantly. You cannot make the brown button pretty just because you want to. If you want pretty, you have to use a different button, or approach it in the circumstances around your button. But the brown button itself cannot be pretty.

Well, I'll just have to break that rule, now won't I? I thought to myself. Even if the brown button turns out to be something truly inherently yucky, like convoluted syntax; I will MAKE brown buttons pretty.

And while I've since learned to let brown buttons be brown buttons, I can honestly say I've never looked at buttons OR rhetorical devices the same way again since that lecture.