Little Cottage in the Northwoods

Rebus: A story where pictures represent nouns.

When I read the quote, “Rebuses look like they’d be easy because they’re short. But they can be some of the toughest writing you’ve ever tackled,” in Marianne Mitchell’s article, The Nuts and Bolts of Rebus Writing, I didn’t believe one word of it. Of course, that was before I tried to write my own rebus story.

The first problem was word count. I had too many words and had to cut some. After I cut what I thought were superfluous words the story started sounding choppy.

The second problem was nouns and verbs. In a rebus story the pictures represent nouns not verbs. I soon discovered that I had too many verbs and not enough nouns. I made several more revisions trying to remedy these problems. But the rebuses still weren’t making the cut.

So I’m going to try again. The rebus war is on! I never back down from a good writing challenge. I must pick up my best weapon (my purple gel pen) and prepare to do the battle with the worthy foe!