The Power of Words

I have to tell a cute story about a Creative Writing student. Today, we were talking about the new Edgar Allen Poe movie (*shudders*) and this student mentioned how much she LOVED Mr. Poe. Even though he's "scary."

She related the story of how she first read his work, a couple of years ago: "It was 'The Fall of the House of Usher,'" she said, "and I got to a certain part of the story and got SO scared, that I slammed the book shut!"

LOL! That image just tickled me. Because, what happens when we see a scary movie? We shut our eyes or put up or hands to filter the screen, or even mute the t.v. But when we're reading a book, we usually just skim the gory stuff if we're wimps (like me). So, it cracked me up, the idea of a student being so moved, so frightened by mere words on a page, that it resulted in a physical reaction, slamming a book shut.

Yep, words can be mighty powerful. ;-)