Blog #7

ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is filled with a myriad of story-telling techniques. One of the main techniques used throughout the book is her descriptions--these descriptions are vivid and force the reader to visualize what is going on. A good example of this is when the author describes Mrs. Margolin, the leader of the Brownie group. She is described as looking like a mother duck with lively belts. These belts are recounted as looking "like the kind that weightlifters wear, except hers would be cheap metallic gold or rabbit fur or covered with gigantic fake sunflowers..." (2). Other descriptions of characters use intense and vibrant wording in order to fully convey their true selves.

Another technique that is used throughout the book is the use of metaphors and similes. Snot, the main character, once tells the reader that "If most of the girls in the troop could be any type of metal, they'd be bunched-up wads of tinfoil, maybe, or rusty iron nails you had to get tetanus shots for" (18). Even in the beginning of the book, the reader can determine that the Brownies are not necessarily the most moral little girls--Snot points this out by comparing the girls to scrap metal.

The quotes Packer uses also enhance story-telling. In one part of the book, the troop is singing a Girl Scout song about friends to show the irony in the situation; the girls are supposed to be good friends, but none of them seem to care too much about one another.