At the risk of sounding immodest, I’m pretty sure I have the best definition of the word ‘gluff’ , even though Collins dictionary offers a sad version of it–as a sweet, sticky substance covered with fluff–like a caramel left in your pocket on a hot day.
My version is both a noun and a verb. It’s basic noun forms are ‘gluff’, ‘gluffster’ and ‘gluffmeister’. It means to bluff, glibly. Audaciously. Shamelessly, really. It includes the result of gluffing, which is a gluff.
I invented the gluff to address an unmet need. (Actually, I admit it was a group invention, created with friends at a party, as ideas we think at the time are our best so often are.)
Not too long ago, we began to encounter gluffsters everywhere, using the virtual podium the Internet has given us all. Although almost everyone seems to indulge in a moment of gluffing now and again, some enthusiasts seem particularly good at it. These people are gluffmeisters.
There is no restriction on the subjects gluffsters and gluffmeisters will take on. Although there should be an element of interesting plausibility in a gluff–to distinguish it from utter nonsense–creators require only one qualification for the role: shamelessness.
But even shameless loquaciousness isn’t enough. A good gluffster has to be interesting enough to make us think and entertaining enough to make us want to listen. A gluffmeister should introduce ideas provocative enough so we see the world differently, witty enough to motivate us to pass them off as our own.
We all know gluffsters and even some gluffmeisters. Professionally, they are known as journalists, authors, performers, scriptwriters, marketers, critics, teachers, philosophers, and politicians. This blog is a soapbox from which almost anyone may gluff about story-telling, the universal and changing insights we apply to our creation, dissemination, and understanding of the narrative arts.
Stories can be about anything, but the best lift the human spirit, inspire, console, engage, and make us weep, smile, reflect, and sometimes even transform us. But what makes one version of the fifty basic plots that encompass all stories invented by humankind seem fresh? Our engagement with and enjoyment of stories intensifies when we discover and share new perceptions and interpretations of the world we live in.
Like the salons and coffee houses of the past where interested people gathered, the Internet is the new home of gluffsters. Please join me here.
On reflection, do you think Collins’ definition of a gluff–as something sweet, covered with fluff–and the one used to describe what is practiced here might have something in common after all?
The Artful Gluffster 