Contrived for Dummies

Well hey there, let's talk about the word "contrived." Now, I want to make sure you fully understand what it means, so I'm gonna break it down nice and easy for you, alright?

So, when we say something is "contrived," we're talking about something that feels artificial or forced, like it's been planned or made up rather than natural or genuine. It's like when you watch a movie, and some of the lines the actors say or the situations they find themselves in feel really fake, like they were just put there to make the story move forward. That's contrived.

Let me give you an example to help you really grasp the idea. You know when you're playing with your toys and you're creating a story in your head? Sometimes, you might try to force the toys to do something they wouldn't naturally do, just to make your story work. Like, maybe your toy car suddenly sprouts wings so it can fly across the room and save the day. Well, that would be a contrived element in your imaginative play, because it's not something that would really happen in real life.

Now, another meaning of "contrived" is when something seems fake or staged because it's been put together in a very deliberate way. Imagine you go to a magic show, and the tricks the magician performs are so obviously planned and rehearsed that you can tell there's no spontaneity or magic happening. That's when we can say the magician's performance is contrived. It's like they're trying too hard to make us believe something that we can see is not genuine.

So, all in all, "contrived" describes something that feels forced, artificial, or manufactured, like it's not coming from a place of authenticity. Whether it's a story, a situation, or even someone's behavior, when it feels too planned or fake, that's when we can use the word "contrived" to describe it. Got it?