Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“A fantasy novel is
more than an adventure or a quest. Rather it is a series of image-repeating
glasses, a hall of mirrors that brings past and future into focus and calls it
the present.” Jane Yolen
Even when the glass is smudged, a mirror reflects an image.
So do memories, even though sometimes they shift and blur like a house of
mirrors giving a distorted emphasis. But then we can filter and process and
hold onto the parts that have meaning.
A series of repeating images also connects us in our
personal histories, our personal daily adventures, and our quests. They’re not
always easy to grasp though because of other influences, and often jaded
opinions.
In the movie Larry
Crowne, Larry’s navy experience is dismissed by a thoughtless co-worker as
irrelevant because of him only being a cook. Yet when Larry himself finally has
the opportunity to share his memories in a safe environment, we see what an
enriching life that opportunity gave him. His memories hold his audience rapt
as he shares traveling the world, crossing the equator, and seeing the Northern
Lights, places we often only see in magazines and television. He lived it. And
with humor he also shares peeling potatoes, serving up pasta, and doing dishes.
His day-to-day adventure.
His perspective takes that particular season of his life and
then holds in his memory the parts that matter, the parts that make him real.
It has focus in the present.
Action Steps:
1. Take a memory your main
character has from childhood that she remembers with extreme fondness. Then
have a relative turn the actual memory upside down. What impact does that have?
2. Repeat with a memory that
causes fear.
Share: Which one gave a stronger image?
Read deep, marcy
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