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“You enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary.” ~Frederick Buechner

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Words With Impact: Design Symbols as Images


Workshop: Discover Words That Sing

“…symbol is the small puzzle that works its magic deep below the surface.” John Truby


Symbols as Images

As mentioned in the last section one way to build emotional resonance is through art and music, which can reflect lost or forgotten landscapes. When a character is in an unfamiliar external or internal environment, music and or art can become a mirror, reflecting his or her spiritual alliance to another place. It translates the character’s soul landscape for them. Our words sing heart to heart.

John Ciardi, when defining imagery, states that, “We think in pictures; when we put our thoughts into words, it is natural and efficient to express them in figurative language, or figures of speech.” Like words, he says, images are used for identification and for their emotional connotations.  “Images also have histories.”

Poet C. Day Lewis says the nature of poetic sympathy is revealed in images, whether in verse or prose. He describes a concord between image and theme as the principle that organizes and reveals. He quotes Rilke for a description of the imaginative process that brings about ‘soul’ connections.

            “‘Only when thy have turned to blood within us’—first the sympathy that makes an object memorable; then the breadth of experience to gather a multiplicity of memories; then the patience which allows the memories to mature deep within, to form their associations, and to assume the nature of images….”.

Those images in verse or prose also extend to other insights with photographs and paintings, geographic settings, and music, towards overall atmosphere. All contribute to build ongoing theme threads and analogies.


Action Steps:


1. Choose a song that is familiar to you from your childhood. Hum the melody. What memories does it raise?

2. Now choose an instrument that is familiar in your story world and give your character your emotions. Does it give him strength or sorrow?

Share: What special images from your past give you hope?


Read deep, marcy



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