Strategy # 8 Hidden Secrets

Build Your Story: 8 Strategies for Writing Innovative Setting with Impact

“You don’t need a one-eyed, foul-breathed monster with a rusty knife, or an indescribable something (covered in slime), to conjure up terrors in the human heart.”  Sarah LeFanu

Introduction Secrets

Folktales, fairytales and legends hold a repository of universal shadows. Just as settings can be a link between internal and external ‘soul’ language, so does this literature connect our personal fears and shadows to find our way through darkness. They offer a childhood’s nightlight to all ages. We may not all be afraid of the same things but we connect with the heart pounding, dry mouth sensations when we see them.

It’s most often in the ordinary world that psychological fears can wreak havoc. Just the slightest noise or silence that is out of sync causes us to pause and listen. As pain is a warning that something is wrong physically, so fear warns us of danger. Our intuitive radar activates.  The ordinary world holds all our secrets that we like to keep in the dark until a situation reveals them.

Memory holds our emotional reservoir, both personal and public. Some memories are buried so deep that we don’t recognize them when they echo in the present. We have a fleeting pang or touch of comfort, and wonder why. What can happen to our secrets when our memories are erased or distorted?

Put yourself or your character in a situation where time has stood still and the world moved on. What has been lost? What has been gained?

Choose one memory that you would want to be able to guarantee remembering? Do you choose a comfort, or a warning? Why? How will it impact your story?

Share: Why did you make that choice?

Read deep, marcy

Reading For Craft

I Could Tell You Stories

Memoirs

“We store in memory only images of value.”

Memoir is one of the most poignant forms of storytelling and so akin to a novel that both have been mistaken for each other at times. Reading and studying memoirs offers a banquet of human experience. Where to start? Where to recommend? With a bookcase overflowing with excellent memoirs and how to write memoirs, I felt that choosing only one book would be impossible.

Then I realized that whenever anyone asks me about writing a memoir, or in the workshops I teach, this is the first book I hand them—literally. Hampl shares the quality of memoirs by telling stories with rich meaning. It’s the perfect place to start craft whether for memoir or fiction writing. Our personal stories within our circle of family and friends will be enriched and our fictional characters more multi-layered.

In her study, I Could Tell You Stories, Patricia Hampl notes that memoir is a landscape bordered by memory and imagination. “For to remember is to make a pledge: to the indelible experience of personal perception, and to history itself.”

As Hampl explores the realm of memory she points out that both Kafka and Rilke saw memory, “not experience”, as holding the sovereign position in imagination.

For herself Hampl discovered: “The recognition of one’s genuine material seems to involve a fall from the phony grace of good intentions and elevated expectations.” What a fresh perspective on motives.

Although she shares specifically via the route of memoir, this door of recognition applies to all forms of writing. If we are unable to infuse our memories, or perhaps our search for our memories into our work then we rob it of honest quest and discovery and an imagination that connects. Each person’s voice is unique and bears witness to life. But in order to share, we first need to identify what really matters to us so we can build our stories, real and imagined, with genuine impact of heart.

“How did I come to believe that what I knew was also what mattered? And, more to the point for the future, is it what matters?”

Share: What is your favorite memoir?

Construct With Memory

Sample Movie Deconstruction (3A)

As I continued my rough brainstorm sample I did from Episode One in the series Firefly I wrote out my perception of the scene changes. For each I choose what I thought to be the concept that stood out. Surprisingly though they did always match the purpose for each scene, or the scene goal. But they did trigger memories of other movies and stories, which gave me a foundation to connect from. Or, perhaps more of a hint or tip of something else under the surface.

It looks a little scattered however, it is a brainstorm with a purpose. I wanted to see where I thought the scenes changed. In this instance I did not have a list of headers. But when I’ve done this where I can compare the headers it’s interesting to see what matches and what doesn’t.

Here are the first seven out of fifteen. And again, this is the first episode so it’s all first view introductions.

One) Scene Change—six years later. What kind of music are we listening to?

Two) Series opening credit—theme song—what does the opening echo—a western.

Three) Pause for a moment on each character-what is your impression—why?

                (meant to go back later)

Four) meet??

Five) Persephone—Docks. Is that the name?

Six) Deal with Badger gone bad—pull out guns like a western

            “man of honor in a den of thieves”

Seven) Shepherd (Captain-main character) boards Serenity (spaceship). Then everyone boards.

After I marked out the scene shifts I was quite surprised at the several connections to westerns, which continued through almost all fifteen-scene breaks.

Journal Prompt:

1.     Take a small sequence in the movie and next to each scene or episode heading write down your own notes as to when the scene changed.

2.     What kind of mix is there between people, action, theme or location?

3.     Did they trigger memories of other similar styles?

4.     Does the ratio match your perception of the movie?

Share: Did any aspects surprise you? Why?

Construct With Memory

“It may be that place can focus the gigantic, voracious eye of genius and bring its gaze to point. Focus then means awareness, discernment, order, clarity, insight—they are like the attributes of love. … Indeed, as soon as the least of us stands still, that is the moment something extraordinary is seen to be going on in the world.”   Eudora Welty

When memory is focused on place it has the potential to thread several character and plot threads throughout the story. As with Amy Cantrell, in Bridging Two Hearts by Michelle Ule, she has clear insight as to the emotional pain causing her practical dilemma. However she assumes she can tough out the situation without actually addressing the heart issue. She keeps attacking and failing. Until she stands still from the memory and then the extraordinary happens.

For Central Park Rendezvous, the memory of place threads through multiple stories and several characters weaving a variety of awareness depending on the narrator. As the letters work back in time, the gaze upon the bridge becomes more and more focused for the readers, enabling them to see its impact before the characters themselves. We stand on tiptoe whenever the bridge enters a story, waiting in anticipation. And we are not disappointed. We groan with frustration at the conflicts and sigh with satisfaction at the connections. Our personal memories loop into the narrative. We are drawn in by the close-up.

Journal Prompt:

            Take an important place for your character and make a list according to Eudora Welty’s quote above. Just as attributes of love can be expressed in different ways show how the focus on your character’s place can be a gaze of awareness, discernment, clarity, order and insight.

Share: Which one impacted her/his heart as extraordinary?

Construct With Memory

“Evil has within itself the seeds of its own destruction.”

Rolland Hein (in reference to the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien)

Often when we have major decisions to make we take time to reflect and remember previous successes and failures to guide us. We use experience, seek counsel and estimate consequences as best as possible. However, sometimes what our heart most desires will tilt that process towards one side or another. Jesus reminds us that, “where your treasure is, there will you heart be also.”

The same possibilities apply to our characters. In the novel, The Crystal Scepter, Pythius wanted power and authority beyond all measure. While still a youth, he murdered his own father to obtain the crown rather than wait until he was older. Every time someone placed a warning or an admonition before him, they suffered deathly consequences. The only thing that caused him anxiety was the reality of death.

“What he needed was a magical amulet or something that would ensure a long life, some charm that would insulate him from attack and make him invincible. If only such an object existed! What he would pay for that!  Why, he’d sell his very soul if he could live without fear of death. Without always having to watch his back, suspicion hounding his every waking moment.”

And so he planted his own seeds of destruction. Every time he had an opportunity to hear the truth, or to change his direction he remembered his heart’s desire and chose it again and again. The warnings as well were given over and over. He resisted even as poison and decay coursed through him. He believed he had ultimate power and wealth and therefore no one could refuse him. Not even the prophecy.

“The created fantasy world must have its own immutable laws. Once those laws have been established, they cannot be set aside at the author’s whim for the demands of plot.” Jane Yolen

“Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve:” Joshua 24:15

Journal Prompt:

            Choose one of the seven deadly sins, (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride), for your antagonist and plot out a series of opportunities before him to relinquish his choice for evil.

            Or

According to Wikipedia, “Sloth has also been defined as a failure to do things that one should do. By this definition, evil exists when good men fail to act.” List a series of incidents for one of your ‘good’ characters where they continually failed to act.

Share: Which consequence in your sequence do you think became the step of no return for him specifically? Why? What evil for that character resulted?

Construct With Memory

In the film, John Carter, a Colonel who is familiar with Carter’s military prowess arrests him in order to get his assistance fighting the Apache. Carter not only outright refuses to join in the battle but repeatedly escapes. The Colonel is bewildered by the contrast between the description of the heroic man he has before him and the actual man.

This broken-in-spirit John Carter is now antagonist against warfare. Yet, when the situation becomes critical for the Colonel, Carter’s instincts overtake his reluctance and he saves him. He repeats the same scenario once on Mars, actively resisting interference until his heart engages. The memory of who he really is becomes stronger than the person he is attempting to be now.

For this plot arc it is obviously a positive impulse that the instinct enables John Carter to be restored to his real self. However, instinct can react the other way as well when characters, or ourselves, have broken away from old detrimental habits and then they find ourselves in a familiar situation where they revert.

In John Carter’s case though it is the memory of his loss that clouds his instincts and interferes with the memory of what he believes and the actions he is willing to take. In fighting against a return to a negative lifestyle characters can choose the memory of what their life has become now to resist the lapse into old behaviors.

Instinct as memory can become a powerful instrument for both good and evil in characterization and plot development.

Journal Prompt:

1.     Choose a key instinct from your character’s personality and put him in a situation that creates a negative outcome. Then choose another outcome that is positive. How does he emotionally react before and after each occurrence?

2.     List ways either can become plot points for conflict or restoration.

Share: Which instinct did you use and which outcome worked best?

Construct With Memory

Emotional memories have the interesting capacity to focus a high beam on who we think we are, or want to be, and who we really are down deep.

As the four friends, in the movie Shag, try on different personas and test run different actions on their escapade weekend, they are more than a little surprised to find out what really matters. Melaina, the preacher’s daughter, can’t wait to toss scruples, rules and clothes out the window to adopt a sultry presence ready for action. But when one heated Romeo takes her seriously she realizes just where her actions are taking her and instinctively fights back. “It against my religion,” she says desperately and recognizes that she actually means it.

However, young engaged socialite, Carson begins acting with ultra moral and rigid convictions, and then slides steadily into a physical relationship with a boy she just met. “I guess I was always bad inside,” she tells her friends, “but I didn’t know it.” In reality, she decided to act on her own feelings instead of what others expected and had dictated she act. And was more that a little startled at the degree of her rebellion.

When Chip is challenged as to his behavior towards Caroline, he immediately asserts his honor by declaring that he is a southern gentleman. And he is such a gentleman that Caroline thinks he only sees her as overweight and just friend material, because from her emotional memory that is the only way boys see her.

Luanne, though, attempts to stay on track and keep everyone else on track. She upholds the social status she believes in as a senator’s daughter and doesn’t veer away. At the same time she acts as a true friend, by saving Melaina, protecting Carson and encouraging Caroline.

In just a few days these four young women discover, through memory, themselves at the very core of their being, before they head into the next stage of their lives. Their last fling of freedom had deeper roots than they could have imagined.

Journal Prompt: Put your character in a situation where he thinks he is getting exactly the treatment he wants and deserves, but finds his heart is rebelling against it. Why? What memories are reminding him of who he really is?

Share:  What surprised your hero?

Construct With Memory

As we enter into our vocations we need the community of artisans and colleagues to teach and sharpen and encourage growth and skills. We learn from the collective memory, some living and some dead, classroom by personal experience or classrooms through reading or other forms of art. In some ways it’s a modern day version of guilds where skills can be passed down from generation to generation. And everyone benefits.

However when we are fortunate enough to find a mentor, that experience deepens into our hearts and becomes a spiritual inheritance as well. They give us the tools that help us identify our particular bent or purpose or skill within the body. And when we stumble or lose our direction they give us their gift of memory by asking questions that remind us why we started, and where our vision is, and how to find our starting point again. They are a rare gift. They share from generous hearts.

But how exactly? How do they construct beyond craft to spirit? I have been blessed by two special mentors, authors Lauraine Snelling and Ethel Herr, who have practiced what they teach for well over the twenty years I’ve known them. And so I began to list some of their qualities as mentors where they have shared and challenged and grounded me over the years to find the concrete within the abstract. (See the list below)

Their gifts to myself, and many many others, came to a highlight this week as Ethel passed into heaven and our community of writers began the process of saying goodbye by remembering all our stories with her. Mentor. Friend. Poet. Historian. Author. Pray-er. And so much more.

Stories that will help us construct with memory every time we think of her. Words passed along with commitment and humor, with love and challenge, with hope and integrity. Words to be valued. Poured out words.

Received with gratitude.

Journal Prompt:

Go down the list below and write next to each category the name of a mentor who has contributed to your inheritance for faith/vocation/purpose. What are the words or ideas they have given you to sustain you when the road gets blurry, to help you remember your goals for:

            Insight

            Wisdom

Moral Foundation

Compass Point

Quality of Craft

“Calling”

Responsibility

Affirmation

Share: What is a lifelong insight that you received from a mentor?

Construct With Memory

What is the difference between a hero, a celebrity, and a role model?

When I would first ask my college students this question, as an introduction to a research essay, at least half the students responded with a puzzled expression. Usually one would have the courage to reply, “Aren’t they all the same?”

So we would break out into small groups to write definitions and give examples and talk out experiences. This was one set of essays I always looked forward to reading to see how they discovered personal concrete definitions of their own that related to their lives.

Two quotes from our readings that drew the most discussion included the “hero evolves as the culture evolves” according to Joseph Campbell discussing the hero’s adventure, and one article re Rosa Parks that said, “Perhaps the most interesting thing about her was how ordinary she was.”

In some ways Rosa Parks did fit all three definitions but as the class continued to research and discuss it became more obvious that it was outside perceptions that created all the labels—and were not necessarily warranted in all situations. Because of her personal integrity and genuine character, Rosa Parks was already a role model who then became a news celebrity by her actions and has since become a hero.

But then is a hero someone who does one amazing rescue or a faithful parent who shows up each day?  How can we determine quality substance under media glitz?

And then, how have our lives been influenced by those whom we desire to emulate? What happens when we discover our ‘heroes’ have clay feet?

Have you heard the saying that you are what you eat? The application applies to be careful whom we have emulated, or do so now, and what we value as purpose in life.  

Journal Prompt:

1.     Ask your character how she defines a hero, a celebrity and a role model?

2.     Based on her answers choose which one has had the most personal influence on her?

3.     Is the influence positive or negative? Why?

Share:  What characteristic of your personal role model do you still try to emulate?

Construct With Memory

“How did I come to believe that what I knew was also what mattered? And, more to the point for the future, is it what matters?” Patricia Hampl

In her book, I Could tell You Stories, Hampl explores the realm of memory in auto-biographical writing connected by the impulse to remember. She pointed out that both Kafka and Rilke saw memory, “not experience”, as holding the sovereign position in imagination.

For herself Hampl discovered: “The recognition of one’s genuine material seems to involve a fall from the phony grace of good intentions and elevated expectations.” Although she shares via the route of memoir, this door of recognition applies to all forms of writing. If we are unable to infuse our memories, or perhaps our search for our memories into our work then we rob it of honest quest and discovery and an imagination that connects. Each person’s voice is unique and bears witness to life. But in order to share, we first need to identify what really matters to us.

“We store in memory only images of value.”

Journal Prompt:

1.     Choose a first memory of an experience you’ve had twice and write each up as an autobiographical event. For example, the very first day you went to school and then the very first day you went to school in high school, or college.

2.     Or perhaps choose an area in which you became accomplished. The first day you swam in a pool and the first time you swam in a race.

Share: What emotions rose to the surface? Were there similar ones in both vignettes?

Construct With Memory

Recently my grandson’s class did an art project studying Chagall. It was fascinating to see the images these six year-olds chose to reflect their emerging sense of self-portrait and what they remembered as being important to them. And satisfying to see that almost every child chose some depiction of home or school as being a safe place. This is the age to be able to dream big dreams, to become someone new every day and learn to stretch their imagination into possibilities.

For some, this season becomes the root of direction. Perhaps not the actual future vocation, but the essence of value begins to come to light. For others, it’s a long journey. For all it’s a struggle to know when to pursue a dream, and when it needs to be adapted.

One little girl splashed dance all over her portrait, basically ignoring all the other categories. Motion and movement pour out of her. Will she become a dancer—only time will tell if that dream is a concrete reality—but somewhere music will need to be a large part of her life.

Most childhood dreams fade with laughter, however some fade leaving behind a dark shadow when a piece of us becomes cut away along with the dream. Or dismissed as being irrelevant—impossible—irresponsible.

Maybe for ourselves and our characters we need to stop, reflect, remember our own self-portrait and see if we’ve forgotten something important that needs to be refreshed. Langston Hughes captures that essence in his poem.

Dreams

       by Langston Hughes

                        "Hold fast to dreams

                        For if dreams die

                        Life is a broken-winged bird

                        That cannot fly

                        Hold fast to dreams

                        For when dreams go

                        Life is a barren field

                        Frozen with snow"

Journal Prompt:

1.                    Two prominent images here are the broken-winged bird and the barren field. What are some feelings you associate with these images?

2.                    What two or three words would your character use to remember a broken dream?

Share: One image you chose and your reason why.

Construct With Memory

Have you ever gone down the memory road with the phrase, “If I had only known then what I know now, I would’ve (or wouldn’t have) done or not done this.” Hmmm. Maybe not. We often wish we knew the future when it might help more to remember the past—if not for ourselves then definitely for our main characters.

Our version of past events might give a clue not only to how we perceive situations, but also bring to light personality patterns that otherwise might remain hidden.

For example, in the movie Penelope, the parents are desperate to keep their newborn child out of the public eye. One creative journalist manages to sneak into the house startling Jessica, the mother. She in turn reacts physically causing the journalist to lose his eye. No real blame on the mother who instinctively protects her child. And the scene taps into the whole paparazzi deserve what they get attitude.

Yet decades later when the journalist has the opportunity to get his photos, and receive some payback, he begins to back away out of sympathy for Penelope. In the end he brings information to her family in an effort to help her. His character shows genuine concern. He puts compassion above his job.

However, the first words from Jessica are basically, “It’s your own fault you lost your eye.” No remorse. No apology. Immediately combative again. And she’s the one who refuses to let Penelope know the truth. She puts self-interest above her daughter, even though she believes she’s acting out of love. Jessica is more trapped emotionally by the curse than Penelope. She makes all her choices, decisions and actions based on her narrowed viewpoint.

Journal Prompt:

Put your character in a scene with a family member or co-worker with whom there has been a rift in their relationship due to a previous incident. Each continues to justify their own attitude based on their interpretation of remembered events.

Bring a third person into the conversation that presents another possibility altogether. Are either of them willing to change perspective? Why or why not?

Share:

Why do you think we have difficulty acknowledging responsibility for our actions when we are in the wrong? Even for simple oversights.

Memory

As we’ve discussed before memories are not always measurable according to facts. Our perceptions change with our emotional focus and we can often re-write them. Like a public eulogy or obituary we hone in on particular details and choose to keep them as our remembrance.

However the reality still exists and can break through to shatter our illusions. What we see as narrative shatters into splintered particles that lack purpose or direction.

In the movie Tree of Life, the story examines the conflicting memories of one son to his father. Sometimes his reactions appear to be shared with his brothers and at other times in complete contrast. Often the father showed extreme restraint towards this son’s emotional journey but then inexplicably over-reacted towards apparent surface issues.

A friend noted that, “The extended focus on beautiful imagery was initially arresting but then became expected and eventually laborious. I wanted the narrative to be more robust to stand up to the really significant and mesmerizing imagery in order to tie it all together in a cohesive way.”

Perhaps the movie’s intent was to leave the viewer to make their own connections and opinions, but instead left out too many real facts to engage that conversation. When we write memories into our own memoirs, or for our fictional characters, we need to both have an understanding of the root and why. Only then can we share honestly—especially when we bury parts of the story.

Journal Prompt:

           

Take an incident from your character’s past—perhaps childhood—and write it up from two opposite emotional perceptions. Then blend the two into your character’s memory. Can a viewer or reader tell which is the reality? If not, revise.

For example, a child remembers with fondness a special day at the fair with her father who soon after deserted the family. In reality, the father drank heavily and repeatedly put her in danger that day.

Share: What memory does your character refuse to see in its true light? Why?

Memory

Recently there was a poster on facebook that basically said, “If you are depressed—you’re living in the past; if you are anxious—you’re living in the future; if you are at peace, you’re living in the present.” It’s interesting that all three are tied to memories and how we may process them.

Hugo’s father, in the movie Hugo, lives in the present. Life is not easy or simple. He is raising his son alone, working two demanding jobs, has virtually no extra time to spare and yet every moment is filled with quality. He is dedicated to his son and his craft and his pleasure in both exude love and peace.

His brother also dedicates himself to the quality of his craft, showing considerable diligence, while at the same time drowning his life in alcohol. There is a clue that at one point these two brothers worked together, but no explanation of the separation. All we see is two, almost opposite, approaches to life after a season of grief.

George Melies has buried his dreams and spent over a decade trying not to remember. Yet when the past begins to crack open into the present, he reacts with anxiety, fear and anger. He fights the possibility of a future that might flood him with despair again.

Hugo teeters between all three as he processes his loss. He clings to hope by spending each day faithful to the legacy of craft given by his father, and uncle. He dreams of a future to push back the emotional pain, but hovers on anxiety as every step closer also brings the threat of more loss. Every day he must make the choice to follow peace in the present.

Journal Prompt:

What past grief or potential future grief is your character facing? Write out a sketch of his personality change for each version: anxious, depressed or at peace. What circumstances fuel that outcome?

Memory

What makes a moment a memory? Some memories are built up over several years, such as a yearly trip to a favorite camping site, and then blend together into an image. Others are a one time only flash yet linger for a lifetime. And may or may not be accurate. I have a distinct memory at age five with my paternal grandfather in my aunt’s garden, sitting on his knee telling stories. In later years my parents insisted that it didn’t happen because my grandfather had a stroke and was unable to speak. Yet it is my one and only clear memory of him. All the others remain fuzzy or based on hearsay.

Something had to have connected between us for me to hold it so thoroughly. Perhaps I was the one chattering away telling the stories, but he must have somehow engaged in the process for it to remain. Every day we have hundreds or thousands of moments that pass through our experiences unheeded. Maybe a memory sticks when, as the character says in the movie Avatar, “I see you.”

In the Doctor Who series version of A Christmas Carol, three people experience Christmas Eve together over a period of several years. It is the only time they are together. One person ages by only one day. Another by a year. Eventually his age catches up to hers and they fall in love—for a brief few evenings. And then he discovers she has only one more time left, so rather than live it together he lets time pass going into his old age living off the memories and becoming more and more hard-hearted with his despair. A beautiful joy filled adventure turned into a life of misery because he could only see it through his pain.

And when finally he opens the time again to see her vibrant expectancy she is able to chide him softly and let her perspective enlighten his. They both ‘see’ each other again and live the remaining moments with a connection that lasts forever.

Journal Prompt:

1. Ask siblings or cousins or friends about a celebration or trip you took together as children or teens. Have them share their one highlight. Does everyone pick the same heartbeat or do a few not even remember going?

2. Repeat the exercise for your character. Then blend both sets of emotional memories into a new scene.

Memory

Even when the glass is smudged, a mirror reflects an image. So too 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 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

And this series of repeating images also connects with us in our personal histories, our personal daily adventures and 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 those 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. 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.

Journal Prompt:

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.

Memory

Memories are like emotional mirrors, reflecting back the image that connects us. The strongest ones often come through our senses. Is anyone baking Christmas cookies this week finding a more than average visitor trek to the kitchen? The memories can show up in unexpected places or be ones we hold tightly, so as not to forget a place or a special person. Traditional hymns are not heard as often recently and it is a special treat for me to hear “The Old Rugged Cross” sung which was my Grandmother’s favorite, and brings her immediately present to me.

When times of chaos, or tragedy, or stress strike, these images can become lifelines as well when they hold goodness and love.

In The Land of Darkness, by C.S. Lakin, Jadiel holds onto her mother’s memory to give her strength to cope first with her stepmother’s cruelty and then to face a harsh quest to save her father. She reaches for her flute and the songs her mother taught her. When her soul bows under the strain the remembrance restores her. It reaches across emotional time. And also across physical distance as her father, now trapped in a hawk’s body, crisscrosses the sky searching for her.

“He singled out the breathy melody, a thin strain wafting his way—from the south. ….The farther south he glided, the more sonorous the music. Now he was certain he heard a flute, its crystal-clear notes stringing into a tune that resonated deep within his soul. A tune his wife M’lynn had sung many nights in the drawing room, beside the fireplace.”

What special images from your past give you hope?

Journal Prompt:

1. Pick 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?

Memory

“One is poised on the Threshold of life waiting to be born. It’s an ongoing process. Some of us are not happy unless we are born over and over again, still trying to get it right.” Tim Wynne-Jones

Thresholds of Ambiguity

Memory gives us the process of choice and decision-making and thresholds. Our understanding grows and our perspectives shift. A right choice made once before has now become a wrong choice. An ordinary day shifts suddenly into the unexpected—sometimes by events—sometimes morally.

Scripture stories, fairy-tales and folk-tales speak this language into our hearts. We’re not left without access to wisdom or experience. Others have taken this journey and we find hints how to find our way through.

The day began on an ordinary walk through the woods with their father searching for food, but this time Hansel and Gretel are abandoned. They step into the unknown. Many of their choices are made without mature knowledge but they rely on instinct.

Red Riding Hood travels a familiar path to her grandmother’s house, but comes back from one visit completely different, or is she?

The added beauty from a journey perspective is that the reality of common day-to-day activities can be developed into shadows, as passages from long ago or as foretelling to the future. All also have the potential to tap into echoes and allusions and metaphors. It opens up creativity and new beginnings. “Which way is in and which way is out.”

In the movie Avatar, new arrival Jake Sully has no qualms about gathering intelligence on the Na’vi and their world. Jaded by his twin brother’s death and his own injuries, he just wants to walk again. And then he begins a dual life living among the Na’vi and reporting on them. Gradually his values change as he recognizes the threshold he is aiming for has moral consequences far greater than he imagined.

Will the journey chosen to find shelter bring death or freedom?

Journal Prompt:

Although nothing illegal has happened to your protagonist, she begins to notice some discrepancies in the paperwork. When she asks her boss he dismisses it as unimportant. However she realizes that only her signature is on the documents. And she really needs a job. What are her options? What course of action does she choose and why?