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“You enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary.” ~Frederick Buechner
Thresholds Bonus Exercise
 The following are some quotes from the movie Green Dragon. Put your own character
into a mini scene where he or she makes the statement for themselves, from the
perspective of crossing a threshold literally or figuratively.
“Going to
provide a taste of the dream.”
“People like you are the reason we
are here.”
“But maybe I can do something for
you.”
“What do we have to lose? We’ve lost
everything already.”
“Fate has always been cruel to me
but like our country I will endure”
Share: Did you see
anything new in your character?
Thresholds of Distance
These include worlds apart in distance, such as East to
West, or civilization to wilderness.
Then too, is the distance created by time barriers as found in time
travel fantasy to move across historical eras, and science–fiction travel
crossing space and time?
Each one of these thresholds often includes a mechanism. How
will the crossing and re-crossing be accomplished? What new thresholds happen
if stranded? Is there a limit before a character must choose to stay or leave
permanently?
The movie Avatar
includes multiple layers. First there is the threshold to be permitted to
travel to Avatar. Then there is the different stratas of power and influence within
the mining colony. Next comes the limited access to the Nav’i, the inhabitants
of Pandora, with another hierarchy of status based on qualities almost
completely counter cultural to the business based colony. And within each
crossing and re-crossing is the threat of death from the poisonous atmosphere.
Take another look at the movie, or another time-space
crossing genre, and make a list of all the distance barriers: physically,
emotionally, mentally, spiritually and morally.
Exercise:
1. Choose one of the above categories and put your
character into that moment of choice. Overwrite all the sensory details.
2. Then write up the scene twice, once for each
possible decision: to flee or fight, or to submit the accepted ‘dogma’ either
socially or personally.
Share: Which one
has the strongest emotional reaction? Why?
Thresholds of Immigration
This includes two separate layers of thresholds. First is
the sense of a new arrival. Will the journey chosen to find shelter bring death
or freedom? Then later begins the
journey of “non-acceptance/ acceptance, understood/not understood” in social
mores and customs.
As I’ve shared in a previous blog, an excellent example of a
cross-cultural situation can be found in the movie Green Dragon. One poignant scene occurs with a young woman frantic
to get some milk for her baby who cannot digest the American version. The baby
needs sugar added. A leader in her community is refusing, in a misguided
perception that they still need to ration, so in his mind he is being
responsible. When one of the cooks gets a translation of the difficulty he
makes it clear they can have as much as they need. Both refugees are stunned. But their reactions are very
different. The woman is grateful and relieved while the leader is miffed with a
perception that the young cook has interfered with his authority.
Exercise:
1. Put your
character in a situation where she either dreams, or actually experiences, a refugee
relocation. It can be either by war, or natural disaster, or a long term
camping trip for someone who has never camped before.
2. What is the first thing
she does to give her space a personal focus? Or how does she resist?
Share: Give an
example of a serious misunderstanding and another that is humorous.
Thresholds as Commitment
“But is he who opens a
door and he who closes it the same being”
Gaston
Bachelard
This takes a step through a barrier as in a dream. Alice follows the rabbit hole down the
hole. It is not as deliberate a choice as a crossing, but nevertheless, it
makes a commitment to see through the opportunities or perhaps, as in Alice’s
case, the curiosities that the opening represents.
When Sleeping Beauty discovered a spindle for the first time
she was immediately drawn to it and then crossed the threshold into her destiny
forged by the curse, but not with the dire ends of its intent.
Cinderella’s passage from scullery maid into a guest at the
ball opened the door to her royal future.
“That is what Thresholds are all about in literature,” says
Tim Wynne-Jones. “A Threshold is the physical manifestation of change.”
Exercise:
1.
Make another list of similar barrier thresholds
either from fairy tales or novels you remember.
2.
Then make another list of all the changes in the
characters between their opening and closing their doors.
3.
Which were subtle and which were startling?
Share: How could
you take one of your examples and redress it into another genre?
 Even if we don’t write mystery novels, all novels have a
sense of mystery or the lure of what will happen next. And like a mystery
novel, if a situation, a question or a particular detail is brought to the
reader’s attention it needs to be addressed with a sense of closure. Or we risk
losing credibility with a reader. Especially if it has been given a build-up.
In a recent discussion with a sci-fi and fantasy reader over
the movie John Carter, I was really
surprised at how much he disliked it. But as we talked though what worked and
what didn’t it all came down one main criterion: a mystery thread that didn’t
get answered. Now perhaps in the book series it was an ongoing thread to carry
from one book to another, but in the movie for this one viewer the ball got
dropped.
I remembered the scene and yes, I wondered too, but decided
perhaps the main purpose was characterization as it showed the determination of
the heroine to save her planet and a villain out to sabotage. It annoyed me too,
but I was drawn more to the actual overall world building so it didn’t ruin the
movie for me. But my reader friend waited the whole movie expecting an answer
to why it was so important and instead the closure to that situation was never
explained.
There’s a saying know as Chekhov’s gun that is a reference
to a note he wrote in a letter, which is now used as an example of
foreshadowing.
Just so,
the movie never explained why Dejah, Princess of Helium, expected the large
machine to save her people and city from the Zodanga.
Journal Prompt:
Take a look at your first few chapters and see if there is a
prop that could become a foreshadow for a main plot point, or a sub-plot point.
How far could you stretch the highlight before it becomes interference rather than a
positive thread?
Share: What is a
movie you feel never gave a satisfying closure to mystery threads it began
with?
Thresholds
“Thresholds are necessary in the
creative process in giving an idea somewhere to go.” Tim Wynne-Jones
 Change, no matter how small, can create mental and emotional
chaos as you turn into a different direction, physically or emotionally. To
cross a threshold though requires a choice, even if it has been forced upon you
like a refugee fleeing his war torn land. All sensory memory is heightened and
sharpened. It is not just the moment that is at stake, but the journey that
follows it. Thresholds become part of our soul shadows as much as our physical
bodies cast their shadow. And the question can linger. “Did I choose the right
fork in the road?”
“An Eye for Thresholds,”
is an excellent essay written by Tim Wynne-Jones in the book Only Connect. His focus is under the
category of Books and Children, so
I’m taking extreme liberties by borrowing some of his threshold categories, and
then adapting them and paraphrasing some for my own purposes.
As you look at each category make notes as to where a
challenge of beliefs or values could become a tension point, either personally
for your main character, or in relationship to family or society.
Thresholds as
Connectors
Do we open the
locked door at the end of the spider-coated hallway? Are we ready to hear the
words written in the old manuscripts found buried under the house?
Look at these familiar solid connections and think of ways
they can become a life-changing threshold doors, windows, railroads, books.
Exercise:
1.
Choose one of these categories and brainstorm
ten to twenty ways they can become a threshold connector either literally or
metaphorically or even better—both.
2.
Which one is the strongest? Which the weakest?
Share: What makes
the difference?
Heresy Cont’d
“It is a fantasy
because fantasy is the natural, the appropriate, language for the recounting of
the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.” Ursula
Le Guin
The struggle for good versus evil also occurs within a story
world that embraces a common value system. For example, in the Harry Potter
series, the Hogwarts School
educates children of magical ability. However the approach
to the use of magic itself, the attitude of both students and faculty, and the
choices made, run up and down a moral ladder of values toward the common
magical bond. Choices need to be made all the time.
Unfortunately in our own world there is ample research
material available for several examples of people who have chosen to cut corners for financial gain and caused
injury to innocent victims. When buildings or tunnels collapse, for no apparent
reason, one of the first areas of investigation is to discover whether the
materials used were the approved version or a lesser quality substitute.
What about stealing from an employer re use of supplies or
time or gossip. How could they become arenas for good versus evil?
Exercise:
Make
a list in your own life in the areas of work, or education, or personal
situations (or experiences) that have the potential for moral choices.
Choose one from each category for
your character. Have her make a decision in either direction for each choice.
Share: Which one
has the potential to create the most difficult struggle for your hero?
Heresy with Psychological
Shadows Cont’d
 Psychological shadows can be as basic as growing pains to
outright terrifying death, even without any external threat. And sometimes
overcoming them requires an act of heresy within ourselves, forcing action that
instinctively we (our characters) would choose to avoid at any cost.
Also psychologically making the right choice can feel
heretical because the character may have to turn away from a long held belief,
or value, or relationship, and take steps either towards, or away from, in
order to maintain truth.
In the BBC fantasy series Merlin, the young warlock, is
hampered by the decrees of King Uther who has outlawed all magic. Yet, his
higher call is to keep Prince Arthur safe, so he is continually battling mortal
and magical villains while living a lie of his own abilities and his secret use
of magic. With every encounter he must struggle with his beliefs and his
actions and analyze the risks involved.
Exercise:
Decide how your character
physically reacts to a stressful situation. Then put him in a psychologically
challenging situation where he experiences these symptoms before he is aware of
the situation/dilemma he is in.
What could be the moral
consequences of a choice in either direction?
Share: Which moral
road will he take?
Heresy with Psychological
Shadows
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.
In the novel, The Blue Sword, immediately after she saw
Corlath and his men visit, Harry tumbled back into the insomnia she had first
experienced when adjusting to the desert sounds. And even those few weeks had
been somewhat mild, “a sort of moral
irritability that seems to go with the feeling that I ought to have spent all
those hours sleeping. But this last week had been quite as bad—as sleepless—as
any she had known. The last two nights she had spent curled up in the
window-seat of her bedroom; she had come to the point where she couldn’t even
bear to look at her bed.” And that is where Corlath found her when he
arrived to kidnap her. Her physical body reacted to the danger before her heart
and mind caught up.
Exercise: Choose a
few possible physical radar reactions that your character could have in relation
to an incident that happened in her childhood, or as a result of the situation
she is in now?
Share: How does she
react to the physical trigger, especially when she doesn’t know its cause?
Heresy With Impact Cont’d
 As you’re reading, researching and building
your novel’s story world, look for all the places where heresy is possible or
where heresy once existed. Start small within your character’s personal world
and then expand out as it emotionally impacts your main character and the story
question. Attach your personal feelings from last week's exercise to your character’s
situation.
For a series, maybe book one could include the seed for a heresy to
explode in book five. Or book three will settle once for all a heresy that
existed before book one.
Chart out a cause and effect graph for both
viewpoints, along with a potential timeline for the consequences. Then, if
using it in a series, you will have a better sense of where different “effects”
need to be placed.
Exercise:
Take your primary setting for your character
and make a list of all the ‘forbiddens’ that could affect that particular site.
Go crazy. Make silly ones as well as serious.
What if a café refused service if a person did
not have a tattoo? What if a prestigious art museum allowed a children’s
birthday party (complete with gooey cake) at the foot of a priceless
masterpiece?
Share: Which particular incident in your list appalls your character? Which does she think is ridiculous?
 After watching the movie John Carter, I read some background
material on its sources and watched the extras on the DVD, as I was really
curious about the world building aspects of the movie.
It seems the original creator of the story sequence, Edgar
Rice Burroughs, became interested in the scientific discussion in the early
1900’s that the markings on the planet Mars represented dried up waterways and
rivers. His imagination began to explore what the edge of that decline could
have looked like. What or who could have lived on Mars before the water
disappeared? He drew many maps for the world he named Barsoom based on that
scientific premise. Some of them can be seen on Google.
It reminded me that many of our own civilizations began
alongside major rivers. Until mankind learned to harness water, he had to live
beside it. Even now, those who live near plentiful water supplies do not really
understand the value of water to those who do not and their deprivation as a
result.
Our own oceans have a circulation system that circles the
world. One source refers to it as a conveyor belt. This complex unseen map system
circulates heat and nutrients throughout its pathways. All countries would be affected
if the system broke down. Air currents and migration paths are other unseen
maps ready for exploration. Regardless of your genre, stop and take a look at
nature’s maps in your character’s surroundings. What maps were drawn a century
before? What might be drawn a century into the future?
Journal Prompt:
Choose one of your novel settings near water. Examine the
value of the water to the inhabitants.
Is it for survival, enjoyment, tourism, trade or protection?
Share: What would
happen to the nearest population if that particular water source dried up?
Heresy With Impact
“Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system
of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma.” Wikipedia
For world building I think this definition can
be extended to include any aspect of your world that is its backbone. What is
being challenged? What will be the end result—for either victor? Where is the
threat coming from?
The dogma includes science, history, customs,
morals, politics, economics, geography and finances. It extends from micro
changes, as in a character’s perspective, to macro changes, as in the
destruction of a civilization. No wonder our worlds can be both exciting and
intimidating to build.
And I’m using the term world here as our story
world. The movie Phantom of the Opera
is told almost completely within the opera house. We have only a few glimpses
to the outside ‘real time’ and only where/how it impacts the internal story within
the opera house.
Heresy is deeper than the conflict of values
within the same beliefs. Almost every major early scientific discovery our
world has known came at great cost. The sun is the center of the universe—not
the earth. The world is round—not flat, both considered heretical claims of
their time with serious consequences.
Exercise:
Choose a category that you have been curious about either
vocationally or personally. Pick a decade or century and make a list of the issues
that became a changing marker in the field.
Share: Which one
is the most interesting to you?
History/Travel Summary
 Then when the
basics are done, move into other realms. How does your character move from past
to future, and back again, or from dimension to dimension? Does she require
specials words, or totem, a machine, or assistance from another? Does she
disintegrate and re-form? Make the transport as simple as possible. Then
brainstorm all the possible things that could go wrong. Decide whether there is
a risk every time, or only in improbable circumstances.
Whether you use
man-made or magic-made they need to be believable, and again they must follow
the rules you set up for them. No last minute, “oh look what else this can do
too.” Decide early on what are the levels of safety and what are the levels of
danger, whether in transportation or other uses.
If it’s
difficult to decide where to start, use a real life category such as medical or
a sport to copy as part of a
journey. For example choose a vegetable or fruit that if eaten in great
quantities or not eaten at all can produce serious side effects, such as the
scurvy sailors experienced out on the high seas. Or choose a sport that needs to build up to its peak such as
swimming or running. What damage can be done if an athlete doesn’t follow the
rules and tries to push himself beyond physical preparedness?
Share: What is
the most memorable travel scene to you in either movies or novels? Why?
Merry Christmas!
More Ways to Travel
Vehicle travel, water travel, animal
travel. Begin to keep a
resource journal, both for now and future novels. First write down each
category of transportation. Then make a list under each with two columns: one
fantastical and one reality.
Pick out a few
from each category that fit your location. If your story is in a building such
as the opera house like Phantom of the
Opera, then you don’t need a large ship, but you do need a boat to navigate
the underground canal.
Choose a movie
in your genre category and mark down how each form of travel is navigated. How
does that contribute or impede their abilities. For example in the movie John
Carter of Mars, two races use air travel but one race refuses to fly. Make
notes of the hindrances and look for ways they can become plot conflict in your
version.
Share: What is the most fantastical on your list? What is the
most practical for your world?
Transportation Cont’d
 Air travel. What exists? The usual planes,
helicopter, and hot-air balloons, or magic carpets, flying horses, jetpacks,
giant birds and floating ships? Can the skateboard act like a flying carpet?
Is your space
ship made of metal or is it a living creature? In the series Firefly the crew is always dealing with
their spaceship home, Serenity, which needs constant attention to function. In
fact the ship’s mechanic, Kaylee, came on board in the first episode solely due
to her intuitive knowledge of how to repair Serenity. The crew need Serenity
for transportation and without a crew Serenity cannot fly.
However in the
series Farscape, Moya is a living
ship, a fifth generation Leviathian once free, then captured by the
Peacekeepers, a militant regime, and now home to renegades fleeing the corrupt
empire. Moya has allowed her passengers to stay, but has the ability to defend
herself against unwarranted actions by the crew. They need her, but she doesn’t
need them for transportation.
Compare these
long-term relationships with other sci-fi movies or shows where transportation
is simply a vehicle and has no emotional value at all.
If you have a
central mode of air-travel, brainstorm a spectrum from no emotional connection
whatsoever to a living, being, co-character, and then choose which location on
that spectrum works best for your character and your story. What plot points
can impact your story because of potential difficulties?
Share: What basic transportation does your character use and how
invested is he its survival?
History and Transportation
What forms of
transportation exist in your world? Start with the basics. Make a general list:
foot travel, air travel, vehicle, water or animal travel or other. Are some
divided by economics or class hierarchies? Are they natural to your world or
have some been superimposed? For example, in the movie Avatar the earth has brought heavy machinery to the planet Pandora.
Which ones will
your heroine be using? Does she have access to all? Make her a list of methods
common to her. How does dislocation affect her? Will there be any distinctions
or oddities? Has a person so used to an entourage around them not even know how
to push a button in an elevator? Go through each category and look for details
that can forward your plot or characterization.
Foot travel. What kind of gait does she have? Will
she walk, skip, hop, or run? Can she run fast—will she need to? How will she
accelerate? Barefoot, spiky heels, leather boots, sneakers or ?? and in what
circumstances. What is the next step up: roller blades, skateboard, or scooter?
In a writing workshop
at Mount Hermon one year, author Lauraine Snelling demonstrated just how
insightful watching a person walk indicates their emotional situation. She
would call four or five people up at a time and whisper their attitude to them
alone, and then have them walk around the room. The audience had to guess what
was happening.
Share: Give one mini sketch for foot travel mode in a
lighthearted or humorous circumstance, and one for a dramatic encounter. Which
was easier to communicate?
Cities Cont’d
 Another way to
build history into your world, and to find great ideas, is to track a city over
a long time period alongside its changes. For example, study a city that made a
major transition from rugged camp conditions into a cosmopolitan world center. Or
you can go into the opposite direction: a once major city is now a shadow of
its former appeal. What caused the downfall—corruption or public indifference
or a little of both?
If an entire
city seems overwhelming, choose one neighborhood.
The fame need
not be in location only, but perhaps as a center for the arts, or sports or
medicine or industry. What brought it to fame and why did it lose its
‘authority’?
Give your cities
a connection historically too either through education, or commerce or
religion. Jerusalem is a holy city for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but not
all their holy sites are in the same location. However some are. Has the city
been ‘owned’ by so many different cultures that each can claim a heritage to
it. What kind of conflict can become attached to your protagonist?
Copy one facet
of a famous world city across our own timeline and use it to tie your own city
together. For example, Alexandria Egypt and its famous library, the
architecture in Prague Czechoslovakia, or Paris France for art.
Share: Which city did you choose to study?
History
 Even if
it is a “new world’ it brings with it the influence that marked the journey.
For example the new beginnings for the first immigrants to America and to
Australia suffered extreme deprivation. Yet the societal mix of each group was
entirely different. Many first settlers to America were fleeing religious
persecution, but still maintained loyalties to England. Generally they still
had some choice to go or not. However many of the first settlers to Australia
were forced to go as laborers, convicts and bound servants.
Another
important factor for historical background is to consider what is being left
out. For example, we read or see a violent fight between two groups of people,
with or without distinction by class or race or apparent vocation or aliens,
and there is no evidence of law enforcement whatsoever. What are possible
questions?
Over the next few blogs we’ll examine three critical
reading exercises that help us access a sense of history. First look at the
example and then repeat the ‘reading’ with material from your own world
research either using a photo or painting or narrative description.
The first you’ve already done with the photo by Hopper several weeks ago. But
now repeat the exercise, and choose a photo you’ve selected for your world.
Consider one city, or one landmark within a particular city. For example, is there a
national monument that draws a pilgrimage?
Exercise
Describing
a place.
a.
How has the author organized the space?
b.
What is the attitude or feeling portrayed?
c.
What features are employed?
d.
What is unique?
For each give a specific example.
Share: Which
detail did you emotionally connect to?
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