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