Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“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?”
Metaphors can open several tension points as choices
challenging beliefs, values and possibilities, either personally for a main
character, or in relationship to family or society.
For example, when
we personally cross thresholds we deliberately make a choice to
step into new stages, probably never to return: a passage of some moment. It
can include walking away from a place, or a relationship, or choosing to no
longer be who we were a few minutes earlier. Often that moment of decision
become a life metaphor or signpost.
For example, in the novel, The Hero and the Crown, protagonist
Aerin made that crossing when she arrived at her first dragon slaying. “Talat halted, and they stood, Aerin gazing
into the black hole in the hill. A minute or two went by and she wondered,
suddenly, how one got the dragon to pay attention to one in the first place.
Did she have to wake it up? Yell? Throw water into the cave at it? Just as her
spear point sagged with doubt, the dragon hurtled out of its den and straight
at them.”
Despite the moment of hesitation Aerin acted upon all her
preparation and stepped into a new role as a dragon-slayer. The threshold
changed her life.
Don’t forget though that some of the most powerful metaphors
can also be ordinary. For example a tree is often used as a symbol or metaphor
of growth and life. In reverse though it can also impact a story by exposing
lies and shadows. Fairy tales and folk tales are rich with living images in all
forms. Scriptures too remind us that choices spread beyond immediate actions.
“For the creation was
subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who
subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its
bondage to decay.” Romans 8: 20-21 NRSV
In the opening of the movie Penelope, as a curse is laid upon the family for their refusal to
take responsibility for their actions, the tree in the courtyard falls into
immediate decay. Yet it doesn’t die. Instead it remains as a visual image
reminding the family descendents and others of the curse. Even if they try to
pretend it doesn’t exist, the tree stands in judgment as a silent metaphor.
And it silently raises immediate story questions such as why
are women willing to marry into this family? Do they not believe in the curse
or do they not care?
So consider too what metaphor warning could your own
character not see or acknowledge?
Or what warning does she represent to others? Silent metaphors woven
into your setting can speak in volumes.
Action Steps:
1. Put your character into a
moment of choice. Overwrite all the sensory details in the initial draft. Then
write up the brief scene twice, once for each possible decision: to flee or fight,
or to submit the accepted ‘dogma’ either socially or personally.
2. Then choose either a threshold
metaphor, or a very ordinary image as a metaphor such as Penelope’s tree.
Share: What word in your brainstorming was the funniest and
which was the saddest?
Read deep, marcy
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