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“You enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary.” ~Frederick Buechner
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
Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“Dance is the hidden
language of the soul” Martha Graham
To describe and implement symbols, images and typology, we
are looking for familiar touchstones to relate to whether in characters, words,
or patterns—plus the geography that connects whether literally as a highway, or
a road marked on a map. They open communication through all sensory responses
depending on the allusions and echoes and images that rise to the surface.
As we’ve reflected back on the connections that most
influence us we see that the strongest ones often come through our senses. Like
being drawn to a kitchen when someone is baking cookies. These echoes can show
up in unexpected places or be ones we hold tightly, so as not to forget a place
or a special person.
When times of chaos, or tragedy, or stress strike, these
images can become lifelines as well when they hold goodness and love.
As mentioned earlier we need to keep listening to our stories.
Don’t force a symbol or theme but watch and see through the brainstorming and
drafts what rises to the surface. However, once you see the comparisons, or
know some themes, look for ways to enhance them naturally. If a particular
metaphor keeps echoing through the work examine it for the potential to either
become a symbol you incorporate, or keep as a symbol for yourself writing
towards it without stating what it is.
The movie Shag is
named after and highlights Carolina Shag dancing in the 1960’s. The focus is
set on a weekend with four young women transitioning from high-school. The
dance allusion tracks their personal discoveries as they begin to see
themselves from a new perspective.
Some of its timeless appeal definitely included the music,
which captured the era, was fun, and wove its own magic. But the key echo was
the metaphor of dance behind the actual dance steps and music, which the movie
blended seamlessly throughout the storyline.
For example: the character Pudge loves to dance, is so excited
she can’t wait to be at the dance hall, and faces immediate disappointment as
no one wants to dance with her.
She sees herself through her nickname as undesirable. The surface
dilemma is a minor inconvenience to the deeper desire for Pudge to have someone
value her for herself, for someone to wants to ‘dance’ with her, to match her
heart.
The young man she meets insists he can’t shag so Pudge
offers to teach him. He actually is an excellent dancer but he too is looking
beyond the surface and doesn’t want to be liked just because he can dance in
the contest. The dance metaphor guides them into a real understanding of
friendship and relationship and possibilities.
They learn their new steps as individuals hearing their own
heartbeats, their real desires, and their soul hungers.
Action Steps:
1. Choose a dance theme that
matches your character, whether current or historical to her real timeline.
Chart out the actual dance moves and the pattern to them.
2. How can you apply that pattern
to an emotional conflict she is trying to comprehend?
Share: What timeless quality does it unveil for her
situation?
Read deep, marcy
Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“I hope the audience
will feel the possibility of magic—if not real magic, then the metaphor of
magic—touching their lives, and making them better for it.” Scott Glenn
In our writing, as well as on the roads we literally travel
on, we continually need to read directions to understand where we are, to make
sure we haven’t gotten lost. What does that sign say? Danger ahead,
construction work in progress, slow down, curve ahead, slippery, speed limit.
The story becomes as much a part of the journey as the destination.
There are many maps to explore: mythic, cultural,
psychological, spiritual, emotional, and personal. All have the potential to
deepen our appreciation of the story we’re in. Our emotions engage in resonance
as we hold our breath at the villain, sigh in relief at escape, and cry with
happiness at reconciliation. Our hearts watch for the clues.
In the movie, The
Seventh Stream, we can also track the moral direction of the characters through
their actions. Dunhill is an embittered young man who controls Mairead, the
selkie. Greed is Dunhill’s heart’s desire.
Our first glimpse is his attempt to kill a seal. But he
stops as he looks into her eyes. Why? Belated compassion? No, instead he has a
glimmer of a greater bounty. Unlike Quinn, Dunhill does believe the legends and
so he captures the skin of this selkie, forcing her under his power.
He is desperate for a life of ease, for the respect of the
villagers and for riches. Greed leads to murder. First he kills her spirit by
imprisoning her. Then later he threatens to kill his own father. His choices
and decisions are plotted according to his heart’s desires as clearly as a
roadmap.
Action Steps:
1. Choose one of the “seven deadly
sins” and write out a trajectory for its satisfaction, from the smallest
impulse to final completion.
2. Apply those steps to your
antagonist’s career arc.
Share: What sin did you choose? Why and how does it apply?
Read deep, marcy
Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“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
Even when the glass is smudged, a mirror reflects an image.
So 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 series of repeating images also connects us in our
personal histories, our personal daily adventures, and our 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 his 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.
His 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.
Action Steps:
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.
Share: Which one gave a stronger image?
Read deep, marcy
Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“All real art comes from the deepest
self—painting, writing, music, and dance, all of it that in some way nourishes
the spirit and enriches the understanding.” Frederick Buechner
The reality of common day-to-day activities can also be
developed into shadows, as both passages from long ago or as foretelling to the
future. These symbols also have the potential to tap into echoes and allusions
and metaphors that build a bridge to both.
For example, in our early draft we just write everything
down as it comes to us through our senses. Usually we lean on ordinary words
for basic descriptions. Then we go back through to paint in feelings and
scenery and ambiance. But sometimes we’re still stuck with the ordinary because
it’s so familiar that other thoughts or phrases just won’t come to mind without
sounding artificial or planted.
Memories can be quite elusive when it comes to recognizing
their truths. We tend to look at them through filtered lenses, rose-colored for
positive and shaded for negative, automatically changing their initial reality
and impact.
But our sensory memories don’t cloud the recall. Whether we
appreciate them or not, just a brief taste, or fragrance, or sound can catapult
us in an instant. Or, at the least, we have an emotional reaction to the input
and don’t know quite why. And the senses sharpen the pleasure or the pain, even
when we try to forget.
In the historical romance “A Memory Between Us,” by Sarah Sundin, army nurse Lieutenant Ruth
Doherty remembers her past well. In fact, so well, that she has built a
protective emotional barrier around herself to keep it locked up. She stays
focused and stays professional. And if it should try to derail her, she turns
to well-honed defense mechanisms to lock it back.
But eventually she takes a step towards love, accepts a kiss
for a brief moment of yearning and then the sensory memory attacks, robbing her
of present happiness, and skidding her backwards when: “His breath stank of beer and sausage. He ground the broken watch glass
into her wrist, ground the truth into her head: ‘You’ll never get rid of me.
You’ll always see my face.’”
And so she runs from the present honorable man, convinced she
will never be freed from the pain.
Action Steps:
1. Make a sensory list for your
character. From each category choose her most favorite memory, and her most
horrible memory. Which one is the most dramatic, or the most humorous? Look for
a place in one of your scenes to use this memory to create friction with
another character.
2. Choose a turning point memory
in your own life, or for your character. Write it up with as many details as
possible. Don’t worry about overwriting it. Pour in sensory specifics.
3. Now color code the sensory
highlights as if you were filling in a stained glass window or a
paint-by-number. Which color is predominant?
4. Next re-write as a scene capturing
that particular focus or echo.
5. If you have written the scene
as fiction—now redo as non-fiction or vice versa.
Share: What differences did you see between the two? How did
your emphasis of focus change between the imaginary and the real?
If
it’s not too personal, please share one phrase of that scene.
Read deep, marcy
Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“I love doing
something like this because you’re dealing with some of the best poetry that
anyone’s ever written. And this poetry involves deep emotions: love and
gentleness and caring.” Actor Scott Glenn
It is important that the emotional resonance works. Regardless of genre, symbols and
metaphors as echoes can come from art or music, from sports or food, and many
other ordinary sources. What would the Siren’s song look like in a Dr. Who
episode? What nectar filters through a romance? Taking a familiar symbol and
redesigning its purpose enhances resonance.
The film Simply
Irresistible adds an echo of fairy dust to the heroine’s cooking. Although
I personally did not like the film Waitress,
I admired all the pie creations. The foundation began with a strong echo of
small town America by using a local diner, pies, and struggling waitresses.
In the sci-fi series Firefly,
episode two, incorporates a confrontation between the Captain and an old
adversary by echoing old westerns. They meet in a deserted area, with snipers
up on the hills instead of wooden buildings. The self-designated ‘mayor’ rides
up on horseback with her posse. The setting provides familiar emotional
territory in an unfamiliar future.
Metaphors help create “a holy curiosity” by capturing our
attention. They catch us up and we pause instead of racing past words. Like
Moses we turn to see why the burning bush is not consumed. We allow the
concepts to soak slowly into our emotions.
In the movie, The
Seventh Stream, grief-laden widower Quinn is a man of logic. He believes in
only what he can see and feel and “sometimes not even that.” When a mysterious
woman appears in their fishing village he cannot accept that she is walking off
the pages of a legend.
However, he recognizes her inner turmoil instantly and her
emotional pain strikes his heart. With her pure heart insight as a selkie, a
seal in human form, she discerns his loneliness and uses it to build a bridge
of communication, a bridge of possibility. Gradually both Quinn and the
audience begin to accept the truth of what she is and identify with the
emotional echo both share. Reality and imagination intersect.
Action Steps:
1. For yourself, or for one of
your characters, choose a painful emotion. Then write a short scene where
another person bridges that pain with healing by use of metaphoric symbol or
image.
2. How does that touch make the
pain better, or at least bearable?
Share: What echo did you choose?
Read deep, marcy
Workshop: Discover
Words That Sing
“Three women cackle
over a steaming pot? We know we’re in the presence of evil, thanks to William
Shakespeare, even though these three women may live in Winnipeg and ride
motorcycles.” Jack Hodgins
Symbols as
Allusions and Echoes
Often we can find our echoes of metaphor, symbols, and
allusions through our personal history, literature, scripture, folk-tales,
songs and culture. These characters, phrases, and patterns continue to add
depth and enrich resonance to our readers.
Jack Hodgins, A
Passion for Narrative, points out that we can add depth by making stories
connect to other stories by allusions, or implied comparisons, or with passages
that echo passages we recognize from somewhere else. Usually these are
characters, phrases or patterns that make us think of other stories that have
had an effect on us. Boy—raft. Dust bowl—Depression. Cowboys—West. These are
familiar touchstones in American literature. But we’ve also incorporated other
allusions into the cultural history: Holy Grail, Voyages, Hobbits, and Aliens.
We need to keep “listening” to our stories. Don’t force a
symbol, or theme, but watch and see through the brainstorming and drafts what
rises to the surface. However, once you see the comparisons, or know some
themes, look for ways to enhance them naturally.
If a particular metaphor keeps echoing through the work
examine it for the potential to either become a symbol you incorporate, or keep
as a symbol for yourself writing towards it without stating what it is.
According to Hodgins, although being aware of the reason
behind it can add more depth and richness and humor when done well. For your
reader though, it is better to be so subtle that it’s almost unnoticed.
Although it’s really not necessary that your reader get the echo reference,
however, if you choose to use it you must know what it means, and use it
properly so that you’re not misinterpreting the basis. The other possibility is
completely reversing it, as in a parody.
Action Steps:
1.
In the most recent movie you’ve seen what memory
echoes did you notice—either as positive or negative—that applied to you
personally?
2.
Consider your most favorite movie and identify
the echoes you respond to in it.
3.
If you have a favorite genre in movies, what key
metaphors or connections do you expect to see?
Share: Did you discover any surprises in the characters, the
phrases, or patterns?
Read deep, marcy
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