The Anatomy of Story (26 page)

DETAILING THE STORY WORLD

You detail the visual oppositions and the story world itself by combining three major elements: the land (natural settings), the people (man-made spaces), and technology (tools). A fourth element, time, is the way your unique world develops over the course of the story, which we'll discuss later. Let's begin by looking at the natural settings.

Natural Settings

Never select the natural settings for your story by happenstance. Each setting carries a multitude of meanings for an audience. As Bachelard says, "A psychologist of the imagination . . . comes to realize that the cosmos molds mankind, that it can transform a man of the hills into a man of islands and rivers, and that the house remodels man."
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You need to know some of the possible meanings of the various natural settings, such as hills, islands, and rivers, so that you can determine if one best expresses your story line, characters, and theme.

Ocean

For the human imagination, the ocean divides into two distinct places, the surface and the deep. The surface is the ultimate two-dimensional landscape, the flat table as far as the eye can see. This makes the ocean surface seem abstract while also being totally natural. This abstract flat sur-face, like a huge chessboard, intensities the sense of the
contest,
a game of life and death played out on the grandest scale.

The ocean deep is the ultimate three-dimensional landscape where all creatures are weightless and thus live at every level. This weightless, floating quality is a common element when the human mind imagines a Utopia, which is why the ocean deep has often been the place of
Utopian
dreamworlds.

But the ocean deep is also a terrifying graveyard, a great, impersonal force quietly grabbing anyone or anything on the surface and pulling it down to the infinite black depths. The ocean is the vast cavern where ancient worlds, prehistoric creatures, past secrets, and old treasure are swallowed up and lie waiting to be discovered.

Ocean stories include
Moby-Dick; Titanic; Finding Nemo; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; The Little Mermaid; Atlantis; The Sea Wolf; Master and Com-mander; Run Silent, Run Deep; Mutiny on the Bounty; The Hunt for Red October; Jaws;
and
Yellow Submarine.

Outer Space

Outer space is the ocean of "out there," an infinite black nothingness that hides an unlimited diversity of other worlds. Like the ocean deep, it is three-dimensional. Like the ocean surface, outer space feels both abstract and natural. Everything moves through blackness, so each thing, though a unique individual, is also highlighted in its most essential quality. There is the "spaceship," the "human being," the "robot," the "alien." Science fiction stories often use the myth form, not only because myth is about the journey but also because myth is the story form that explores the most fundamental human distinctions.

Because outer space holds the promise of unlimited diversity of other worlds, it is a place of unending adventure. Adventure stories are always about a sense of discovery, of the new, of the amazing, and this can be both exciting and terrifying. At this point in the history of humans on earth and the development of stories, outer space is the only natural setting where this sense of unlimited adventure is still possible. (The ocean is largely unexplored territory as well. But because we can't imagine a real community living there, the ocean is the site of a human world only in fantasy.)

Outer space is the realm ol science fiction stories such as
2001: A Space Odyssey, Dune,
the
Star Wars
movies,
Blade Runner, Apollo 13, Forbidden Planet,
many of the
Twilight Zone
stories, the
Star Trek
movies and television shows, and the
Alien
films.

Forest

The central story quality of the forest is that it is a natural cathedral. The tall trees, with their leaves hanging over us and protecting us, seem like the oldest wise men assuring us that whatever the circumstances, it will resolve as time moves on. It is the place where contemplative people go and to which lovers sneak away.

But this intense inward gaze of the forest also has a sense of foreboding. The forest is where people get lost. It's the hiding place of ghosts and past lives. It is where hunters stalk their prey, and their prey is often human. The forest is tamer than the jungle; the jungle will kill anything in it at any moment. The forest, when it does its frightening work, causes mental loss first. It is slower than the jungle but still deadly.

We see the forest used in many fairy tales, as well as
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Lord of the Rings,
the Harry Potter books,
Return of the Jedi, Shrek, Excalibur, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Song of Solomon, The Wizard of Oz, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Wolf Man, The Blair Witch Project,
and
Miller's Crossing.

Jungle

The jungle is the state of nature. Its primary effect on the imagination is the feeling of suffocation. Everything about it is grabbing you. The jungle gives audiences the strongest sense of the power of nature over man. In that environment, man is reduced to beast.

Ironically, such a primal place is also one of the two natural settings that express the theory of evolution, the modern theory of change.

The jungle world is found in the
Star Wars
movies; the
Tarzan
stories, including
Greystoke; King Kong; The African Queen; Jurassic Park
and
The Lost World; The Emerald Forest; Aguirre: The Wrath of God; Mosquito Coast; Fitzcar-raldo; The Poisonwood Bible; Heart of Darkness;
and
Apocalypse Now.

Desert and Ice

Desert and ice are the places of dying and death, at all times, liven stories have a hard time growing there. Desert and ice seem completely impersonal in their brutality.

When something valuable comes out of these places, it is because the strong-willed have gone there to be toughened and grow through isolation. A rare example of the ice world portrayed as a
Utopia
is found in Mark Helprin's novel
Winter's Tale.
Helprin presents a village whose sense of community is actually heightened when winter shuts it off from the rest of the world and freezes the lake, on which the villagers enjoy every kind of winter fun.

Desert or ice worlds are prominent in the
Star Wars
movies,
Fargo, Lawrence of Arabia, Beau Geste, Dune, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, My Darling Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Once upon a Time in the West, The Wild Bunch, The Sheltering Sky, The Gold Rush,
and
The Call of the Wild.

Island

The island is an ideal setting for creating a story in a social context. Like the ocean and outer space, the island is both highly abstract and completely natural. It is a miniature of the earth, a small piece of land surrounded by water. The island is, by definition, a separated place. This is why, in stories, it is the laboratory of man, a solitary paradise or hell, the place where a special world can be built and where new forms of living can be created and tested.

The separate, abstract quality of the island is why it is often used to depict a Utopia or dystopia. And even more than the jungle, the island is the classic setting for showing the workings of evolution.

Stories that use the island as a central setting include
Robinson Crusoe, The Tempest, Gulliver's Travels, The Incredibles, King Kong, Treasure Island, The Mysterious Island, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Lord of the Flies, Swept Away, Jurassic Park
and
The Lost World, Cast Away,
the television show
Lost,
and arguably the greatest use of the island in story history,
Gilligan's Island.

In many ways, the island has the most complex story possibilities of any natural setting. Let's take a closer look at how to get the most out of the island world in your story. Notice that the best way to express the inherent meaning of this natural setting is through the story structure:

■ Take time in the beginning to set up the normal society and the characters' place within it. (need)

■
Send the characters to an island. (desire)

■ Create a new society based on different rules and values. (desire)

■ Make the relationship between the characters very different from what it was in the original society. (plan)

■ Through conflict, show what works and what doesn't. (opponent)

■ Show characters experimenting with something new when things don't work. (revelation or self-revelation)

Mountain

This highest of all places translates, in human terms, into the land of greatness. This is where the strong go to prove themselves—usually through seclusion, meditation, a lack of comfort, and direct confrontation with nature in the extreme. The mountaintop is the world of the natural philosopher, the great thinker who must understand the forces of nature so he can live with them and sometimes control them.

Structurally, the mountain, the high place, is most associated with the reveal, the most mental of the twenty-two story structure steps (see Chapter 8, "Plot"). Revelations in stories are moments of discovery, and they are the keys to turning the plot and kicking it to a "higher," more intense level. Again, the mountain setting makes a one-to-one connection between space and person, in this case, height and insight.

This one-to-one connection of space to person is found in the negative expression of the mountain as well. It is often depicted as the site of hierarchy, privilege, and tyranny, typically of an aristocrat who lords it over the common people down below.

KEY POINT:
The mountain is usually set in opposition to the plain.

The mountain and the plain are the only two major natural settings that visually stand in contrast to one another, so storytellers often use the comparative- method to highlight the essential and opposing qualities of each.

The mountain world is important in the Moses story, Greek myths of the gods on Mount Olympus, many fairy tales,
The Magic Mountain, Lost Horizon, Brokeback Mountain, Batman Begins, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, A farewell to Arms, The Deer Hunter, Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves, Shane, The Shining,
and a number of other horror stories.

Plain

The flat table of the plain is wide open and accessible to all. In contrast to the jungle, which presses in, the plain is totally free. This is why, in stories, it is the place of equality, freedom, and the rights of the common man. But this freedom is not without cost and conflict. Like the surface of the ocean, the extreme flatness of the plain becomes abstract, highlighting the sense of contest or life-and-death struggle that will be played out in this arena.

Negatively, the plain is often depicted as the place where the mediocre make their lives. In contrast to the few great ones living up on the moun-taintop, the many average ones live as part of a herd down below. They do not think for themselves, so they are easily led, usually in ways that are destructive to them.

We see the plain depicted in most Westerns, including
Shane
and
The Big Country, Days of Heaven, Dances with Wolves, In Cold Blood, Lost Horizon, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, A Farewell to Arms, Blood Simple,
and
Field of Dreams.

River

The river is a uniquely powerful natural setting, maybe the greatest one of all when it comes to storytelling. The river is a path, which makes it a perfect physical manifestation for myth stories that rely on the journey for their structure.

But the river is more than a path. It is the road
into
or
out of
somewhere. This intensifies the sense that the path is a developing, organic line, not just a series of episodes. For example, in
Heart of Darkness,
the hero goes up the river, ever deeper into the jungle. The line of human development attached to this path is one from civilization to barbaric hell.

In
The African Queen,
the hero reverses that trip and that process by going down the river, out of the jungle. His development begins in a hellish landscape of death, isolation, and madness and moves toward the human world of commitment and love.