The Anatomy of Story (37 page)

HOW SYMBOLS WORK

A symbol is an image with special power that has value to the audience. Just as matter is highly concentrated energy, a symbol is highly concentrated meaning. In fact, it is the most focused condenser-expander of any storytelling technique. A simple guide to using symbol might be "Refer

and repeat." Here's how it works: yon start with a feeling and create a symbol that will cause that feeling in the audience. You then repeat the symbol, changing it slightly.

Feeling -> symbol -> feeling in the audience Changed symbol ->
s
tronger feeling in the audience

Symbols work on the audience in a very sneaky but powerful way. A symbol creates a resonance, like ripples in a pond, every time it appears. As you repeat the symbol, the ripples expand and reverberate in the minds of the audience often without their being consciously aware of it.

You may recall that I said that the single biggest mistake in creating character is to see a character as a single, unique individual. That's the quickest way to make sure that none of your characters is a unique individual. Similarly, the single biggest mistake in creating a symbol is to see it as a single object.

KEY POINT: Always create a
web
of symbols in which each symbol helps

define the others.

Let's step back for a moment and look once more at how the various subsystems of the story body fit together. The character web shows a deeper truth about how the world works by comparing and contrasting people. Plot shows a deeper truth about how the world works through a sequence of actions with a surprising but powerful logic. The symbol web shows a deeper reality about how the world works by referring objects, people, and actions to other objects, people, and actions. When the audience makes that comparison, even if partially or fleetingly, they see the deepest nature of the two things being compared.

For example, to compare Tracy Lord to a goddess in
The Philadelphia Story
emphasizes her beauty and grace, but also her coldness and fierce sense of superiority to others. To compare the serene forest world of

Lothlorien to the terrifying mountain world of Mordor in
Ihe Lord of the Rings
highlights the contrast between a sweet, life-giving community of equals and a fiery, death-dealing world of tyranny. To compare airplanes to horses in
For Whom the Bell Tolls
encapsulates how an entire culture valuing mechanized, impersonal force is replacing a horse culture valuing personal chivalry, loyalty, and honor.

You create the symbol web by attaching symbols to any or all of these elements: the entire story, the structure, characters, theme, story world, actions, objects, and dialogue.

STORY SYMBOLS

At the level of the story idea or premise, a symbol expresses the fundamental story twists, the central theme, or the overall story structure and unifies them under one image. Let's look at some examples of story symbols.

The Odyssey

The central story symbol in the
Odyssey
is in the title itself. This is the long journey that must be endured.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The central symbol here, by contrast, is not Huck's journey down the Mississippi; it is the raft. On this fragile, floating island, a white boy and a black slave can live as friends and equals.

Heart of Darkness

The symbolic heart of darkness of the title is the deepest part of the jungle, and it represents the physical, psychological, and moral endpoint of Marlow's trip up the river.

Spider-Man, Batman, Superman

These titles describe hybrid men with special powers. But the titles also imply characters who are divided within themselves and separated from the human community.

The Cherry Orchard

The cherry orchard suggests a place of timeless beauty but also one that is impractical and thus expendable in a real world that develops.

The Scarlet Letter

The scarlet letter starts literally as the symbol by which a woman is forced to advertise her immoral act of love. But it becomes the symbol of a different morality based on real love.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

The portrait of this artist begins with his symbolic name, Dedalus. Daedalus was the architect and inventor who built the labyrinth in Greek mythology. Connected with this name is the symbol of wings, which Daedalus built so that he and his son, Icarus, could escape the labyrinth. Many critics have commented that Joyce created the story structure of
Portrait
as a series of trial flights for his artistic hero to make his escape from his past and his country.

How
Green Was My Valley

This story of a man recounting his childhood in a Welsh mining village has two main symbols: the green valley and the black mine. The green valley is the literal home of the hero. It is also the beginning of the overall story process and emotional journey by which the hero will move from green nature, youth, innocence, family, and home to a blackened, mechanized factory world, a shattered family, and exile.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

The two symbols of the title, the crazy place and the free spirit who flies, again suggest the overall process of the story of a fun-loving prisoner stirring up the patients in a mental institution.

Network

The network is literally a television broadcasting company and symbolically a web that traps all who are entangled within it.

Alien

An alien is the symbolic outsider, and as a story structure, it is the terrifying other who comes within.

Remembrance of Things Past

The key symbol is the madeleine cookie, which, when eaten, causes the storyteller to remember the entire novel.

A Farewell to Arms

The farewell to arms for the hero is desertion, the central action of the story.

The Catcher in the Rye

The catcher in the rye is a symbolic fantasy character the hero wants to be, and it is emblematic of both his compassion and his unrealistic desire to stop change.

Symbol Line

In coming up with a web of symbols that you can weave through your story, you must first come up with a single line that can connect all the main symbols of the web. This symbol line must come out of the work you have done on the designing principle of the story, along with the theme line and the story world you have already created.

For practice, let's return one more time to the designing principles of the stories we discussed in Chapter 2, "Premise," this time to find the symbol line.

Moses, in the Book of Exodus

■ Designing Principle
A man who does not know who he is struggles to lead his people to freedom and receives the new moral laws that will define him and his people.

■ Theme Line
A man who takes responsibility for his people is rewarded by a vision of how to live by the word of God.

■ Story World
A journey from an enslaving city through a wilderness to a mountaintop.

■ S
ymbol Line
God's word made physical via such symbols as the burning bush, plague, and the tablet of the Ten Commandments.

Ulysses

■ Designing Principle
In a modern odyssey through the city, over the course of a single day, one man finds a father and the other man finds a son.

■ Theme Line
The true hero is the man who endures the slings

and arrows of everyday life and shows compassion to another person in need.

■ Story World
A city over the course of twenty-four hours, with each of its parts being a modern version of a mythical obstacle.

■ Symbol Line
The modern Ulysses, Telemachus, and Penelope.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

■ Designing Principle
A group of friends experiences four
Utopias
(weddings) and a moment in hell (funeral) as they all look for their right partner in marriage.

■ Theme Line
When you find your one true love, you must commit to that person with your whole heart.

■  Story World
The
Utopian
world and
rituals
of weddings.

■ Symbol Line
The wedding versus the funeral.

Harry Potter Books

■  Designing Principle
A magician prince learns to be a man and a king by attending a boarding school for sorcerers over the course of seven school years.

■ Theme Line
When you are blessed with great talent and power, you must become a leader and sacrifice for the good of others.

■ Story World
A school for wizards in a giant magical medieval castle.

■ Symbol Line
A magical kingdom in the form of a school.
The Sting

■ Designing Principle
Tell the story of a sting in the form of a sting, and con both the opponent and the audience.

■ Theme Line
A little lying and cheating are OK if you bring down an evil man.

■ Story World
A fake place of business in a run-down Depression-era city.

■ Symbol Line
The trickery by which a person gets stung.

Long Day's Journey into Night

■ Designing Principle
As a family moves from day into night, its members are confronted with the sins and ghosts of their past.

■ Theme Line
You must face the truth about yourself and others and forgive.

■ Story World
The dark house, full of crannies where family secrets can be hidden away.

■ Symbol Line
From increasing darkness to a light in the night.

Meet Me in St. Louis

■ Designing Principle
The growth of a family over the course of a year is shown by events in each of the four seasons.

■ Theme Line
Sacrificing for the family is more important than striving for personal glory.

■ Story World
The grand house that changes its nature with each season and with each change of the family that lives in it.

■ Symbol Line
The house changing with the seasons.

Copenhagen

■ Designing Principle
Use the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to explore the ambiguous morality of the man who discovered it.

■ Theme Line
Understanding why we act, and whether it is right, is always uncertain.

■ Story World
The house in the form of a courtroom.

■ Symbol Line
The uncertainty principle.

A Christmas Carol

■ Designing Principle
Trace the rebirth of a man by forcing him to view his past, his present, and his future over the course of one Christmas Eve.

■ 
Theme Line
A person lives a much happier life when he gives to others.