Opening 'paragraph'

Opening sequence of Gone Baby Gone

"The opening paragraph of a story is its second strongest statement (the final paragraph is the strongest) and sets the tone for all that follows." Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French in Writing Fiction: A guide to narrative craft.

The fable game

A favorite book of mine (The fable game by Enzo Mari) perfectly illustrates an unfortunate point about pictorial narratives.

As Maire- Laure Ryan argues-"It seems clear that of all the semiotic codes language is the best suited to story telling. Every narrative can be summarised in language, but very few can be retold through pictures exclusively."

This weakness may be true but there are two ways in which visual mediums can match the power of language mediums. One way is to reinterpret a known story using pictures. A familiar language dependant story can hold the same power when retold visually, because the verbal summary of the story is within us (as illustrated in the mix and match fable game above).

The second is to use written language in partneship with pictures. A graphic novel would be the best example of this. Marrying pictures with words allows the visuals to express concepts on a deeper level.

Detail

Just a few quotes on detail in fiction, from 'Writing Fiction: A guide to narrative craft' by Janet Burroway and Elizabeth Stuckey-French.

"The points to be made are two, and they are both important. The first is that the writer must deal in sense detail. The second is that these must be details that matter"
Burroway and Stuckey-French

"If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite and concrete. The greatest writers...are effectively largely because they deal in particulars and report details that matter."
'The elements of style' William Strunk Jr.

"Good writers may "tell" about almost anything in fiction except the characters feelings. One may tell the reader that the character went to a private school...or one may tell the reader that the character hates spagetti; but with rare exceptions the charcters' feelings must be demonstrated: fear, love, excitement, doubt, embarrassment, despair become real only when they take the form of events— action (or gesture), dialogue, or physical reaction to setting. Detail is the lifeblood of fiction.
John Gardner

Lister

This may be a going off on a tangent. I saw Brisbane born artist Anthony Lister speak at Semi-Permanent last month. When pressed he made an interesting observation about his work. Lister said the reason he paints so many characters from popular culture is because to him these characters form a moral guidance similar to religious stories. His family were not overly religious, so these stories guided him through childhood. I find it interesting that these have resurfaced into his work.

A Hero with a Thousand Faces

In my travels, I've read Joseph Campbell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces. I came upon it because it's a book that George Lucas has accredited with helping him write Star Wars. In the book, Joseph Campbell dissects myths to outline what he sees as a common structure.It was really interesting reading through and seeing how elements of this structure are present in modern epic stories. Below is a summary I borrowed from Wikipedia.

Chapter I: Departure

1. The Call to Adventure
The adventure begins with the hero receiving a call to action, such as a threat to the peace of the community, or the hero simply falls into or blunders into it. The call is often announced to the hero by another character who acts as a "herald". The herald, often represented as dark or terrifying and judged evil by the world, may call the character to adventure simply by the crisis of his appearance.

2. Refusal of the Call
In some stories, the hero initially refuses the call to adventure. When this happens, the hero may suffer somehow, and may eventually choose to answer, or may continue to decline the call.

3. Supernatural Aid
After the hero has accepted the call, he encounters a protective figure (often elderly) who provides special tools and advice for the adventure ahead, such as an amulet or a weapon.

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold
The hero must cross the threshold between the world he is familiar with and that which he is not. Often this involves facing a "threshold guardian", an entity that works to keep all within the protective confines of the world but must be encountered in order to enter the new zone of experience.

5. The Belly of the Whale
The hero, rather than passing a threshold, passes into the new zone by means of rebirth. Appearing to have died by being swallowed or having their flesh scattered, the hero is transformed and becomes ready for the adventure ahead.

Chapter II: Initiation

1. The Road of Trials
Once past the threshold, the hero encounters a dream landscape of ambiguous and fluid forms. The hero is challenged to survive a succession of obstacles and, in so doing, amplifies his consciousness. The hero is helped covertly by the supernatural helper or may discover a benign power supporting him in his passage.

2. The Meeting with the Goddess
The ultimate trial is often represented as a marriage between the hero and a queenlike, or mother-like figure. This represents the hero's mastery of life (represented by the feminine) as well as the totality of what can be known. When the hero is female, this becomes a male figure.

3. Woman as the Temptress
His awareness expanded, the hero may fixate on the disunity between truth and his subjective outlook, inherently tainted by the flesh. This is often represented with revulsion or rejection of a female figure.

4. Atonement with the Father
The hero reconciles the tyrant and merciful aspects of the father-like authority figure to understand himself as well as this figure.

5. Apotheosis
The hero's ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness. Quite frequently the hero's idea of reality is changed; the hero may find an ability to do new things or to see a larger point of view, allowing the hero to sacrifice himself.

6. The Ultimate Boon
The hero is now ready to obtain that which he has set out, an item or new awareness that, once he returns, will benefit the society that he has left.

Chapter III: Return

1. Refusal of the Return
Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world to bestow the boon onto his fellow man.

2. The Magic Flight
When the boon's acquisition (or the hero's return to the world) comes against opposition, a chase or pursuit may ensue before the hero returns.

3. Rescue from Without
The hero may need to be rescued by forces from the ordinary world. This may be because the hero has refused to return or because he is successfully blocked from returning with the boon. The hero loses his ego.

4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The hero returns to the world of common day and must accept it as real.

5. Master of the Two Worlds
Because of the boon or due to his experience, the hero may now perceive both the divine and human worlds.

6. Freedom to Live
The hero bestows the boon to his fellow man.

Standing ovations

This blog has been a little lonely lately because I've been consumed by all this reading. I just wanted to write a quick note about AGIdeas. I learnt quite a few things from the event, but the most important thing I observed was the difference between good and bad speakers. I found the speakers that engaged me personally were the ones that told a story. It is the process or the journey of any project that is the most interesting. Richard Seymour connected with the audience in such a way that he got a standing ovation. A part of this was because he gave every point or project relevance using a story and gave it life. The speakers that simply clicked through their folio and talked about the what instead of the how simply didn't resonate.