Exploring Landscape and Belonging Through Story

‘Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.’

James Baldwin Giovanni’s Room

Recently I attended a storytelling festival in Aberystwyth and as I sat mesmerized by the unfolding story of Pryderi, the ruler of Dyfed, I realized once again the power of the ancient stories and the oral tradition of storytelling to connect us to history, to each other and to the land. In Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote that, ‘telling or hearing stories draws its power from a towering column of humanity joined one to the other across time and space, elaborately dressed in the rags or robes or nakedness of their time.’ Listening to this spine tingling retelling of stories from the Welsh Mabinogion, for a moment I felt myself balanced on this towering column and understood what it must mean for someone to feel rooted to the earth, to grow and develop in a country with stories that feed the soul with the wisdom of mythic times, and a landscape that is steeped in these stories.

While the stories we tell about ourselves form our individual identity, the stories we tell about our country form our national identity and for better or worse, these narratives act as roots to ground us to place, providing a sense of belonging and a definition of nationhood. I don’t pretend to be Welsh but my ancestral roots are closer to Britain than they are to Australia where my ancestors are not the indigenous Aboriginal people whose land was taken from them. It’s not always comfortable being a white Australian. We have no ancient claim to the land and no traditional stories to draw from, except the stories of conquering and overcoming the odds, and the legends of mateship and a ‘fair go’ that came with colonization and a persistent white Australian policy. These are stories that have become mythologized in Australia, forming a national character that often marginalizes the indigenous population and ignores the fact that Australia is now a multi-cultural nation and the majority of its population are or once were, immigrants.

There are a number of contradictions inherent in white Australians’ relationship to the land. Many of us are at once drawn to, and repelled by the outback, awed by its beauty and frightened by its dangers. We carry the guilt of the conqueror, a guilt that often stops us from claiming a real connection to the land. Our legendary heroes are the men who cleared fields of rocks, who dug canals to drain marshy land, who made the harsh land work for them. The Aussie battler has become part of our national character. Yet, despite this reverence for the outback, more than ninety percent of Australians live in urban environments, for the most part clustered around the edges of this continent, turned away from the centre which carries such a mystique. We romanticise the wilderness, but most rarely, if ever, experience it. Yet, deep within us there's such a longing for wildness, for wilderness and for the sense of real connection with place.

When I began writing my first novel, Gathering Storm, I had no idea how important a role landscape would play in it or how confused I was about my own relationship to the land. The story moves from the snow covered Malvern Hills in England to the harsh heat of the Australian outback, a dramatic contrast in itself, but then there are the contradictions that are deeply embedded in the relationship the characters have with the places in which they live, or once lived, or never lived, but still dream of. These are contradictions which I feel strongly, having grown up in the suburban wilderness of Adelaide, with its manicured lawns, neat fences and garden beds filled with roses and hydrangeas, all cowering under well placed umbrellas to avoid the worst of the baking sun. At school I learned European history in an education system that was still clinging to the comforting notion of a homeland. The only things reminding me that there was more to Australia, were the throaty laugh of the kookaburra, the eucalyptus scent of the gums trees, the fierce summer heat and the frequent dust storms that blew in from 'out back', turning the sky orange and clogging our lungs.

The word nostalgia comes from two Greek roots, nostos (returning home) and algos (pain). For most of my life I suffered from this affliction; a yearning to return home but no idea of where that home might be. This sense of alienation I felt goes some way towards explaining why I decided to make my main character English in Gathering Storm. This gave me the freedom to describe Australia through the eyes of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong. Storm is also part Romany – partly imbued with the blood of a nomadic people, and although her family have lived in England for nearly seventy years, she still doesn't fully belong there either. Storm belongs nowhere. She is torn between movement and stillness, restless but afraid, wanting to settle, but eager to move. Her sense of self is scattered between the cottage in the Malvern Hills, her boyfriend’s apartment, her art studio and her Kombi van. Then there's her romantic notion of a Bohemia she has never visited, her nostalgia for the Malvern of her childhood and her fearful retracing of her mother's footsteps in the Australian outback. And finally there's the traumatic cultural legacy of the past that plays havoc with her sense of self. Storm’s childhood is filled with secrets and silences embedded in the spaces between the stories her family reluctantly tell. Speaking of her childhood need for stories, Storm says, ‘I consumed them as if there were a great hollow inside me that needed filling and that once filled, their weight, the weight of my ancestors, would act as an anchor. . .’

For me, a sense of belonging is linked very closely to place and to the stories we tell that connect us to place. I was an adopted child and grew up steeped in a sense of my own illegitimacy. Like Storm, I felt I belonged nowhere, that no place was truly mine. And because this lack of belonging was a strong central theme in my own life, it inevitably demanded to be explored in the stories I told. Woven through both Gathering Storm and Flight, is this sense of dislocation and statelessness that can be felt and experienced personally, but also within a family a culture and a nation. Place gives us identity, a passport to belonging. But time does it too. In a sense, space and time cross when a family or a people have been anchored in one place for generations. Ancestors provide us with roots and so does place. As Storm asks: How long does it take? How many generations? Do we inherit place? Do we earn it? Or is belonging simply a state of mind? Exploring these questions through writing has helped me to resolve issues of belonging and identity within my own life. Like Storm I have begun to suspect that belonging is ultimately something we carry inside of ourselves. It is a realisation that comes when we are on the right path in our lives. Until then nowhere is ours, but when this realisation arrives, the world becomes ours. For as Joseph Campbell wrote, ‘our true reality is in our identity and unity with all life’.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

The Heroine's Journey

'The journey of the Heroine is about saying 'yes' to the true self and, in so doing, to become more fully alive and effective in the world.'

Maureen Murdock

For the past few weeks I have been writing about Joseph Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey and how it translates to the stages within story. However, many women are concerned that this model of the heroic journey excludes women, or at least doesn't allow for gender differences. Maureen Murdock, in her book, The Heroine's Journey goes some way towards addressing this problem by suggesting a useful alternative model for women which is similar to but in a sense more layered than Campbell’s model. I won’t go into the details of each stage in this post but they include:

Separation from feminine; identification with Masculine and gathering allies
Road of trials, meeting ogres and dragons
Finding the (illusory) boon of success
Awakening to feelings of spiritual aridity: death
Initiation and Descent to the Goddess
Urgent yearning to reconnect with the feminine
Healing the mother/daughter split
Healing the wounded masculine
Integration of the masculine and feminine

Unlike Campbell's linear structure for story, Murdock proposes a circular structure more appropriate to the inward seeking nature of the woman's journey. While, I agree with and appreciate the stages Murdoch lists in her model, I am not drawn to its circular nature. In some ways a circle might symbolically represent completion but it also represents the potential for nightmarish repetition; to end where you began is not what stories seek to do. As psychologist, Roger Woolger writes, 'psychologically, circles can represent every kind of self-perpetuating torment’. I prefer to imagine the journey as a double spiral structure, one that ensures a descent but also a return to a new position, expressing the symbolic death of the body and its spiritual rebirth through initiation. As a double spiral we are also left with the suggestion that there will be new journeys, taking us into new adventures, both internal and external.

 In The Heroine’s Journey, Murdock calls one of the stages, 'Initiation and Descent to the Goddess', describing the Babylonian myth of Inanna's descent into the underworld, to visit her sister Ereshkigal who has been raped by the gods and exiled to the underworld. On her way, Inanna must pass seven gates, at each of which she surrenders more of her identity, until naked she arrives in the Underworld where she is stripped of her life and left to rot, before being released once again, reborn. The myth of Inanna, is a beautiful story, a metaphor for initiation into the mystery of life and like many of the more masculine heroic stories, it also recognises the need to confront the darkness in our psyches. In my novel, Flight, this darkness is represented by the malevolence invading the protagonist’s dreams and threatening her life, as well as the surfacing of old memories, particularly of herself as a baby. There are parallels between the myth of Inanna and Flight, with Fern's stay in the psychiatric ward acting as a metaphor for the underworld. It is here that Fern begins to experience the malevolence attacking her. And here that Fern begins to surrender her identity, when in the mirror she comes face to face with her skeleton self. Later she dreams of her skeleton self, collapsing into pieces, symbolising the death of her old self. From there she must face the darkness in order to begin the restructuring process and eventually give birth to a new self.

Whilst accepting that there are essential gender differences and that it is useful to identify them, I believe, like Vogler, that despite a clear historical bias in determining the content of stories and the gender of its heroes, the structure of heroic myth maps a human process of evolution towards a potential that exists beyond these differences. Most stories involve a character's descent into their psyche in some way with their ultimate goal the balancing of the masculine and the feminine. Certainly some of the markers along the way are different, as Murdock identifies. In many respects, men and women do have different journeys: the masculine journey is usually an active, goal oriented quest, whilst the feminine journey is more internal, like the story of Inanna, a descent into ones depths. Yet, as Bruno Bettelheim points out in The Uses of Enchantment, 'even when the girl is depicted as turning inward in her struggle to become herself, and a boy as aggressively dealing with the external world, these two together symbolize the two ways in which one has to gain selfhood: through learning to understand and master the inner as well as the outer world.' While the plot in stories usually represents an external active adventure of some sort, the character arc generally represents an inner journey. So a protagonist might embark on an adventure in order to learn how to be active in the world but in so doing also be forced to confront his or her inner demons.

 Perhaps ultimately both journeys are a metaphor for the same goal, hence the 'active' and 'masculine' slaying of a dragon is a metaphor for inner change, for facing those things within us that we are most afraid of and for reclaiming our treasure. So while we should not deny the rich differences between genders, it is in these journeys that we reclaim our power, seeking to recognise and in a sense move beyond duality by balancing the masculine and feminine elements within ourselves.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

The Hero's Journey - Stages of the Adventure

‘We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.’

Joseph Campbell

It seems appropriate to be writing about the Hero’s Journey right now, as I’m immersed in my own journey; moving to a new country, a new job and ultimately, no doubt, a new way of living. Journeys are always confronting and no matter how well planned, any adventure will be filled with both joy and terror, moments when everything slips into harmony and we know all is as it should be, and other moments when we feel we simply can’t go on, or we’re certain we’ve made a terrible mistake setting off at all. But there’s no turning back, so all we can do is deal with each new challenge as it arises, riding the wave of change and hoping we’re not dumped too often.

In my last post I wrote more generally about the Hero’s Journey. This post I want to explore the stages of the journey more deeply. According to mythologist, Joseph Campbell, the three stages of story, Separation, Initiation and Return, can be found in most heroic myths, many contemporary stories, and in the journeys of mystics, shamans and sages throughout time and space. Within each major stage Campbell identified a number of common elements: Separation includes: the Call to Adventure; Refusal of the Call; Supernatural Aid; the Crossing of the First Threshold; and the Belly of the Whale. Initiation includes: The Road of Trials; the Meeting with the Goddess; Woman as Temptress; Atonement with the Father; Apotheosis; and the Ultimate Boon. Return includes: Refusal of Return; the Magic Flight; Rescue from Without; the Crossing of the Return Threshold; Master of Two Worlds; and Freedom to Live.

In The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler describes a simpler three-part, twelve-stage structure in stories, which incorporates and occasionally develops the stages Campbell identified. Act One or Preparation includes: The Ordinary World, The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting the Mentor and Crossing The Threshold.  Act Two or Journey, includes: Test, Allies and Enemies, Approaching the Inmost Cave, Ordeal and Reward. Act Three or Return, includes: The Road Back, Resurrection and Return with the Elixir.
Although Vogler concentrates on film, his theories can be applied just as easily to a wide range of novels as there is a great deal of commonality in the structure of films and novels. Indeed many films are direct adaptations of novels. According to Vogler, all or most of these twelve stages are evident in a broad range of stories and genres, which he then goes on to analyse, applying his theories to films as diverse as Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, Titanic, The Full Monty and even Quentin Tarantino's post structuralist film, Pulp Fiction.

Critics have accused Vogler of concentrating on Hollywood films and creating a formulaic method for writing narrative and developing characters. Vogler does warn of the dangers inherent in following the twelve stages as a formula, stating that for the writer, 'the conscious awareness of its patterns may be a mixed blessing, for it's easy to generate thoughtless cliché and stereotypes from this matrix'. He then goes on to answer his critics by demonstrating the vastly diverse array of factors that can be applied to each stage, creating endless possibilities for stories. Like Vogler, I believe that all good writing is informed by, but steps beyond technique or craft. If we write from our heart, if we allow our stories to lead us into the depths of ourselves, if we emotionally engage with our writing, then what emerges are living, vital stories, not clichéd market driven formulas.

As a writer, I found Vogler's theories fascinating because when I applied them to my own work, I could see that unconsciously I had created stories that fitted closely with his model. And when I applied his structure to my own writing life, I could identify the stages and the parallels between the story, the writing of the story and the themes in my own life, expressing themselves through Flight.
During the writing of Flight, I was already familiar with Vogler's twelve part structure but did not use it as a framework for my story as I didn't want my novel to feel formulaic or to be weakened by forcing it into an external shape. Vogler suggested that there are a number of variations on the order of the stages. 'The stages,' he wrote, 'can be deleted, added to, and drastically shuffled without losing any of their power'. I decided to write without a plan and it is only in retrospect that I can see where Vogler's structure does and does not fit in Flight.

Flight begins with a depressed Fern, self-imprisoned in her attic. She has been there for some months and this has become her Ordinary World, the world that is generally portrayed at the beginning of a story, and one in which there is often some form of stagnation that needs to be addressed. There are a number of Calls to Adventure, which are refused. Change is not something most people choose willingly, so more often than not the hero is not inclined to accept the call. When this occurs then inevitably the call will become stronger, and life as the hero knows it will collapse, forcing him or her to accept change. Twice, Fern's flat mate, Claire, asks Fern to come out of her room as they are moving out of their rental house. Shamesh appearing on the pavement below her room is also a Call to Adventure, but not one that Fern understands. Even when Fern escapes through the window and into Cassie's house, she is still a reluctant hero, choosing to react rather than act.

There are crucial moments in every story, moments of decision that change everything: Billie Elliot puts on a pair of ballet shoes and steps into his first dance class; in the Da Vinci Code, Robert Langdon decides to make a run for it with a strange woman; and James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces, enters a rehabilitation clinic. Crossing the Threshold is that moment in a story when there is no turning back: a plane takes off; the hero shuts the door behind her and is thrust into a new world; a crime is committed. . . In Flight, Fern Crosses the First Threshold when she leaves her attic room and steps out onto the street, knowing there is no turning back. According to Steven Jones, 'the threshold crossing is a crossing from the conscious, rational realm to a fictional representation of the unconscious, non-rational domain of the individual's psyche'. Indeed, once Fern steps out of her Ordinary World, she is confronted with Tests, Allies and Enemies and finds that the rules and regulations in this ‘new’ world are different. Reality is not what it seems and the adventures she experiences are to test her readiness for the task ahead of her. Along the way every hero must learn new rules, collect allies and inevitably make some enemies, either in the form of other characters or in the form of self doubt, destructive behaviour etc. These adventures test the hero’s readiness for the task ahead.

In the Approach to the Inmost Cave the hero makes final preparations for the central ordeal of the adventure, says Vogler, who then goes on to use the analogy of the mountaineer who has reached base camp and is preparing to climb the highest peak. The subsequent Ordeal occurs in this metaphoric inmost cave in which the hero faces their greatest fear/s. This can be physical, psychological or emotional, and can be represented by anything from fighting a monster, to standing up to a parent. But in some way the hero must die and be reborn. In Vogler's terms, this is the crisis, not the climax of the story, which comes towards the end. Success at this crisis point enables the hero to develop and change. In Flight, the Ordeal comes early in the novel, when Fern is put into a psychiatric ward. It is here that she finds her power and undergoes a symbolic initiation; a death and a resurrection. She emerges from the cave, not having vanquished her enemy but having gathered her strength, and is now fully equipped to complete the journey. This is Fern’s Reward. The Inmost Cave is the equivalent of Campbell's, Belly of the Whale, in that it is symbolic of the hero's immersion in the unconscious.

Soon after Fern escapes from the psychiatric ward she makes the decision to turn around and face her enemy, a decision that she acts upon by seeking him out. But it is only later, when the enemy that is attacking her, steps through her dreams and into life, nearly killing her, that Fern understands what is at stake and senses she has reached a turning point. Perhaps this is a second Inmost Cave, a moment of realisation, when Fern is more afraid than she has ever been but has to act anyway.

There are many Trials and Tribulations in the hero’s journey, occurring both before and after the Inmost Cave. These trials occur in the dream world where Fern must fight battles she doesn't understand. And they occur in the physical world where the rules are generally clear, such as her meeting with her birth mother and the confrontation with the Bloodhound. However, her meeting with her father does not have clear rules because in the centre of the labyrinth the rules are different. Here the physical world and the dream world meet and Fern finds herself fighting with her father on both planes at once.

The Road Back is a turning point, another threshold to cross and it generally occurs after the Inmost Cave. The hero must either decide to return or be forced to return to the Ordinary World. And he or she must take with them what has been earned, gained, stolen, or granted in the Special World. In Flight, The Road Back is the trek through the wilderness with Adam, seeking the centre of the labyrinth and in it, her father. The Resurrection is the climax of the plot, and it is also the climax of the hero’s development as a character, making it apparent in some way that the hero really has changed. It may come as a test or a sacrifice of some sort and generally there is more at stake than personal happiness. In Flight, the Resurrection comes during the final showdown that Fern has with her father, the results of which I won’t reveal, for those who haven’t yet read Flight.

And finally, the Return with the Elixir, occurs when the hero returns, bringing with him or her a new love, medicine, wisdom, fame, wealth. . .  though, as Vogler states, the 'best Elixirs are those that bring hero and audience greater awareness'. A few days ago we arrived in lovely Aberystwyth; shaken and shocked but not too bruised. However, our journey is by no means over; in fact I feel as if I’m still immersed in the inmost cave, that stage in a story where we are forced to confront our deepest fears. But slowly and surely, the journey is becoming smoother and I’m sure we will ultimately emerge stronger and wiser, having reaped the rewards of embarking on this adventure. For as Campbell explains so beautifully, 'the effect of the successful adventure of the hero is the unlocking and release again of the flow of life into the body of the world'.  

 Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

The Hero's Journey - On Story Structure

The Hero's Journey is not an invention but an observation. It is a recognition of a beautiful design, a set of principles that govern the conduct of life and the world of storytelling the way physics and chemistry govern the physical world.'

Christopher Vogler, The Writer's Journey

In the past few posts I've discussed the themes and motifs that are prevalent in mythic stories. This time I want to discuss something even more fundamental, though inextricably linked - mythic structure. As mythologist, Joseph Campbell asserted, stories wear countless costumes yet there is a fundamental commonality between them. Over time the costumes of stories have changed and certainly in western culture, stories are presented in a more complicated way than they once were. Frequent jumping between scenes and characters, and the juggling of time elements in plots presupposes a sophisticated audience with highly developed decoding skills. However, according to Christopher Vogler in The Writer's Journey, the fundamental structure of stories hasn't changed. Though sometimes more difficult to identify, there is still a three-fold structure in story, as well as the basic components of change and conflict. No matter then, how sophisticated our storytelling has become there remains a basic structure to storytelling that can be traced right back to the earliest stories - and by implication, to blueprints of humanity's common psychology.

Although the terms they use are different, many analysts of story refer to a three-part structure: beginning, middle and end; set-up, confrontation, resolution; and Tristan Todorov's, status quo, change, new status quo. Jung's theory of the process of individuation; ego, soul, self, mirrors in many ways the basic structure of narrative, as does anthropologist, Mercea Eliade's map of shamanic journeying; middle world, underworld, upper world.. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell identified three major stages within the structure of stories - Separation, Initiation and Return - 'separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power, and a life-enhancing return'. Campbell linked these stages closely to the world of spirit and ritual, while Vogler labelled them Preparation, Journey, Return, recognising the potential for these stages to include a broader and more contemporary range of stories.

According to Vogler, most narratives mirror the heroic journey, in that the protagonist is forced out or willingly leaves their ordinary world and must undergo a series of adventures in order to attain a new status. The second stage of the journey involves accepting change, stepping into the abyss with no idea what lies ahead. Risks are taken and if successful there is a reward of some kind. The third stage involves returning to the ordinary world understanding and integrating the reward and using it as is appropriate. A new status quo is reached and the hero has changed in some way. I'll look more closely at Vogler's and Campbell's story stages in a later post.

The plot of Flight, is a linear one, the time line covering the space of a few weeks. There is a clear three-fold structure within the novel. In the beginning Fern has trapped herself in the attic and in so doing, separated herself from the world. The middle is an initiation of sorts, with Fern forced to undergo a journey and to confront her demons. The end is a resolution or a return but it is not circular. Fern is a different person than she was at the beginning and she will never return to the physical or psychological space that she left in order to undertake her journey. Instead she returns to the potential of a life well lived.

However, the structure in Flight is not as simple as the linear unfolding of the outer plot would suggest. The story reaches back across lifetimes and there are layers of themes and patterns that motivate both the plot and the characters. Information is fed into the story in the form of flashbacks and musings that explain Fern's early life and provide motivation for her actions as well as triggers for her development. There are also visions and dreams which are triggered mainly from past life memories and provide a building undercurrent of tension, as well as providing flashes of insight to guide Fern in her journey to release herself from the past and learn how to live again.

There are few stories in which change does not occur. If a character ends in the same physical or psychological situation in which they began it is usually: an existential story which shows a protagonist tossed about by fate, endlessly repeating negative patterns and unable to take control of their destiny; or a comedy (often a satire) in which the protagonist is revealed as a buffoon or a trickster, living outside the rules of society and thus making them visible; or a tragedy, which occurs when a character refuses to accept their call to adventure, is not strong enough to survive the journey, or chooses not to return and share their rewards with others. According to Campbell, 'tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachment to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible'. These genres usefully reveal the dangers of becoming stuck caught consciously or unconsciously in negative patterns, just as a fly is caught in a spider's web.

Within the three part structure of story there is inevitably a theory of progress towards a goal, but this is not a closure or end itself, rather it is only one of an endless series of journeys in a perpetual evolutionary process. In the novel, Fern progresses towards a goal, or more accurately, towards a number of goals. Fern is seeking her father, seeking to hunt the hunter and survive. That is the external story, the plot. But she is also seeking to heal herself, to find her place and to live well. These are inner goals, relating to her own development. At the beginning she is unaware of her inner goals, knowing only that she is unwell and that things cannot continue as they have been. It is only through the outer journey that she is able to understand and achieve her inner goals.

At the end, Fern has finished an adventure but is about to start another, the adventure of childbirth and of living within a loving relationship. But eventually the wheel of fortune will turn once again and reluctantly or not, in the sequel to Flight, Fern will undertake another adventure. The universal theme of death and resurrection, of the natural ever-changing cycles of life, does not allow for stagnation. As Carol Pearson writes in Awakening The Heroes Within, 'as soon as we return from one journey and enter a new phase of our lives, we are immediately propelled into a new sort of journey; the pattern is not linear or circular but spiral'. The ability to accept and adapt to change is fundamental to all evolutionary processes, and thus this theme not only appears in the content of stories and myths throughout history and across cultures, but is written into their very structure. And this structure provides a map for each of us as we seek to understand who we truly are. As Vogler wrote, 'I came looking for the design principles of storytelling, but on the road I found something more: a set of principles for living. I came to believe that the Hero's Journey is nothing less than a handbook for life, a complete instruction manual in the art of being human.'

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Seeking The Paradox Within Story

'Most fables contain at least some truth, and they often enable people to absorb ideas which the ordinary patterns of their thinking would prevent them from digesting.'

Idries Shah, The Sufis

As I have mentioned in other posts on this blog, I am fascinated by the fundamental paradox that I see within story, in that while it encourages us to conform to society, it also encourages us to become true individuals by shedding mindless conformity. And it is this aspect of story that I keep returning to, asking myself how a narrative can enable us to evolve as individuals. I believe there is an alternative knowledge structure deeply embedded within story, a structure that enables and encourages personal transformation, and that echoes thousands of years back to the first stories of the shamans and the ancient myths of indigenous peoples around the world, as well as being evident in many contemporary narratives. People write, read and listen to stories, not because they wish to escape from themselves, but because they wish to find themselves. So perhaps then, a key to self transformation is embedded within story.

The idea that stories might contain hidden meanings is not a new one, stretching back to the interpretation of early religious texts across many faiths and persisting to the current day through continued scholarly analysis of literature. These theories are also rooted in mystical knowledge associated with Sufism and other esoteric groups, some of this knowledge dating back thousands of years. The ancient Aesops Fables which are popular in the West, are an example of stories that are designed to jolt us out of the boundaries that restrict our thinking. In his book, The Sufis, Idries Shah writes that the popular and humorous Nasrudin Stories which date from around the thirteenth century, 'may be understood at any one of many depths. . . and the experiencing of each story will contribute towards the 'homecoming' of the mystic'. Perhaps then, rather than reinforcing blind acceptance of society's constructed realities, stories might use hidden meanings in order to innately question them. Idries Shah goes on to explain the use of humour in the Nasrudin tales, saying that 'humour cannot be prevented from spreading: it has a way of slipping through the patterns of thought which are imposed upon mankind by pattern and design.' While humour is not a strong element in my writing at present, I agree that it has great power, encouraging us to question and laugh at what we hold sacred or simply take for granted.

Much of our interpretation of a text relies on how we read. Joseph Campbell emphasised the importance of poetic interpretation, as compared to literal reading, warning that 'wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history or science, it is killed.' Karen Armstrong too, wrote passionately of the need to re-engage with story, using 'intuitive, mythical modes of thought' instead of the 'more pragmatic, logical spirit of scientific rationality.' When I was writing Flight, I began to wonder how I could layer the story in order to encourage different interpretations on the part of the reader. I wanted my readers to read intuitively, to find a story a that spoke to them in unexpected ways. In the end though I found myself unable to plan a novel in this way and decided instead to trust my unconscious to do this for me through the use of symbols and metaphor, as well as through the way in which the story structure formed itself around the character arc.

While it is clear that stories can and do contain hidden meanings, Campbell went further than this in his analysis of heroic myth, by suggesting that the very structure of story has a hidden meaning, that it is a metaphor for Jung's individuation process or the journey to self. Now that Flight is complete and published, and there has been time to receive reader feedback, it has become clear that the novel does act on a number of levels: as entertainment, as a psychological study and as a document of a spiritual journey, one in which readers can find themselves. I have always felt strongly that in my writing I am holding a mirror up to readers and helping them remember who they are, perhaps because this is what I seek from my own reading. However, my motives are not entirely altruistic, because first and foremost it is myself I am finding, both through the process of writing and through the mysteries of the unfolding story. It is my own past I am exploring and my own scars I am acknowledging and releasing, as I seek to uncover the treasure within me, the essence of self, by breaking down my fixed thinking patterns. Perhaps ultimately this is what stories are for.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Writing Myth

'A myth is a story that is true on the inside but not the outside.'

Joseph Campbell

As my new novel begins to form I'm wondering how I might use myth to enrich the story and deepen the themes - something I did extensively in my previous novel, Flight. This has inspired me to consider once again what it is about myth that is so fundamental to humanity and whether or not it is still relevant in our world today. It is myth that forms the basis of most cultures' storytelling, so it has a number of functions that are above and beyond simple entertainment. Myth is an intuitive way of interpreting the world around us but to a large extent it has now been superseded by the current rational method of understanding and measuring reality. For me, myth contains vital truths and yet in our modern world, it has come to be defined as something untrue, as seen in our phrase, 'exploding the myth'. As Karen Armstrong writes, 'we have developed a scientific view of history; we are concerned with what actually happened. But in the pre-modern world, when people wrote about the past they were more concerned with what an event had meant.' So it seems to me that in our modern tendency to confuse fact with truth we are in danger of losing meaning. 'A myth is true,' says Armstrong, 'because it is effective, not because it gives us factual information. If it does not give us new insight into the deeper meaning of life, it has failed.'

Jung wrote that 'myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science.'  In The Mythic Journey, Jungian psychologists, Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke wrote that 'myths have the mysterious capacity to contain and communicate paradoxes, allowing us to see through, around and over the dilemma to the heart of the matter.' Mythologist, Joseph Campbell wrote that 'myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation.' While Christopher Vogler applied definitions of myth to contemporary stories, insisting that all stories are sacred, all have the capacity to heal and all mirror the structure of their larger counterparts, the mythic heroic stories.

In The Artists Way, Julie Cameron writes that 'creativity cannot be comfortably quantified in intellectual terms', while Catherine Ann Jones believes that 'to write from one part of your self, the logical mind, results in a fragmented story as well as a fragmented life'. Certainly for me the writing of Flight was not an simply an intellectual process but one which intuitively drew upon the mystery behind creativity. A few years ago as I was writing Flight, I found to my surprise, that I had been unconsciously using mythic elements, drawing from both the content and the patterns of ancient stories. Once I had recognised that this was happening I was able to make the process conscious and develop certain elements in order to explore the themes that were important to me. In the end it was myth that gave shape and depth to my novel and it was myth that helped me to understand what I was writing about and why I needed to write it. Consequently, Flight is heavily laden with references to myth and fairytale; from Sleeping Beauty to the myth of Cassandra, something I will explore more further in a later post. It's themes and plot were drawn from common elements in myth such as the curse or prophecy, mirroring in many ways the classic patterns of heroic myth as identified by Otto Rank. Fern is born to a powerful man, her birth is accompanied by a prophecy, she is abandoned and brought up by strangers, unaware of her identity. As an adult she must seek her father and confront him, potentially bringing about his death in order for the natural cycles of change to continue unimpeded. And finally, the structure of Flight mirrors in many ways the stages of story that Joseph Campbell identified, something I discuss briefly below but will explore further in a later post.

Campbell not only identified a common pattern in the structure of mythic stories but also interpreted what this pattern meant, socially, psychologically and to a certain extent, spiritually. Of all stories, Campbell believes it is the myth that speaks to us most strongly. And of all myths it is the universal story of the quest to find the essence of self, that appeals most to a modern day humanity in search of meaning in a world where meaning and identity has moved its focus from the group to the individual. In the past, and primarily for survival purposes, the individual was first and foremost a part of society. Exile was a life-threatening break with existence and therefore the worst possible punishment. Yet exile (physical or psychological), is also the necessary first step on the heroic quest, a breaking free of the known or ordinary world and a stepping into the unknown. In the opening to Flight, Fern has unknowingly taken the first step in the quest, exiling herself from family and society 

The reward for this quest is self-knowledge, but the true hero will also ultimately return to society bringing back that which he/she has learned, and thus enriching the community. However, unlike fairy tales, which almost invariably finish with a version of 'and they lived happily ever after', myths embrace the possibility of tragedy and change. In myth, endings are not fixed and new quests are often necessary, the hero may die on his quest, or like Gilgamesh, return triumphant from the Underworld, only to have the elixir for eternal life slip through his fingers. Sometimes the hero may find that the metaphorical gold he or she found, has turned to dust, or like Buddha, he or she may return with their treasure, only to be faced with the difficult task of telling a story that is beyond words. In Flight, Fern is given information, allies and tools that she must integrate and begin to use, in order to overcome the obstacles and dangers. In the end, Fern uses these rewards well and returns to society carrying this metaphorical gold.

Campbell emphasised the importance of metaphoric and poetic readings of myth, which allow for psychological and metaphysical interpretations that help us to map our development. Purely literal or rational interpretations of story create a dangerous black and white world in which dogma rules. So do our contemporary stories fill the spaces that myth once filled or have they lost something fundamental? Is it the stories that are depleted or simply the way that we read (see Reading Between The Lines)?  I don't know the answers to these questions but I do know that if we simply skate over the surface of stories we will forget how to measure them in anything but rational terms – the terms of logos. It is in the depths of story that the true lessons lie and it us up to us as writers to include the hidden truths of mythos in our stories in order to feed our readers and our selves on living stories that speak to us on many levels.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Where Truth Lies: Fact versus Fiction

'Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.'

Francis Bacon

In a novel, the reader is often interested in how much is true, while in a memoir, the reader wants to know how much is untrue. The line between fact and fiction is much finer than we imagine. When we assert the factual validity of our memories we often discover that a sibling, a friend or a parent remembers the same event quite differently. A few years ago, a mother and her adult daughter enrolled in one of my life writing classes in order to write a memoir about the daughter's turbulent teenage years. Both described the same events but from a different perspective. At one stage the daughter referred to a formative experience that had occurred in her early childhood when her mother had left her. The mother was shocked, because in reality she had only been away for one night, but in the daughter's mind it was an eternity. Of course, factually it is correct to call it one night, but the emotional truth lies elsewhere. There's a world of difference between truth and fact,' writes Maya Angelou. 'Fact tells us the data. . . but facts can obscure the truth'.

Psychotherapists also recognise the complexities of truth. In Other Lives, Other Selves, Roger Woolger states that 'for the therapist there is another kind of truth, psychic truth: that which is real for the patient.' Jung also maintained that clinical material does not have to be historically true so long as it is subjectively true and filled with meaning for the patient. For Jung, harmony is not achieved by realigning an individual to society, which is itself a human construct, but instead from realigning them to their self and hence, to life. It is in the inner or psychological journeys that we take and on which we send our characters, that an emotional, and perhaps a universal truth can be found.

In his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung writes about his his inner experiences, including his dreams and visions, referring to his life as one that he could only map or understand through recording its 'inner happenings', his encounters with the unconscious. 'In the end,' he says, 'the only events in my life worth telling are those when the imperishable world irrupted into this transitory one.' Like Jung, when I sat down to write, I discovered that I had embarked on my own inner journey, a journey of the soul. As I worked on my novel, I was surprised to discover that I was unconsciously writing about myself, drawing on my own past, my dreams and my numinous experiences and weaving them into a plot-driven fictional story.

John Singleton, in The Creative Writing Handbook, explores the relationship between memory and imagination and between autobiography and fiction. The autobiography he says, 'only translates the past' while fiction 'transforms' it. 'The vital force in this re-creative process is the imagination.' Autobiography, 'describes the self as already known, or explains the self as presently understood. While fiction, on the other hand explores the self as yet hidden, in the dark. . . Something secret is hitherto revealed which you sense you've known unconsciously all the time.' Transformation, then, is made more possible by stepping into fiction, if only because the writer then gives their imagination permission to work with memory and transform it, thereby allowing true self reflection, that which comes as a revelation and not simply an intellectual construct.

'All fiction is autobiography in disguise', wrote Catherine Anne Jones, in The Way of Story. This is certainly the case with Flight, though if I had written it as a memoir I would not have been able to grant myself permission to explore my own past and thus transform it, at least not with the freedom I found in fiction. It is difficult to say exactly how much of Flight is true in the factual sense of the word. Like Fern, I was born in Adelaide and adopted by a religious couple. The house I grew up in is the same as I depict in the novel. The adopted father, Richard, is almost identical to my own adopted father. I too lived in Sydney in an attic room and toyed with the idea of studying fashion design. The house Fern visits in Kettering, Tasmania, is a house I lived in for six years. These are factual truths and easily identified by those who know. There are other true events in the story that are not so easily identified as fact. The memories of childhood that I give Fern are all my own, as are the dreams and visions she has. Otherwise, the characters and events are fictional. Although fact and fiction are woven together throughout Flight, the themes are personal to me, as is Fern's psychological and spiritual journey. These are my truths, but they are also universal truths, referring back to a long tradition of storytelling that begins with humanity's first storytellers, the unnamed shamans, as well as to ancient myth, to Dante's Inferno, Goethe's Faust, Hesse's, Steppenwolf, Le Guin's Earthsea novels and Murakami's Kafka On The Shore, to name but a few.

In The Western Dreaming, John Carroll, in asking what truth is, looks at the roots of the word. 'When the Greeks designated truth by their word aleitheia, they built in a narrative. Truth is that which is a-lethe, not lethe, Lethe being the place of oblivion or forgetfulnes, and later the river running through the underworld. To drink the waters of this river was to extinguish memory. Oblivion is thus the natural human state, one in which individuals have forgotten what they know.' Carroll then makes a further connection, one that is vital in an age where post-modernism would deny the validity of truth. 'Moreover,' he writes, 'as English has picked up, to be without Truth is lethal, death in life, its condition that of lethargy, a weariness of spirit in which all vitality has drained away.' This is the condition of Fern as my novel, Flight opens. She has forgotten so much and lost so much of herself, that there is very little vitality left and she is told: 'If you do not take this journey you will die,'

A post modernist might say that it isn't possible to define truth, or at least that there are multiple truths. That truth is not fixed, but instead changes according to who is telling it and the context in which it is told. It changes too, according to the unique collection of filters each individual applies to their reading of a text. As Walter Truett-Anderson writes in The Truth About Truth, 'truth is made rather than found.' Yet below this slippery world of relative readings, I believe, like Joseph Campbell, that there is another world, a more stable one of universal truths and themes. Not tribal or dogmatic 'truths' that are socially constructed and create divisions but truths which are beyond divisions, beyond polarities. This, for me, is where truth lies. As a writer I can only approach it through metaphor, story itself being a metaphor for the journey of the soul, the journey to that truth which is beyond language. It is a journey that must be taken over and over. Factual truth has little bearing on this journey, which involves a seeing through of ideology, as well as the acceptance and subsequent release of constructed psychological truths, in order to receive a remembering of something deeper and more sustaining.

If there are truths which are absolute, there are also an indefinite number and colourful variety of paths to these truths. As Campbell warned, it is dangerous to believe in the paths as truths in themselves, creating dogmatic 'isms' that limit our perception and more often than not, cause great divisions. Dogma insists that the path itself is the only way to an inaccessible truth, establishing twists and turns and dead ends to keep the masses away from this profound realisation that the path is constructed, it is a map, not the truth itself. In contrast, the journey of the soul is an individual and a universal journey, each person finding their own way, with their own unique signposts to guide them. The path is not important, as Fern discovers in Flight. Fern's journey is not one any other character could take because like each of us, she has her own individual stories to deconstruct; stories that have arisen from a multitude of factors: genetic, experiential, environmental, historical and cultural. At the end of her journey, Fern is able to step beyond constructed truths and perceive once again a vital universal truth that enables connection and harmony and the innate knowledge that everything is one.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Motivating Character

'We must look at the intentionality of the characters and where they are heading, for they are the main influence upon the shape of stories.

James Hillman, Healing Fictions

For many of us (myself included), life consists of a series of reactions to the past, reactions which exist in the present and hence form our future. Unless we consciously seek to unravel the tangle of influences within us, we remain mechanical creatures, programmed by past events, by the people in our lives, and by the ideologies that we embrace, often unconsciously. The first step to unraveling this tangle is to see that there is a tangle in the first place. After that we can begin exploring what motivates our actions, what lies beneath the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Perhaps this is why strong, plausible characterisation is so fundamental to story.

To write stories well we need to understand character; not just what characters looks like, or how they act, but what motivates them. Why do they do what we do? What drives them? Why are they driven? What has formed them? These are basic questions that often reveal unexpected and richly rewarding answers. According to Jung, it is character that drives plot, not plot that drives character. And in The Way of Story, Catherine Anne Jones writes that 'it is the inner psychological state of the main character which fuels and drives the external plot'. Plot then, is secondary to character. Certainly in my own writing process this is the case; this is how I have always written, allowing the story to form around the characters. It is where I find the links with my own life and development, and where I attempt to write a 'living' story. I have found it vital to surrender to the process of writing and trust that a story will emerge; rich with character and complexity. To plot a story before it is written and then force the characters to act like puppets within the plot, is more often than not a recipe for unmotivated action and 'dead' implausible stories. As a writer it is playing it safe, refusing to respond to the call of adventure that signals the journey of story.

The source of a character's motivation often lies hidden within the early patterns of childhood, in the wounds and blessings that have formed a person. In The Writing Book, Kate Grenville warns against an over emphasis on motivation, saying that it can create characters that are 'too neatly motivated and too one-dimensional'. I don't agree. As in life, a three-dimensional, plausible character should be motivated, not by a single factor but by a number of factors, not all of them conscious. He or she should not only act, but also react to people, places and events, and these actions and reactions should have a convincing weight that carries and directs the story. When creating a three-dimensional character, I look for the factors and sometimes the patterns that motivate that character, and at the psychological reasons for that motivation (why they are motivated). I ask myself questions. What does my character want? What is stopping him or her from getting it? The answers to these questions can be found both externally (a character might want a new job) and internally (a character might want to be understood, or want to make a difference). Fusing the answers to these questions with the factors that motivate a character, helps to create conflict, a fundamental element in story.

Conflict is found on three levels. Firstly, from something unavoidable in the external world; an earthquake, for example, or the loss of a job. Secondly, from tension between characters, a disagreement with an employer or a power struggle between father and son. And lastly, from internal tensions within a major character, such as the fear of change, a deep sense of self loathing, or an unexpressed love. Internal tension is a strong generator of conflict and without it all the external tension in the world will feel hollow. As Robert McKee writes in Story, 'the closest circle of antagonism in the world of a character is his own being: feelings and emotions, mind and body, all or any of which may or may not react from one moment to the next the way he expects. As often as not, we are our own worst enemies.' Conflict generates story and within story lies the keys to the change and development needed to create a satisfying character arc.

As mentioned in a previous post, the outer passage of a story is the plot, while the inner passage of a story is the character arc. The outer passage the costume, the inner passage the essence. It is in the inner journey that the character uncovers the fragments that motivate him or her. This is the case in Flight, as Fern must search the past in order to find the motivating factors that have forced her to act in certain ways. It is within the flashbacks to her childhood and the visions of past lives, that the clues and motivations to Fern's character are provided. While not all stories involve a character arc, most do (more on this in a later post). Readers generally want to see the protagonist learning something about themselves. It is not a new self that is sought but a healthier, more knowledgeable self. Perhaps a self who can come to some acceptance of his or her circumstances, or a self who is able to reintegrate into society because of what he or she has learned. A short story might simply show a moment of epiphany or self realisation and leave the reader to imagine its potential, but in a novel there is generally a longer time line, so when a character learns something about themselves there is the opportunity to reveal to the reader the change that this knowledge brings. However, this change should come about gradually, otherwise the characterisation will necessarily be weak and the story formulaic.

Jung defines individuation as a coming to self hood or self realisation. In The Undiscovered Self, he writes passionately and urgently of the need for individuals to resist the collective forces of society, saying that to do this we must face our fear of the duality of the human psyche, in other words we must accept our shadow selves. It is in the inner structure of the story, the character arc, that we can see the process of individuation at work. Individuation, or the Hero's Journey, as Campbell would call it (more on this in a later post), is simply another word for a process that is as old as humanity - a journey of the soul or, as some would prefer to call it, a psychological journey. As writers and readers, perhaps we are seeking through story an experience of connection, a sense of commonality that can be discovered beneath the surface differences that appear to divide us from each other. Perhaps in some ways we use story to explore our own lives and the themes that move us. And ultimately, perhaps following the arc of a character in a story enables us to identify and understand the motivating factors in our own reactions and from this knowledge ultimately begin to act in more conscious manner.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Digging Deep: Writing Character

'Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.'

C. G. Jung

Secrets are fertile ground for writers because they lie at the very heart of character. Conjuring images of dark musty cupboards rattling with bones, and of snakes slithering through wood piles, secrets are framed in silences. Adept at creating conflict, secrets are embedded within personal and family stories; the unspoken, the prohibited, the places we fear to tread. When these secrets are released they strike us at our core, but then most likely we will end up asking: So what? Was that all? You see, the danger of secrets so often lies not in their content but in their very existence. Secrets have a way of passing down from one generation to the next, growing, deepening, poisoning; the silences around them creating gaping chasms between people and between generations. Sometimes we accidentally stumble over a secret but generally it takes courage to chase one down and look it in the face. It takes a profound need to break free of a pattern and to take a close look at who we really are.

My first novel, Gathering Storm is about secrets, the corrosive sort that are passed down from one generation to the next, while my new novel, Flight is about the secrets we carry within ourselves, just out of reach of our memories, secrets that manifest in the forms of patterns of behaviour, unconsciously repeated over and over until we are forced to stop and face what we are evading. Mythologist, Joseph Campbell believed that the slaying of a dragon in a story is a metaphor for inner change, for facing those things within us that we are most afraid of. The plot then is a metaphor for character development. The outer passage of a story incidental, the inner passage fundamental. The outer passage the costume, the inner passage the essence. There is a tension there, because whilst the outer journey often follows a linear sense of time by moving into the future, the inner journey is often a series of movements into the past, not a straight line but a thematically choreographed dipping into memory. This inner journey uncovers the fragments that motivate a character's actions and creates an opportunity for the character to eventually heal a wound.

There are many metaphors for the journey of a character in a story. Alchemy is one; that fiery process of turning lead into gold. Or there's the symbolism of death and mystical resurrection, the shamanic descent to the underworld, followed by magical flight, the journey into the labyrinth to face the monstrous within us and the thread with which we find our way back out once again, forever changed. All of these are metaphors of transformation, something which begins to occur to varying degrees in a story when a character turns to face the unknown or the unremembered. But transformation is a process, not a product, it is perpetual and vital. As with life, in story there are turning points, moments of catharsis, of understanding, followed by periods of integration of that new knowledge.

In Flight, Fern's must retrieve and release lost memories in order to become whole again. Paralleling the quest of the hero in ancient mythology, Fern's journey through the wilderness is symbolic of the journey into the labyrinth, or the underworld. A place where fear is faced and inner change happens. Flight is a metaphysical novel in which the classic narrative patterns of the adventure story and the spiritual journey are intermingled. Since the time of humanity's first storytellers, the unnamed shamans, we have told stories that document the journeys of the soul, sending our characters deep into a literal or metaphoric underworld in search of purpose and meaning in their lives. In Flight, Fern takes her first reluctant steps in an odyssey, embarking on a dangerous journey that will eventually bring her face to face with her deepest fears. As Fern herself soon discovers, in order to fly, one must first be willing to fall. That is, after all, the nature of story, an invitation to journey, to adventure, to remember who we really are, something that is summarised so beautifully by TS Eliot in Four Quartets,

'We shall not cease from explorations

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.'

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/

Writing Our Own Paths

'Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.'

Osho, Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within

It is a wonderful thing to start a novel. Despite the trepidation, there is the extraordinary feeling that comes when we set out on a journey. Having left home but not yet arrived, we inhabit the 'space in between', the no man's land in which anything and everything can happen. I have begun this new novel; felt the excitement of slipping into the creative process, not quite losing myself yet, but already surprised by the material that has arisen from my unconscious and formed into words on the page – well four pages to be exact. Not much, but just enough to know that there is more to come, patiently awaiting my attention. Once again I find myself being seduced by the mystery of the creative process.

Speaking on a panel of writers I once mentioned the word creativity, only to find another writer dismissing the word as a cliché. Of course any word can become a cliché with overuse and with misuse, but there's a danger that the inherent value of that word will then become derided. It would be a great shame if we began to deride the idea of creativity. Osho writes in his book, Creativity, that 'any activity can be creative, it is you who brings that quality to the activity'. Is it then possible to write a book or paint a picture uncreatively? According to Osho, it is. 'Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things.'

I looked up the term creativity and on answers.com found it defined as 'an ability to produce something new through imaginative skill, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form. The term generally refers to a richness of ideas and originality of thinking. Psychological studies of highly creative people have shown that they have a strong interest in apparent disorder, contradiction, and imbalance, which seem to be perceived as challenges. Such individuals may possess an exceptionally deep, broad and flexible awareness of themselves. . .'

In order to truly create, in order to do more than copy what is already known, then perhaps we need to free ourselves from conditioning and from the collective psychology. Paradoxically, I think one of the keys to freeing ourselves in this way, lies in story. Analytic psychologist, Juliet Sharman-Burke calls myth, fairy tales and folklore 'the original self-help psychology', while Jungian analyst and cantadora (storyteller) Clarissa Pinkola Estes, describes stories as medicine. 'They have such power,’ she says. 'The remedies for repair or reclamation of any lost psychic drive are contained in stories'. Stories help us to remember, to transform and to release our wounds, and in doing so, we are able to become truly individual, forging our own path through life.

At one level story is purely entertainment. On another level it can be a form of propaganda that reinforces the social order and prevailing attitudes, thus keeping people unquestioningly obedient to a social system and sometimes a religious system too. Stories can be read politically, interpreted differently according to their context and the numerous filters through which they are received. We can respond to stories from many points of view: take a Marxist perspective, give a feminist reading, psychoanalytic, realist, structuralist, and post structuralist, all of which are necessary and illuminating ways of reading narratives and understanding the culture in which we live, but cannot lay exclusive claim to the whole truth.

While our stories entertain, and provide us with ways of thinking about how to live within our society, on a third level they also provide us with maps that allow us to develop as individuals (more on this in a later post). Mythologist, Joseph Campbell, wrote extensively about this third level within story and this is the level which I explore in my novel, Flight. Although stories can and do encourage us to conform, paradoxically they are also subversive, in that the very structure of story is a map of the process of becoming oneself, a state in which the individual may live freely within society. As Osho writes, 'Creativity is the fragrance of individual freedom.'

Copyright (c) 2012 by Rosie Dub. All rights reserved. You may translate, link to or quote this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website:http://writeonthefringes.blogspot.co.uk/