A Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write Authors' Message Words and Myth (excerpt) Publishing Tips (excerpt)

:::.............................. WORDS AND MYTH Writers need to connect with their dreams, that gateway to the unconscious where creativity is born in the mix between inherited myths and individual perspective. At the same time, the more writers learn about myth, the more they'll understand their writers' minds. Films, like novels, often go astray because writers lose sight of the "mythic deep structure," outlined as "the hero's story" in chapter 5 (p.113). It can be liberating for the writer to recognize that as words are to story, so story is to myth. Story is the source of words, yet the words you use are in a sense arbitrary; you could tell the same story with a different set of words. Myth, not words, gives shape to story. Therefore, agonizing endlessly over your choice of words isn't necessary. A good storyteller has words at his or her disposal because the storyteller's clear vision of the story's mythic shape unlocks what Beowulf called "the word-hoard." If the story is clear, the words will come. "Perhaps the secret to talking," writer Walker Percy in The Second Coming, "is having something to say." A story, clarified, will cause the words needed for its telling. In the same fashion, myth is the source of story. The same myth causes-inspires and shapes-countless stories. Films like Gone With the Wind and The Prince of Tides may even "improve" on the story told by the successful novels they were "based on." When this happens it's because the film makers recognized the mythic shape beneath the novel and brought it into the sharper focus demanded by the dramatic form. Examining the myth beneath your story ("mythic story analysis") will help you clarify your story. In the film Indecent Proposal, the story went astray because the "mythic deep structure" was lost sight of in the glow of the star system. Underlying the story is the Mephistopheles myth--Faust's "pact with the devil." In this myth, the hero longs for something he can't have (knowledge, power, money, sex); the devil comes to offer it to him in exchange for his soul. He accepts the bargain, and enjoys what he longed for until he realizes the enjoyment is hollow. The devil then comes to claim the bargainer's soul. In the final act, Faust either is redeemed and given a second chance (as in Damn Yankees and The Devil and Daniel Webster) or is taken, howling, down to hell (as in Goethe's Faust). Note that in either version the important catalyst is the antagonist's (the devil's) consistency. Faust may change his mind, and wish the deal undone; but the devil sticks to his guns. In Indecent Proposal the Hollywood star system plays havoc with the story's mythic pedigree. As Robert Redford's persona (the dapper, wealthy John Gage) makes its impact on the emerging story, we end up finding Gage more engaging than his victims, Diana (Demi Moore) and David (Woody Harrelson). As the story proceeds, because Redford can't be "the bad guy," Gage becomes less and less satanic and more and more like the tragically romantic Jay Gatsby. The effectiveness of the process by which story is generated from myth depends upon the storyteller's ability to pinpoint, clarify, and transform our emotions by aligning the characters' motivations properly to evoke them. Halfway through Indecent Proposal we lose all patience with the histrionic David and the temperamental Diana. Instead we find ourselves rooting for Gage, the devil in this myth, to get what he wants; by the end of the film, the dramatic focus is on Gage's romantic sacrifice, which, by default, establishes him as the true hero of the story. In American culture, our most private feelings about money are said to be as difficult for us to talk about openly and honestly as our feelings about sex. It was a brilliant choice on the part of the film makers (Adrian Lyne directed the film) to evoke the Faust myth in a time of recession, pinpointing sex and money as elements in as equation that stirs our unconscious anxieties and expectations. The brilliant choice of mythic material explains the film's healthy box office. People were willing to pay to deal with this myth. In troubled economic times, we couldn't resist a film that promised to explore the relationship between integrity and instant affluence (compare The Fountainhead). With lottery mania sweeping the nation, audiences were enthralled by the scene of David and Diana making love on the money they've won in Las Vegas. But audiences left the film confused, disappointed, and feeling cheated. What we expected was one variation or other of the myth: Devil tempts man and woman by promising to end their vulnerability. They accept the pact, and are destroyed by their own greed. This version of the myth becomes a cautionary tale, allowing us to continue working hard at honest pursuits rather than sacrificing our integrity for "the quick buck." Or: The devil tempts,etc. They accept, but when their joy turns to ashes in the devil's spell, the heroes find a way to break the spell and live happily ever after. Here the myth allows us to feel the power of redemption, that life does offer second chances. Once we've escaped the devil, we'll know better than to sin again (one of my clients, a real estate woman, has a sign on her desk that says, "Please give me one more big commission and I promise not to piss it away.") As it is, Indecent Proposal's "mythic deep structure" reads something like this: Devil tempts man and woman by promising to end their vulnerability. They accept the pact, try to make their dreams come true with the money, realize the devil has prevented them from doing it, get confused; the heroine confronts the devil, who does lovely things for her; she finds herself falling for him; leaves her heroic companion in the lurch; he, meanwhile, isn't even enjoying their sudden affluence; she and the devil become "an item"; the hero makes a grandiose gesture with the entire windfall; the devil figures the hero is a good guy; the devil makes a romantic sacrifice that sends the heroine back to the hero; hero and heroine try to figure out what happened; and the devil in a halo of nobility, rides alone into the sunset. This may work for the star, but it doesn't for the audience. One of the simplest ways of checking your "mythic structure" is to ask yourself which ancient hero's quest your story most closely resembles. If it's a story of apparently endless obstacles testing the hero's endurance, your myth may be the myth of Hercules, the hero known for his "labors." Find a dictionary of mythology, like Pierre Grimal's The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, or Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend, and look up Hercules (Greek: Herakles). The shorter the entry, the better, because what you're looking for is a simplified overview. The shorter entry will give you the essentials in fewer words. The essentials tend to be, as Aristotle taught, formal; you'll discover in the dictionary entry the underlying structure of the myth. Seeing that structure clearly will allow you either to follow it in your retelling of the story or to depart from it knowingly in a clear-cut variation where you choose to revise the ancient myth. People have been revising myths, bringing them "closer to the heart's desire," from the beginning of storytelling. Since myth moves us primarily through the unconscious, it will shape your story one way or the other. You simply have more "creative control" if you know where you're starting from. All stories seem essentially to be variations of the primal quest myth. That myth gives shape not only to entire stories; but also, each scene in a story can be clarified by recognizing that the following questions are applicable on both the micro-level of scene and the macro-level of plot: Who's the hero? What is the hero's problem? What does the hero do about it? The quest may be internal or external, psychological or military; the hero may be reluctant or audacious, inspired or possessed. He will almost always have an ally, who may or may not turn out to be a friend but is at least a confidante (allowing the hero's self-expression to be overheard by the audience around the mythic campfire.)