Colorful Writing

Color can be a meaningful tool when it comes to writing in a literary fashion.  All that takes is hinting to the reader how to read that color and then remaining hyper conscious of that color as a pattern.  A red shirt can be red just because you, as the author, likes red.  But this is a failure to use the tools available to you.  Color can be made to shape a message with which you can signal meaning to the reader. 


Colors can be used in obvious ways. In the common symbolism, red suggests anger, blue sadness, yellow cowardice, white innocence, and so on.  They often play into stereotypes.    Bad guys wear black, while good guys wear white.  However, shows like Star Wars plays with that.  Luke shows up in white when he's an innocent but then appears in black when he's a master, kind of like a black belt or a priest.  The good guys and bad guys wear black.  A close study of color in those movies can provide a rich bounty of meaning, little of which relates to conventional coloring systems.  You, as the writer, don't have to rely on accepted symbolism, either.  Think of the use of red in "Sixth Sense."  Every time an element of the supernatural shows up, red plays a heavy part in the scene.  Red has nothing to do with anger, evil, or anything known.  M. Night Shyamalan has created his own color system, as can you. 

Someone who is alert can catch onto that symbolism and catch more than they may otherwise do.  Wizard of Oz, both movie and book, rely heavily on color to instill meaning.  In his article "Color and Its Uses," Mike Nagle talks about the symbolism.  The good witch, Glinda, is described in colors of red, white, and blue to tie her to the American flag and to show her as a positive force.  Different countries and peoples are associated with different colors as Dorothy travels through a rainbow from yellow to green to blue. Yellow is associated with hope and optimism since that's what she's felling when she follows the yellow brick road.  The greens of the Emerald City in the movie seem to be associated with false power, illusion, money, and greed.  He creates his own color code and makes its meanings clear throughout the story. 

Decide if you want to use a conventional coloring system.  If not, what do you want your colors to mean?  What patterns of meaning can you weave throughout your story?  This is probably best built up in later drafts as you revise. 

Coming of Age

I've been writing about how to make any piece of writing more literary.  Many books and movies deal with the idea of the coming of age, when a youth goes from being a child from being an adult.  The technical term for this is a Bildungsroman.  Think, for instance, of Mark Twain's Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, the Harry Potter series, the Taran Wanderer series, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, Lewis's Narnia series, the Star Wars movies, and so many more.  This is a moment of transition, one in which a child learns to be an adult, so it makes for a literarily powerful moment. 

A Bildungsroman allows the writer to deal with many emotionally weighty themes with which the reader can identify.  Tom Sawyer deals with themes of death and rebirth, irresponsibility vs. responsibility, selfishness vs. heroism, and others.  Jane Eyre shows the protagonist dealing with trauma and abuse, love vs. ethics and morality, and others.  To make your Bildungsroman more than just a mundane and meaningless story, it ought to feature important themes such as love, loss, loneliness, anger, depression, trauma, and the like. Think through the broad themes that make up the meaning behind your story. 

There are other things to consider as you embark on writing a Bildungsroman. There must be room for transformation; furthermore, there must also be an actual transformation.  Your main character must actually change.  What are the traits with which your character will start that will need to be changed?  What will the signs of that maturity be?  For instance, Harry Potter starts out socially awkward and introverted.  He must grow into the role of a confident leader in order to be able to do and be what is required by the end of the novel.  The story should show how that transformation takes place, step by step.  He can't go to sleep socially awkward and awake a leader.  Nor can he start the story perfect, or you have a Mary Sue that is likely to bore the reader.  The author has to guide the character (and, thereby, the reader) through growth, so the character is round instead of flat.  How does your character change? 

It often helps to keep literary pattern in mind when you're writing a Bildungsroman.  One of the most popular is Joseph Campbell's hero's journey.  Your hero starts in a normal world, goes into the underworld, faces dangers with the help of allies, then emerges the master of both worlds.  If this is something that interests you, I highly recommend looking it up via the link above or Google.  It's a fascinating topic.  Many modern novels and movies are based on this pattern such as any given Pixar movie.  The hero's journey can help with plotting since it's ideally suited for a Bildungsroman. 

It's not enough to just tell a coming of age story.  They have to be carefully planned in terms of growth, plotting, characterization, and themes.  What makes your story special and meaningful?  You can do this.