Literary Allusion

I've been writing about ways to make your writing more literary and more meaningful.  You may wonder what literary allusion is and what it can do for your reader.  Allusion is simply a reference, usually an indirect reference, to another work.  When a story features a woman give a man a piece of fruit in order to tempt him, it's alluding to the Adam and Eve story from the Bible.  When a man romances a woman who is standing on a balcony, it's an allusion to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.   When alluding to another work, it's usually best to pick something that is universally or almost universally known, or the reader will not usually understand the allusion.  Its power will be lost.  Most people are at least familiar with the Bible.  Almost everyone has at least heard of the balcony scene.  

Using allusion allows a writer to draw on the deeper meaning and connotation of the original work of literature.  It's usually best to go back to the source when choosing an allusion, not to allude to an allusion, because then you know what the original context is.  You know what it means when you use it.  If you simply see a balcony scene or the story of a person giving an apple then choose to use that event in your work, you don't know what deeper meanings you're drawing on.  Your allusion could be clunky, confusing, or nonsensical.  Say you want to write about an angel because you saw the story of an angel on a movie or television series.  In reality, you're borrowing someone else's mythology, not making a meaningful allusion.  Let's say, instead, that you want to create a proper allusion to biblical angels.  Then you research angels.  You look up when and how angels appear in the Bible then carefully decide how you're going to allude in a way that brings in all the connotation and meaning of biblical angels.  A reader who is familiar with the Bible understands that meaning.  You have called on the weight of the original source material, and your reader feels it.  Try using literary allusion to deepen your writing.  

Dive into Meaning

These last few blogs, I have addressed various literary devices that turn a decent piece of writing into something more meaningful than just a story.  I have been reading a manuscript written by someone who calls it "literary fiction."  I've had to inform him there is nothing literary about his fiction.  The story meanders without purpose or deeper meaning from event to event, drawing no conclusions and making no suggestion at anything deeper.

What makes literary fiction?  Literary fiction is a manner of describing events that shapes meaning through literary devices such as those I've described.  This genre of fiction exists not just to tell you once upon a time, something happened but that once upon a time, something happened for a reason or multiple reasons.  If you are not writing with purpose and theme, you are not writing in any way that could be called literary.  And any genre, if well handled, can become at least somewhat literary.

What is a theme?  Theme is simply meaning.  You can incorporate multiple meanings into one story, but if there is no theme at all above and beyond bare facts, why are you writing?  Why tell the story?

Obviously, there's much more to it than this, but all of these literary devices are meant for one purpose: to suggest something grander is going on than just simple events.  You can read To Kill a Mockingbird as a set of fictional events in a made-up child's life.  However, if you do, you miss much of what is going on beneath the surface.  You miss the grander themes of prejudice, child abuse, hatred, love, and so much more.  You can read Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet as depressing yarns in which a whole series of people die, but then you may as well read a cheap thriller.  Shakespeare's plays explore questions of love, loyalty, family, murder, revenge, and language, among other things.  Clearly, the authors built these tales as carriers of depth and meaning beyond just the events described.

So how do you explore themes with your works?  This depends on your writing process.  You could simply write the bare bones story and then decide on what meanings you find yourself exploring or you could decide in advance what meaning or meanings you wish to address through your writing.  I decided with my first manuscript to explore child loss as part of the tale because I'm working on healing from the loss of my baby almost seven years ago.  For more on this, look to another of my blogs, Alamanda's Place.  I consciously decided that was one of my themes before I ever started typing.  That was my starting place, why I wrote the story.  Other themes have grown organically out of the story as I've gone along.

 Harry Potter writer J.K. Rowling started writing her tale as the story of a child wizard, but as she went along, she consciously wove deeper themes into her novels such as death, resurrection, love, and friendship.  When she started to explore those deeper themes that spoke to the human condition, she began to write fantasy in a more literary fashion.  If you haven't done so already, go to your latest work in progress and brainstorm what themes you can find in your own work.  What greater statements about the human condition do you make?  If you can't find any, what themes do you WANT to explore?   You don't want to tack something on that feels tacked on, nor do you want the narrative to become preachy.  Either way, you're bound to turn readers off.  Look at your favorite books.  See how the authors have woven themes throughout their tales so you can see how they do it.

You Gotta Have Heart

I've noticed something about the movies I've watched recently.  Some of them work for me, and some of them don't.  I wondered why.  I tried to guess, but it dawned on me what the movies that don't work for me lack: heart.  We more or less enjoyed "Secret Life of Pets" in theaters because it was a good romp.  But upon further reflection, I realized the characters were fairly simple and unrelatable.  The beginning looked promising, but the rest lacked heart and meaning.  I didn't care about what was happening that much because of the lack.

"Moana" and "Finding Dory," however, were full of heart and meaning.  I cared about the characters from the beginning, so what they went through and their voyage meant a lot more to me.  I saw a clear motivation for everything they did, and it made human sense.  The characters cared about each other, so I cared about them.

I guess, for me, the clearest back to back comparison is the two newest "Star Wars" episodes.  "Force Awakens" seems to me to be full of heart.  I love the humor and chemistry between the characters as well as their clear motivations.  It's a joy to watch.  Meanwhile, "Rogue One" has some good characters and a clear plot, but it seems to lack that heart.  I found it hard to care about most of the characters because they didn't seem to care much about each other.  Some of the individual pairs of characters have chemistry and heart, but all together, there is little to no heart.  The magic that worked so well with "Force Awakens" is lacking for me.  Some people really like it because of a compelling storyline.  For me, that's not as important as caring.  

Authors who sit down to write a screenplay, story, novel, or whatever need to make sure audiences and readers care about their characters, that they are invested in the heart of the story, or nothing else matters.

What Drives your Story?

Story Drives: 

Some time ago, I wrote about how important it is to know what drives your character, what makes a character do what he/she does.  I apologize if I've mentioned this before, but it couldn't hurt to revisit it [I checked and couldn't find it.]  This post is on what drives your story.  I recently read someone's story in which the main character meanders from event to event without anything driving him.  When he gets done with one major life event like a job or military or even a family, he simply goes and does something else.  That's fine for a PERSON, or even a biography, but it won't work for a STORY.  A story is about something, one specific event, set of events, character, etc.  It has a clear beginning, middle, and end, or it isn't, by nature, a story.  If you find people asking the 'so what?' question repeatedly or wondering what your story is about, it's time to sit down and figure out what drives your story itself.

Orson Scott Card talks about four kinds of story drives: 1. milieu or location  2. question, as in whodunit, 3. plot, as in what's wrong with the world and how can it be fixed? and 4. character as in what's wrong with your character and what does he/she do about it?  If you know your genre, chances are you can figure out what drives your story.  A book that primarily takes you on a tour of any location is a milieu book.  This can include fantasy or science fiction in which the magical land is the most important aspect of the story.  Think the Lord of the Rings trilogy, if you think of it as a world in which prototypical characters of various races appear in a struggle, or "Gulliver's Travels," wherein an outsider comes into a foreign land and learns all about it.  A mystery is most often question-driven because the story isn't finished until the primary question, whodunit most often, is answered.  Adventure yarns, science fiction stories, fantasy novels, and fairy tales are mostly plot-driven.  Something is wrong.  The story is about how the something is fixed.  Think Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, particularly the first.  4. Character-driven stories can include science fiction or fantasy but are more likely to include romance, literary fiction, and the like, stories that are not complete until the character is happy in his/her own skin.

The Contract

The story drive chosen is a kind of unspoken contract with your reader.  Once the reader understands the promise made by the text--that you won't finish the story until he or she has learned everything about the world or the question is answered or the world is put to rights or the character gets their satisfying happily ever after--he or she will find it highly dissatisfying if you don't complete your promised story.  I've read novels about a whodunit that don't answer the question but end in a happily ever after.  It's very unsatisfying.  A story about a lonely, sad character may end in the solution to a question, but if she's not happy, I, as the reader, am not happy.  I ran into this with the recent "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" movie.  We start with a world launched into zombie war and end with "and they live happily ever after."  At which time, the zombies return in force.  I imagine movie makers were setting up for a sequel, but the sequel isn't likely to come because the movie doesn't complete the contract it promised.  Audiences don't like that.

Example:

The Harry Potter series manages to balance out all four story drives.  We start with a lonely boy who is immediately handed a question--who am I?--which leads to other questions, all of which are resolved by turns as he enters a foreign magical world and attempts to resolve the problem in the world as well as his own loneliness.  All four drives come to satisfying endings.  This is part of the books' appeal.  Rowling makes several contracts with the reader, all of which get a satisfying resolution.

Now, You

If you're struggling with a story you're writing, unsure if it's hitting the mark, figure out which contract you are making with your reader.  Are you promising to show off an awesome world, answer a question or questions, fix a world, or make a character happy?  Do you fulfill your promise?  If not, how can you fix that?

So What?

The Heart of the Matter

I've read several stories recently that bring home one of the most important aspects of writing: answering the "So what?" question.  Readers have so much to do.  So why should they read your particular piece?  Where is its heart?  If the reader has to slog through multiple pages to get to a character or situation that is meaningful to them, chances are that even if they do finish THIS piece, they won't be back for more.

Caring

So how does one get to the heart, the meat, of the piece?  Here's the secret: make the reader care.  How?  By making the character care about a cause, a person, a pet, SOMETHING, anything.  On the first page, or as soon as possible, do something that brings home the humanity of your main character or even your villain.  The cheapest shot is to give him or her a puppy or a small child.  But this is only a cheap shot if the puppy or small child is simply tacked on.  If they're central to the story line, that's perfect.  If your character loves something, we readers are more likely to love your character.

But it's critical that we are SHOWN this love if you want us to feel it.  Don't tell us, "Susan loves her family."  Those remain words on the page.  But if we see Susan hugging her family, tears streaming down her cheeks [as long as it's not overdone or melodramatic] as she leaves the house to go to war [doesn't matter if she's going to war against a military enemy, a hostile supervisor at work, the zombie apocalypse, or death itself], we will feel it.

Which brings me another facet of making me care.  Help me see what is at stake in Susan's situation.  Something should be at risk.  It can be a romance, a job, her life, her family's lives, the world itself, something.  She needs to have a clear goal or desire, and that goal or desire needs to be in danger.  I think we have all read stories full of lush description and interesting dialogue that still fall flat because we don't care about the characters or their causes because THEY don't seem to really care about those around them or their causes.  They just go through the motions like puppets in a puppet show.  Convince me.  Show me.  Make me care.

For Example: 

Here is an example, starting with least compelling and going to most.  "Susan woke up, got ready for school, patted her dog, and left the house."  I don't care about Susan at this point.  I am not even sure why I'm bothering to read her story or why this bit is in here.  I put down the book.

So let's add some description to see if this helps.  "Susan woke up, stretched her thin, tanned arms, and pulled on her plushy blue sweater and skinny jeans.  She bounced into the bathroom and curled her golden hair then spritzed it with cherry-scented hair spray. She spread her bubblegum lip balm on her lips and flounced downstairs, patted her beloved dog, and ate a bowl of Golden Grahams with all the milk her bowl would hold.  Then she said, 'Bye' to her parents and sped to catch the bus."  Sure, some people will read past this to figure out why she seems so excited to go to school, but most will walk away.  It's not because the description didn't appeal to the senses.  We can taste her lip balm and cereal and smell her hairspray.  We feel her sweater.  We hear her bid her parents goodbye.  There is sensory detail here, but she doesn't seem to really care about anything or anyone.  The word "beloved" falls flat because we don't feel it.  There's nothing at stake.

So let's start again:

      Susan slammed the alarm, then noticed she'd hit snooze one time too many.  "Crap!  I can't miss the bus again! Mr. Bell will send me to detention for sure!"  She crawled out of bed, glad that she had fallen asleep in what she was wearing Sunday afternoon.  It was rumpled, but at least it wasn't pajamas.  She glanced in the mirror and saw her hair sticking up like porcupine quills.  She ran a brush through it then scooped it into a ponytail, trying to ignore the bits that stuck out. Those girls at the back of the bus would mock her no matter what, but it didn't help when she made it easy.  She spritzed it with the cheap, perfumy hairspray mom always bought.  It made her hair sticky but did nothing for the stray bits. "Whatever." Then she dashed downstairs, already deciding a growling stomach was better than a missed bus.

     Susan stopped short at the sight of her mom looking at her with red eyes and a tear-stained face. "We've put it off as long as we can.  Zipper can't eat anymore.  He's in too much pain.  We have to take him in today."

     "No!" Susan shouted.  "I've had him since I was little!  He was Daddy's last present to me!  You can't take him away!"  She threw her body across the prone form of her golden retriever, who whimpered under the pressure.  She inhaled his stale breath and matted, musty fur, praying it wouldn't be the last time.  "Please don't take him!"

     "Sweetie, I wish I could do something else, but I don't have a choice.  You'd better go, or the bus will leave without you.  I can't take you again.  I have to work for a couple of hours."

     "At least wait until I get home, so I can say goodbye!"  Susan dragged herself away from the dog and out the door.  She trudged toward the bus corner, only to find the bus pulling away from her stop.  Her heart sank, and a tear escaped.

There is some description here but not as much as in the last example.  However, most readers are likely to care about this last one more because A. there are several things at stake and B. Susan actually cares about something or someone.

Conclusion: 

If the main character has a heart, we feel it and care, especially if we can see something at stake and yearn to see what comes next.  Go back.  Look at what you're writing now, whether it be a short story, a poem, a non fiction piece, or a novel.  Reexamine what your character cares about.  Can the reader feel it?  Have other people read those critical first two to three pages and ask if they care about your character.  Because if these readers care, chances are others will as well.