change

Loving, Impermanence and The Illusion of Self…

I recently read he 20th century Tibetan Buddhist master, Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s commentary on Lama Mipham’s The Wheel of Investigation and Meditation That Thoroughly Purifies Mental Activity.

Khyentse Rinpoche writes in the commentary, “Instead of being convinced that there is a self-entity, we realize that self is a mere concept.”

His words immediately drew me in.

A psychotherapist, I am forever pondering notions of self and other, phenomena, as Khyentse Rinpoche urges are but constructions of the mind in it, and our feeble efforts to understand and navigate the world, life and loving.
But there I go again, linking the mind, my thoughts and feelings to me, and who I really am.

Khyentse’s commentary, listed in the Summer 2010 Issue of the Buddhist Review, Tricycle, followed a brief article by Jakob Leschly, wherein Leschly describes his 16-year experience, starting in 1975, of studying with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche along with many others who were students of the meditation master.

Loving, Impermanence and The Illusion of Self… Read More »

Of Setting, Change, Action, and Dilemmas…

What creates setting, both physical and emotional?

And what goes into creating a setting that stimulates a reader to feel?

What is the challenge of creating a formative and transformative setting?

What needs to remain static and constant in a setting?

And what needs to cry out for change?

These questions point out the importance of setting and the challenge of meeting the needs that setting addresses in a story or novel.

John Truby, author of The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Masterful Storyteller, advises that the setting of a novel needs to include 2-3 separate and distinct places.

His belief debunks the idea that a good story needs to have a list of settings in order to sustain interest and hold the reader’s attention.

Of Setting, Change, Action, and Dilemmas… Read More »

Of Mars in Cancer, Courts of Change, and Travels…

Every story is like a court case wherein we, the author, like an attorney, tries a case of our protagonist.

Who is on trial?

Is your protagonist the defendant or the plaintiff seeking judgment and damages for a wrong committed upon her or him?

If she or his had been wronged then what was the crime and the injury inflicted?

Who committed the injustice?

What cries out for change?

Is this injustice still occurring at the outset of the novel?

If so what does the central character need to accomplish to stop the wrongful act?

The story we craft becomes our protagonist’s quest, their journey to achieve justice and survival, a tale of change and transformation.

Of Mars in Cancer, Courts of Change, and Travels… Read More »

Of Symbols, Change and Arc of Growth and Transformation…

The display the revelations that take place during the denouement and resolution, end, of a novel must take place in scene, not summary.

End of story revelations work much like the action taking place during the crisis and climax points where the immediacy of the characters’ actions impress upon readers the significance and meaning of the ordeal the central character/characters are undergoing, surviving and ultimately growing stronger by enduring.

Just as the crisis and climax point of a novel provide places of major transition and transformation, so to the revelations presented during denouement and at resolution offer one last stage of growth and change.

Of Symbols, Change and Arc of Growth and Transformation… Read More »

Motion, Identification and The Inertial Frame of Reference…

“Everything moves. Everything …motion is just a manifestation of going from one spot to another spot in space. When we are trying to understand motion all of the things that we measure from have to come from an inertial frame of reference. An inertial frame of reference is a reference frame that is moving at a constant speed and not changing direction.”

–Motion and Relativity, Dr. Charles Liu, Research Associate @ the Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History

The backbone of a story, particularly an entertaining and engaging one is motion, movement from one place in conscious and consensual reality to another.

Amplifying the reader’s engagement with the internal movement of the story, the emotional thread requires clarification of setting and displaying the subtle shifts that take place and occur in perception of setting reflective of one’s internal changes.

These changes are usually transmitted, or rather shown through the eyes and physical senses of the protagonist who is also the point-of-view character.

Motion, Identification and The Inertial Frame of Reference… Read More »

Of John Gardner, Writing and The Worm Hole Experience…

“Any event that seems to the given writer startling, curious, or interest-laden can form the climax of a possible story.”

–John Gardner in The Art of Fiction

Climax is that place in the story or novel where the protagonist, the main character, reveals in action, that she or he has integrated knowledge gained through the experience of the journey.

Through thought, word, and deed, the central character shows she or he has been changed, transformed. It follows crisis.

Of John Gardner, Writing and The Worm Hole Experience… Read More »

Of Swords, Inner Demons and the Waters of Renewal…

The area of a novel that follows climax brings renewal. Yet writing this part of the story gets tricky.

Rolling towards the finish line authors can easily lose control of the narrative. We must remain upon the horse of our story.

Climax has delivered a delayed and second crisis a second form of transformation, what some might call the aftershocks of the major earthquake of the peak crisis bringing everything to its head.

In this way novels can be seen to have three major crises or turning points from which others hurricanes or twisters of change spin off.

First comes the initial shake up, the initiating problem that rises from the dilemma rooted in back-story. Then comes the arc of action where the protagonist meets with her or his archenemy, that from which she or he has been running or pursuing the length of the story.

Then comes the crisis.

Of Swords, Inner Demons and the Waters of Renewal… Read More »