Tag: obstacles

  • Of Borderlands, Willingness and Shifts in Consciousness…

    Of Borderlands, Willingness and Shifts in Consciousness…

    Leaving the world as it is, and entering the border between the world as it was, and presently exists in the newly leveraged chaos of change requires courage and faith. It also asks for willingness to acknowledge that one has entered the unknown. Like our protagonists, each time we venture to write a new story…

  • Of Cruise Ships, Planes, Ocean and Sky…

    Of Cruise Ships, Planes, Ocean and Sky…

    Traveling by ship, or cruising, starts with the point or process of embarkation, going onto the ship and finding our room. Your bags arrive soon after that. And within an hour or so the ship sets sail. Unlike with an airplane, where matters move at a faster pac

  • Of Crevices, Cracks and Teflon…

    Of Crevices, Cracks and Teflon…

    Symbols deepen what we, as readers, come to know and experience with a character. But what makes us feel with and for her, or him [the protagonist]–cry with them, scream for them, die with them? What ultimately moves and transforms us, the reader, along with the central character of a story, or novel? Certainly obstacles…

  • Who Am I: What Do I Really Want?

    Who Am I: What Do I Really Want?

    According to Jungian theory, the shadow aspect of one’s personality contains any, and everything that falls out of alignment, stands apart, from the ego ideal. The writer must examine the central character’s values, those held by her or his family, mother, father and culture, to gain a sense of how the Shadow archetype might manifest…

  • The Heroine/Hero and Their Function in Story

    The Heroine/Hero and Their Function in Story

    The heroine or hero provides the reader with perspective and focus on the story, point of view. She or he also serves as the point of identification allowing the reader to invest her or his feelings towards care and concern for not simply the major character but also remaining with the story to see its…

  • Loving Our Characters

    Loving Our Characters

    American Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön, writes in “Comfortable with Uncertainty” that, “…When we start to meditate or work with any kind of spiritual discipline, we often think that somehow we’re going to improve [ourselves], which is a subtle kind of aggression against who we are…Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become…

  • So You Want to Write a Novel: Obstacles

    So You Want to Write a Novel: Obstacles

    Every good story needs an interesting and compelling character, centered in a riveting set of events that force her or him to reveal their best, and worst qualities. What do we call these set of events that push and prod the major character to show her or his mettle, their tenacious and persevering personality? Obstacles.