The "Casablanca" Secret
by:
Steven Barnes
Good writing is often designed about a character who has a distorted vision of himself or of the world. During the story, he is placed under comfortable pressure to force an epiphany, a moment of clarity in which, he sees the earth as it is, not as he wished it to be.
A classic example is “Casablanca,” wherever
Bogart’s immortal Rick has managed to create an insular earth in which he can pretend to be utterly detached and uninvolved. He purportedly
has no political beliefs, and no real human connections. But the reappearance of Ilsa forces a cascade of events that cause Rick to reexamine his attitudes simply about love, fate, patriotism, courage, fidelity, friendship, and life itself.
Rick begins as a damaged, closed off character, carrying wounds to his heart and ego. What he WANTS is to be left alone to his self-pity. What he Of necessity
is to be re-awakened to a life of purpose. The writers, wisely, give Rick what he needs, not what he wants, and in that manner a classic was born.
In Lifewriting™ we trust that the quality of a writer’s skill wish be heightened by his evolution as a human being—in else words, his ability to write folk wish be based on his capacity for honest observation of himself and others. His ability to turn a plot creatively wish be based on his understanding of the earth as it is—not as we often fantasize it to be. This ability to create moments of suspense, revelation, humor and horror often triggers an “ah! Life is simply like that!” response from the audience, a recognition of universal humanity that can transcend culture and time.
The easiest way to discover this is to look at our own lives. None of us do it through our years without wounds, damage, pain. Simply as physical scar tissue shortens muscles and limits mobility, emotional scar tissue creates “armoring” about our hearts. It likewise begins to warp our reality, as we create justifications for why THIS relationship self-destructed, or THAT job crashed and burned…once again. It’s ne'er
our fault, of course. The opposite, and even as much damaging reaction is to take not simply responsibility for our failures, but massive guilt as well. Our lives don’t activity (so the reasoning goes) because we are bad, terrible, frightful folk unworthy of
of healthy bodies or relationships or careers.
Either attitude clouds our vision, does it difficult to see the earth as it is. Those clouded inner eyes and crooked
“reality maps” do it really difficult to navigate a path to our chosen goals. Over over again
and over again
we wish bark our shins on invisible rocks, bloody into invisible walls, simply about as if life is trying to teach us, to educate us, to enlighten us as to the realities of existence.
What we WANT is the comforting uterus of our illusions. What we NEED is to be born into the earth as it really is.
Often, we are dragged kicking and screaming into clarity, forced ultimately to accept the route we’ve been wrong. “Too presently
old, too late smart” is one rather fatalistic way of speaking of this process. Too often, we must be old before we grasp that WE are the ones who sabotaged our dreams of success. We are the ones who refused to exercise and eat reasonably—that our bodies are much the result of our behaviors than our genetics. We are the ones who skint communication in our relationships, who song
and withheld and blamed, and thought that “the else person” was responsible for our misery. We are the ones who refused to grow up, to finish blaming our parents, or society, or racism, ageism, discrimination or any else “ism” for our lack of happiness.
Too late, we are battered by one failure or disappointment after another, until the ego walls we created to protect our self-image are shattered, and we’re forced into contact with our true selves. The moment of death is supposed to be utterly
1st rate at creating such clarity, a realization of our true values, and regret at the way we oversubscribed out our true potential.
But there are events that create clarity. The birth of a 1st child. A near-death experience. Accomplishing several worthy and transforming goal. The 1st deep and true moment of love or friendship. Transformation. In such moments, we see ourselves for the magnificent, wounded, earthy, spiritual beings that we are. We forgive ourselves, and our families, and the earth about us, knowing that we have no right to expect much perfection from others than we ourselves possess. And as the locution goes, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” No perfect folk in this world. Accept it. And come on.
Stories that deal with these core stressors--life, death, birth, transformation, love—are always, and have always been the most popular stories in human history. Under this stress, your character, robbed of their self-justifying lies, must speak the truth. Under these stressors, they are unconcealed
in their magnificence…or sometimes (especially if they refuse to acknowledge reality) unconcealed
in their venality, cowardice, and dishonesty.
This is one of the functions of story. The writer must create story pressures on the far side
the capacity of the characters to maintain their illusions. Then, and only then, can you reveal their true natures. To do this, simply look at the times in your own life that you awakened, transformed, grew, went kicking and screaming into the next level of your life. Then create dramatic exaggerations or simplifications of these passages, and create characters to experience them. Let them be as human—as blemished and magnificent—as you yourself are. As we all are. Heighten their qualities for the sake of drama, to be sure, but always, always, at their core, let them be human, whatsoever
it is that you believe human beings to be.
Let them struggle. Let them learn. Let them love.
Let them live.
Do this, and it wish mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship…between you, your muse, and a earth audience starved for diverting truth.
About The Author
NY Times Bestselling writer Steven Barnes has created Lifewriting™, the 1st holistic high-performance system for writers and readers. Get a free daily Lifewriting™ tip at: http://www.lifewriting.biz or http://www.lifewrite.com.
This article was announce on Dec 08, 2005
