A Whale of a Story

whale, the great (aka Moby-Dick)--a tangible, forceful adversary; a dramatic partner to the protagonist in story landscape; a presence eventually discernible as having an agenda opposing the protagonist.

Cruising along at mid-level in the sea of dramatic convention, surfacing on occasion for a gulp of air much as the whale does in real life, there is the convention of the worthy opponent, the man, woman, or child who not only believes utterly in the rightness of his or her position but who radiates the embodiment of that stand. It is the very strength of conviction within this opponent that drives the story toward its eventual combustion. Therefore it must be respected rather than demonized. In creating such a dramatic presence, the writer is clearly investigating opposing forces within his or her own sense of conviction and justice. It would be foolish to suggest that the great whale had a personal vendetta against Ahab or any crew member of the Pequod, but it is not so foolish to ask the reader-who-wants-to write, the writer within, as it were, to imagine the preparation need to prepare for portraying the role of the whale in a dramatized version of Moby-Dick. What does the whale want? The very question suggests parody, but that absurdity is mitigated by the further question: What does the whale represent? The whale represents forces of Nature, which is a start to the answer. The whale wants to survive, another answer. The whale has been witness to and present at events counter to its desire to survive.

In similar fashion that borders on risk of absurdity, it is instructive to think through the agendas and goals of the adversary, whether they be forces of Nature or teen-agers wanting to borrow the family car. This introspection is not for the purpose of finding the irrational in the dramatic partner. Rational partners don't make for drama, they make for moot court proceedings. Rational as he was, Sherlock Holmes could not have stood up dramatically without Dr. Watson. Although not an adversary in terms of plot goals, Watson represents a behavioral and social force antithetical to Holmes, just as Dr. Wilson represents antithetical behavior to the fictional Dr. Gregory House.

Let the great hulking whale represent a literary totem, representing the duality of partnership and adversary. A partner represents someone with whom the protagonist can confide, share, explore survival strategy. An adversary represents a threat to the protagonist's agenda in significant enough measure to cause the reader concern for the outcome of the story. Remember as well: the protagonist has caused some level of threat to the adversary--otherwise the adversary would not behave in such a gradually accelerating pattern of opposition.

The collision between protagonist and adversary can come suddenly, with no warning, in spite of preparations; the consequences may be highly physical as in plot-driven narrative or of more internal, morality-sensitive issues as in the character-driven story. Although a significant dramatic convention exists to turn the protagonist into a Cassandra, who is fated to see the future exactly but no one believes her, the consequences of a protagonist alone with no confidantes triggers the risky business of the protagonist having no place to go but interior monologue.

Think whale. Think partner. Think confidante. Then, without even having to think about it, you will be introducing layer upon layer of dramatic intensity.

Hanging in the Balance

A mantra is a series of words or syllables which combine the names or aspects of the godhead and are intended as an adjunct to meditation. The word has its roots in Sanskrit, which is itself intended as a language by which to convey the meaning and intensity of mystical scripts, formulas, chants, and poems. To make matters even more intriguing, the words used in Sanskrit-based mantras are encapsulations of the personalities of gods and goddesses are additionally special, meaning that even a person who has some Sanskrit is not likely to use these so-called bija or jewel words except when chanting or meditating on mantras that contain them.

This is probably more than you wanted to know about mantras and Sanskrit and bija words, just as Melville probably, now that you think about it, told you more about whales than you want to know. But the fact is that there are mantras for the writing and telling of story; they are not in Sanskrit nor do they have bija words in them. One of the more powerful mantras for story telling is: Never take the reader where the reader wants to go. Meditating on this mantra has caused many aspiring writers to understand how important it is not to tell the reader too much about whales until the reader is sufficiently invested in the story that he has to suffer the stuff on whales to find out what happens to the characters. When the reader is sufficiently caught up in the story, the writer can successfully thrown in a chapter or two about whales and although the reader may ultimately complain, the reader will, as some recent characters in American political activities have put it, stay the course.

Another mantra of significant value to the writer is the single word withhold, a word and concept not to be taken lightly. The reader reads to be made interested in characters who take on a bigger-than-life resonance, continuing to read to see what happens to the characters. At more or less the moment the reader finds out, the story is over. In answer then to the question, when does a story end, the answer becomes When the reader finds out what happens. In exaggerated theory, the ideal place for the discovery or revelation or even the backstory-as-explanation is the penultimate chapter of a novel because, cumbersome as such an arrangement might be, the reader would put up with it to find out what happens. Come to think of it, the reader would even put up with all that stuff about whales to find out what happened to Ishmael.

The product created by withholding is suspense.

Suspense is the glue that holds stories together.

Mantras may lead to insight, even mystical union. Suspense leads to dramatic discovery.