Читать книгу Step Out of Your Story - Kim Schneiderman - Страница 11
ОглавлениеGETTING TO KNOW THE STAR OF YOUR STORY
Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
— St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Exposition: The beginning of a story in which the main character is introduced to the reader. Situating the story in a time and place, the exposition presents important descriptive information that is needed to fully understand the protagonist.
Now that you’ve put on your story glasses and changed your perspective to the third person, it’s time to get better acquainted with the star of your story — you. Every human story is also a journey of transformation. We start out in one place, with a particular outlook, and end up in another. Yet rarely do we explore who we are as evolving characters with the same gusto and curiosity that we reserve for foreign travel — that is, until something forces us to take a closer look at the person behind the passport. Take Seymour’s story, for instance.
Lost Globetrotter Finds His Compass
Seymour was a single, white, thirty-nine-year-old Wall Street financial professional who “loved to travel” — at least, that’s what he wrote in his online dating profile. He had toured through Australia, trekked up Machu Picchu, and visited several beach resorts in four continents. Yet Seymour was lonely, and he was dissatisfied with his career. Although he often sought out classically beautiful women, he usually got bored a few months into the relationship. At work, he felt restless and distracted. When he wasn’t stressed, he entertained himself by composing songs in his head, though his masterpieces never saw daylight.
The trouble was, while Seymour had seen many parts of the world, he had barely explored the recesses of his own heart. An only child, Seymour had grown up somewhat emotionally neglected. His kindly but stoic father, who had worked in construction, had died of a heart attack when Seymour was only eleven. His mother, a nurse, had often worked overtime to put food on the table and send her son to college, and she had suffered periodic bouts of depression that sometimes left her bedridden. With little personal attention and guidance, Seymour turned to television and peers for clues about how to find happiness, but the proffered solutions — making money and womanizing — left him feeling empty.
When he thought of himself as the protagonist of his own story, Seymour recognized where this particular character arc would end if he didn’t change: with the character becoming a lonely, rich, and unhappy man. Seymour also worried about dying young, like his father. Instead, he wanted more inspiring work that left him with the same sense of enthusiasm he felt returning from his travels. The idea arose of starting an international importing business using some of his overseas contacts. He also wanted to learn how to play the guitar. With the right woman, he could build a family of his own. But to do all this, he first needed to take charge of his story, get to the bottom of his emotional blocks, and get better acquainted with his true self. His happiness and health were at stake.
What’s Your Character Arc?
While you can’t predict your future, you can take charge of the direction of your character arc if you’re willing to explore your protagonist’s terrain with the same sense of adventure and awe you would bring to a trek through the Himalayas.
Every protagonist has a character arc, a particular way he or she matures and develops in response to the shifting tides of the story. This area of growth is the threshold between the hero’s present self and his or her aspirational self; some call this a person’s “growing edge,” a term I like and use in this book. At the outset of every narrative, the protagonist possesses certain viewpoints and capabilities that have gotten the character by until now. Inevitably, situations arise that challenge these perspectives or demand other skills the hero doesn’t yet possess, thus creating the main conflict of the narrative. After all, if the character already possessed the necessary skills or a broader perspective, there would be no challenge and no conflict in the story. Ultimately, the protagonist faces an opportunity to change in some way. The degree to which the protagonist embraces this challenge, and his or her growing edge, or tries to avoid the challenge determines who he or she becomes, for better or for worse.
Similarly, you are an ever-evolving protagonist on a journey of self-discovery with choices to make about how to respond to the stuff that happens in your life. As an ever-evolving protagonist, not only do you possess the power to adapt to plot twists, but you can view these unexpected difficulties as opportunities for personal growth and transformation. In fact, you can coauthor your own story by regarding every person and situation that shows up in your narrative as an invitation to further hone a different aspect of your character, or one of your growing edges.
That, of course, includes antagonists — the so-called villains and foils that make life challenging — as well as supporting characters and any life events, welcome and unwelcome. After all, just because your life is a story doesn’t mean it’s supposed to be a fairy tale. In fact, even fairy tales aren’t joy rides. If you study them carefully, you’ll notice that serious difficulties always beset the main characters before they get to their happy ending. Cinderella may meet her prince and become transformed, but she has to sweep a whole bunch of chimneys, and endure much humiliation, before she gets there. Jack has to outrun a homicidally hungry giant to capture his treasure in the sky. We not only expect that the main characters of stories will be challenged in some essential way, but we anticipate it.
In stories, the status quo is not just boring, it’s unacceptable. Whether we consciously recognize it or not, could it be that deep down we understand that something needs to happen to the main character for his or her own good or, dare I say, growth? If so, then why is it that it’s so easy to lose this perspective when it comes to telling the story of our own life, when our own status quo is shaken? As the protagonist of our own heroic narrative, doesn’t it seem silly not to recognize that the things that happen to us are what offer opportunities to actualize our potential, calling forth perhaps dormant aspects of our personality that we need to resolve the situation?
Life constantly presents us with challenges. Should we choose to meet them, these keep us growing and evolving from chapter to chapter. Sure, you may not have a wicked witch chasing you like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but chances are you’ve had to contend with being lost, dealing with difficult people, and accepting that the authority figures you counted on did not deserve your trust.
Unlike some of the heroes from fairy tales and popular fiction, however, you don’t necessarily need to vanquish your nemesis — you simply need to explore who you are as an evolving character and understand your narrative.
Embracing Your Inner Hero or Heroine
Human beings are natural-born storytellers. In his book The Stories We Live By, psychologist Dan McAdams, director of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives, holds that, whether or not we realize it, every individual “comes to know who he or she is by creating a heroic story of the self.”9 These personal myths help us weave together disparate threads from the past, present, and anticipated future into a coherent and meaningful narrative that captures who we are and hope to become. As McAdams explains:
If you want to know me, then you must know my story, for my story defines who I am. And if I want to know myself,…then I too must come to know my story…. It is the story I continue to revise, and tell to myself (and sometimes to others) as I go on living…. This is not the stuff of delusion or self-deception. We are not telling ourselves lies. Rather, through our personal myths, each of us discovers what is true and what is meaningful in life.10
Occasionally, however, people balk when I invite them to embrace their inner hero. They wonder if such concentrated focus on their own story is self-indulgent navel-gazing or even narcissistic. If you have similar reservations, the following distinction will hopefully alleviate any concerns.
One primary difference between self-discovery and contemplating one’s belly button is intention. Navel-gazing is typically an end in itself; it describes when we become preoccupied with our own emotions, thoughts, and internal world at the expense of relating to others. Self-discovery, however, is about self-awareness; we explore our thoughts, feelings, preferences, talents, and vulnerabilities so that we might see ourselves as others do and improve our ability to relate with others and succeed in the world. The aim of this type of introspection is to enhance our capacity for love, compassion, understanding, and self-reflection. Self-discovery presumes that intimate knowledge of oneself precedes the ability to know and be intimate with others. The more we understand who we are, what makes us tick, the more we can share our gifts with other people and society.
Second, your story matters. Every person’s story matters. We are moved and affected by all the stories around us. When we marvel at public figures, athletes, and individuals who overcome tremendous odds to accomplish great feats, we regard their life stories as transformative and important. Their stories inspire everyone to make similar difficult, heroic, or compassionate choices in their own ways. Consider great humanitarians like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. They spent considerable time in self-reflection, developing self-awareness, and valuing the importance of their own narratives — not to congratulate themselves but in order to serve causes larger than themselves.
In this regard, when we think of ourselves as the protagonist in our own story, and cultivate that story, it is not self-absorption but our birthright. Each of us needs to know our own story because it helps us define and understand who we are in the world and what it means to be human. The great and wonderful irony, of course, is that the more intimate we become with our story, the more we realize that everyone has their own equally valid and important narrative, of which they too are the central character.
Creating a Character Sketch
Once you’ve given yourself permission to embark on a journey of self-discovery, where do you start? Obviously, with the hero of your story (you).
When novelists first imagine and start to develop the main characters for their stories, they use a writing technique known as a character sketch. As you take hold of the authorship reins of your own narrative, I invite you to travel this time-tested path. In many ways, a character sketch is like taking the scenic route to your eventual story, one that leads you through new landscapes toward broader vistas. Only in this case, you are going to assume the role of both author and protagonist, using this proven storytelling device to get a richer understanding of your main character.
A character sketch is a technique that helps authors flesh out the personalities and interior world of the protagonist before embarking on a novel. It involves answering a series of imaginative questions that paint a holographic picture of how the protagonist might evolve over the course of the plotline. The character sketch presumes that the protagonist is the soul of every narrative and the engine that runs the story. By using this device to penetrate the hearts and minds of the protagonists they create, authors can help ensure that their heroes remain true to character, so to speak, in the actions they take and the choices they make.
So, too, you are the engine of your personal narrative. The more you understand about who you are, what you’re made of, and what’s driving you, the better equipped you’ll be to navigate the twists in your plotline, steer your life narrative in a positive new direction, and avoid veering off course.
The character sketch is a perfect first step toward rewriting your story because it offers a well-groomed trailhead into our protagonist’s journey with questions that can dependably lead you in constructive directions. Toward this end, the character sketch will become the basis for your story’s exposition, the first building block of your reconstructed narrative. As the first element in the story arc, the exposition sets the stage for the plot, presenting important descriptive and background information that gives the reader a window into the protagonist’s personality. This is important because the more you understand who you are as an ever-evolving protagonist, the more you can see where your story is heading and how you want to direct it.
Similarly, writing a character sketch will help you develop a richer appreciation for yourself as a character, laying a solid foundation for deeper explorations in your unfolding storyline later in this book. After all, personal transformation begins with self-awareness. You need to have a good grasp of the raw materials you’re working with — your strengths, needs, desires, quirks, habits, and even your shortcomings — before you can shape your life into a work of art that reflects your purest and most imaginative vision.
Celebrated author and writing guru Anne Lamott describes the character sketch process as exploring the protagonist’s “emotional acreage.” In her bestselling book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Lamott explains that “each of your characters has an emotional acre that they tend, or don’t tend, in certain specific ways. One of the things you want to discover as you start out is what each person’s acre looks like. What is the person growing, and what sort of shape is the land in?…The point is that you need to find out as much as possible about the interior life of the people you are working with.”11
