Story Alchemy: The Search for the Philosopher's Stone of Storytelling by David SheppardStory Alchemy is a book that delves deep into the depths of the mechanism behind storytelling. With ideas like Plot Pentagon and Iris of Time, it digs deep into what makes up the fabric of a story. In this review, I share some insights I highlighted from the book.
Insights about storytelling
#1 All storytelling is an imitation of life
#2 By staying on the right path to good storytelling, you become worthy
#3 the idea comes from the "chaos" of one's internal psychic state. It may be triggered by an external event or just pop into one's mind out of nowhere
#4 The way to come into closer contact with your idea is to close your eyes and see it as an image
#5 Conflict has many facets, and the storyteller should be student of the art of opposing wills.
#6 Any aspect of human nature and social interaction, when used properly, can be valuable and may even be indispensable in telling your story
#7 protagonist and antagonist are mirror images of each other (yin yang)
#8 the first thing your story should do is "lock the conflict."
#9 conflict is a mechanism for exploring theme And theme is the unifying idea behind the story - Themes speak to the human condition and unify the subject matter. Conflict puts the protagonist and antagonist under stress and reveals their strengths and weaknesses relative to the theme.
#10 A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves
#11 vivid images will always be of great assistance to your audience in remembering your story
#12 Story creation is a process of looking into a mirror
#13 Realize that the basics of your story already existed before you found it. You are simply dressing it up in new clothes. If you can come to the point where you realize that your storytelling is not your creation but your discovery, you'll begin to truly understand the process. give up the egotistical notion that you created the story. It is a gift, given to you by divine entities who reside within your Unconscious. They gave it to you because you are worthy.
#14 We experience life as story. We are mythical beings, and when confronted with something that seems so contradictory to our being, we have to experience it within the framework of story to fully resolve the internal conflict and emerge with a sense of meaning provided by this, the final event
#15 All the events of the story-unit you are investigating will have cause-and-effect relationships
#16 The sound-syllable Om represents the fundamental thought-form of all-pervading reality. With its associations with the universe in all its manifestation, Om is a complete alphabetical yantra in its own right and can be equated with the creative point, the bindu. It's a cosmic symbol that comes to life through character.
Insights About nature of mind
#17 What is the Unconscious? It is the mind's processes, which are not available for introspection. Said another way, we are not aware of these mental processes. They go on, so to speak, without us. We normally do not realize the presence or understand the influence of the Unconscious on our thoughts. It appears spontaneously in dreams as a dark lake with lots of frightening creatures lurking within.
#18 [The Shadow] owes its existence to the simple fact that all the impulses, thoughts, wishes, and tendencies which run counter to the rational orientation of daily life are denied expression, thrust into the background, and finally fall into the unconscious. There all the things which we have repressed and suppressed, which we have deliberately ignored and devalued gradually accumulate and, in time, acquire such force that they begin to influence consciousness.
#19 In itself, an archetype is neither good nor evil. It is morally neutral, like the gods of antiquity, and becomes good or evil only by contact with the conscious mind, or else a paradoxical mixture of both.
#20 Once we come to terms with the unconscious content through writing, we can deal with it internally without allowing its destructive effect to be projected onto the real world. The suppressed content then has expression within fiction and is not acted upon. At least that's the theory. Instead of mistakenly trying to resolve these internal issues in the real world, we are writing stories about them, just as the alchemist was perfecting himself while trying to create the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life.
#21 We are quite probably dreaming all the time, but consciousness makes so much noise that we no longer hear the dream when awake
#22 Journal and document your dreams and visions - dreams are bridges for the story material. This will also help you understand what is going in your psychic space.
#23 Be a passive observer of psychic darkness as if watching an animation
Look within and unfold the philosopher's stone of storytelling!
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