It began as a series of observations about retellings that I’d encountered in the short-story reading project, but quickly grew into its own… direction? reference guide? invocation? invitation? litany?
As part of this year’s short story reading project, I’ve been noticing the strong structural and structuring pull rite or rituals exert on stories.
Structurally (and that’s how I’m talking about them in this post), rituals can be a way to first summon a story and peel apart a world, and then at the end to stitch through many layers, to mend and make new. And of course ritual brings with it layers of language, formulation, knowledge, history, time, family, the numinous brushing the physical, a way of altering the world or being acknowledged and changed by it, and (rendered bureaucratic) all the ways that can be made soulless.
This post is lengthy… (among other things, after the initial draft I injured myself in a way that made editing very difficult).
I’m planning a post on how rites and rituals show up in short stories, and wanted to refer back to this observation journal page. So I’m posting it earlier than it would otherwise have appeared! (Edit: the post on rituals and short story structure is now up.)
I was thinking about the way rites and rituals — as human an urge as covering surfaces with patterns — can shape a story or be the base for building a world.
I wanted to play with these ideas and effects without using the most obvious existing rituals, or ones I didn’t fully understand. So I made a little ritual-generator out of two (non-comprehensive!) lists: purpose and subject. You can expand the lists with your own interests and knowledge.
Purpose of rite/ritual/invocation/ceremony/sacrament/etc
evoke
encircle
hide
confer
sever
transform
invoke
farewell
recognise
transfer
separate
renew
summon
welcome
acknowledge
steady
remove
improve
avert
remember
identify
support
transition
reform
banish
remind
pledge
seek
prevent
return
shame
mark
sacrifice
request
bar
reset
remove
own
gift
petition
acknowledge
bless
honour
possess
invest
accompany
protect
heal
secure
join
partake
harmonise
ease
speed
protect
disguise
approach
beautify
liminal
ease
Subject
life
crops
journey
freedom
future
holy
death
plants
partnership
seasons
past
unholy
ages
vehicles
marriage
days
present
phenomena
roles
houses
relationships
tides
meteorology
legend
human
tools
adoption
times
disaster
deities
animal
utensils
disowning
celebrations
hopes
health
bird
endeavour
roles
events
aspirations
processes
fish
jobs
teaching
memorials
departed
industrial
weather
calling
ruling
history
children
war
land
commission
serving
government
elders
domestic
business
contract
vow
promise
physical
abstract
The writing/illustration exercise
Take one or two items at random from each list and combine them (e.g. gift/legend or renew/own/animal).
Then expand them into a rite or ritual, getting more specific (e.g. a generational ritual to pass ownership of a community’s founding legend or an annual rite to renew ownership/stewardship of draught-animals). (Note: Keep an eye on where these brush against or trample on rites and rituals actually in use, and on places you might want to push against expectations, use discretion, avoid stereotypes or come down hard on (or redeem) a ceremony you’ve suffered through.)
If you know the world in which this story will happen, you can draw details and aesthetics for the ritual from it — weaving it into the substance of the world. Or you can start with the ritual and add details and aesthetics from things you like or notice around you (art deco/modernist!), and discover more about the place and people that way.
Then, if you’re using this to build a world or story, ask what could go wrong (or more right than was anticipated!), and follow the implications. (Control, enforceability, cost and benefit are some other interesting if cynical questions to ask — or consider e.g. the evolution and varied iterations of the ritual, and what it means to different people.)
Make a quick sketch (written or drawn) of a scene.
Bonus round: Note where the story or world started to grow, or where it didn’t. Repeat the process, and see if there’s a pattern, or if there are questions that helped grow it. Is there a echo among the ideas that resonate for you? Are there more entries you’d add to the lists?
More to come when I post about rituals and story structure. (Edit: it is now up)
On this observation journal page, I was playing with more ways to look at a story (written or drawn) with fresh eyes.
It was a process I wanted to use on my own sketches and drafts, but as usual, I tried it out on a fairy tale first.
I used “Little Red Riding Hood”, because I’d just spent a couple pages on it in another context (The Story Behind the Story).
First, I kept the characters in their established roles (Little Red Riding Hood playing herself, the Mother playing the Mother, the Wolf… well, you know). For each, I listed their obvious/easy/common traits. This is easy and fun — leaning into stereotypes and cliches in order to use their strength against them is usually a good time (see e.g. The Caudwell Manoeuvre).
Then I mixed them up.
Character
Usual personality
LRR
innocent and plucky
Mother
solicitous but hands-off
Wolf
wily & ferocious
Grandmother
frail & vulnerable
Woodcutter
taciturn & pragmatic
Washerwomen
cheerful and in solidarity
(I like the version with the helpful laundry ladies at the river)
I then moved each characteristic up by one. Now it’s a story about a cool and capable Little Red Riding Hood, sent by her ferocious mother to visit her taciturn, pragmatic grandmother. On the way, she meets a frail, vulnerable wolf…
Next, I pushed things further by keeping the story the same, but having the characters play each others’ roles. Now it’s a tale of a washerwomen sent into the forest by a wolf to visit a child, and on the way they meet a treacherous woodcutter…
You could use either approach to shake up a story for retelling. But I’ve found it useful as a thought exercise when working on projects — drawn or written! I mightn’t ultimately make these changes, but playing through these exercises can highlight where I’ve made easy instead of interesting choices with a character, or identify where my original choice was correct but needs to be done with more deliberateness or flamboyance. And it’s an interesting way to break open someone else’s story in order to analyse it, or to have fun with it.
Writing/illustration exercise
Choose a story (written or visual). It can be someone else’s or your own.
List the characters. Next to each, briefly describe their obvious/default personality. Keep this simple. If it seems stereotypical, that’s fine.
Now, swap the characteristics around. Either randomly, or by shifting them all along one space.
Do a quick sketch (drawn or a paragraph) of what the story might now look like. (And make a note of any new ideas it gives you.)
Make a table with a list of roles (key characters) from the story. In the next column, put the same characters, but shuffled.
Pretend each character now has to play the new role to which you’ve assigned them.
Do a quick sketch (drawn or a paragraph) of what the story might now look like. (And make a note of any new ideas it gives you.)
Bonus, for each: Make a note of what worked, and what you liked, and see if you can identify why. Identify where the changes broke the story, or how robust the original idea was.
Bird and man watching plastic leaves get caught in a cafe fan
Support and/or follow
If you’d like to support art and writing and posts like this about it, here are some options:
I have a Patreon account (patreon.com/tanaudel) where you can get behind-the-scenes process and sneak-peeks, starting from US$1.
I’d noticed a number of stories (and novels, and shows) with what I could only describe as a particularly purgatorial aesthetic/mood. This post is a first attempt to bring all those notes and thoughts together.
Broadly (in case you want to attempt something similar) I started dropping all the places I could think of having learned anything about writing onto the page (words in circles), and then listed off each the main lessons I’d learned there. Then I looked for patterns.
It was not exhaustive — among other things, I did it at 3am — but it was a useful exercise, for several reasons (this is not an exhaustive list):
there are always lessons that need to be re-learned, and having them in one place is handy
knowing how I learn has made it much easier to deliberately learn
there are occasionally minor incidents that turn out to have been quite important, and it’s useful to know what they were and why, the better to seek out similar approaches (and thank people — the mentorship bubble is 75% Angela Slatter)
it also made it much easier to give your-mileage-may-vary answers to questions other people asked me about writing
there’s an honesty and humility that comes from working out from where (and how late) certain lessons were learned — quite useful when doing any amount of teaching
The main patterns, in the order learned (more detail at the earlier post) were:
Knowing I wanted to do it.
Actually doing it.
Finishing it.
Getting stylish.
Running with others.
Learning structure.
It’s also lovely revisiting this page (and the previous post) now, because I can see I’m still learning, and how, and what — particularly through the process known as “now do it again”, and the structural and style exercises from this journal, and the much more deliberate reading and learning I’m doing as a result. I might need to do this exercise again soon.
Also, I don’t think I’ve done this exercise for illustration yet, for some reason. One to put on the list.
Cleaning the ceiling after a warm can of Coke Zero fell over on the floor and sprayed everywhere
Support and/or follow
If you’d like to support art and writing and posts like this about it, here are some options:
I have a Patreon account (patreon.com/tanaudel) where you can get behind-the-scenes process and sneak-peeks, starting from US$1.
Now that I’m back in the country, I’m hoping to go in and hear it this weekend, a sort of poem-as-tour-guide, played at the places where it was written.
The whipstrike of jasmine stitched on a chain link net, And a hole in the wire where a tree might crawl through, Where a shoal might slip through. Look back, turn back! You are watched By stone cats and curled finials, Which guard against wildness…