By
Chris Elgood
Can I write an original story? To be entirely original is
probably impossible because the great themes have existed in one form or
another for many centuries in many civilisations. But we can
legitimately build on the past, and re-tell the old stories with a new
twist or introduce new elements. For the underlying theme of a story is
largely constant, but each generation of readers is different, and
interested in different things. Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about
Homer, saying that he stole songs from the past with impunity and
without criticism. The title is, "When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre."
(Definitive Edition of Rudyard Kipling's verse.) He got away with it
because he enhanced a thing and made it his own. This article looks at
way some writers have adapted and extended existing themes in
supernatural and imaginative stories. It looks also at symbolically
powerful physical artefacts thought to enable contact with other worlds.
Some common artefacts are repeatedly used, but others not yet
exploited. In these two ways the article shows how an original element
can enrich an old theme.
Great themes like the Grail Legend and the stories of King Arthur are full of characters and events and background scenery. Each writer has made these exciting in his or her own way, building on the traditional concept. Here is what Charles Williams wrote about the Grail on page 275 of his 1930 book War in Heaven. "Suddenly from it there broke a terrific and golden light; blast upon blast of trumpets shook the air; the Grail blazed with fiery tumult before them." He gave a mystic and supernatural twist to the Grail Legend, largely ignoring the history but imparting power to the object itself. His development of that idea opened a new creative door. What other capabilities might the Grail have?
More recently Mary Stewart dealt with the early years of King Arthur. In The Hollow Hills she gave Merlin power to create visible reality for a dying man. "Inch by shining inch, I built that altar-stone for him against the dark, blank wall." (Page 281.) She built a new sequence into the Merlin story and used it to introduce a magical power. She also bought in the remote, unseen hill-dwellers, speaking "the old tongue of the Britons". (Page 240.) That is itself a legendary theme, picked up by Tolkien in The Return of the King when he introduces "The wild men of the woods" negotiating through their chief. (Page 106.)The theme of forgotten people, forgotten knowledge and forgotten skill is always interesting. So are the themes of false imprisonment and the missing heir to a fortune and hidden treasure and prophetic dreams. They last for ever, as does 'Girl of modest status wins love of Hero'. They also offer hooks on which to hang new material.
Support from a supernatural power sometimes comes in the form of a dream. The dream is not sought by the human concerned, but is God-given. This makes it is less interesting than the conscious efforts made by humans to reach out to the supernatural power. These efforts can involve travel, sacred words, invocations and the use of symbolic artefacts. These also invite development.
One discipline much favoured is total separation from the real world by meditation. The Christian writer of The Cloud of Unknowing urges his pupil to clear the mind of every thought of any kind other than a wish to know God. He writes of, "A secret thrust of love at this cloud of unknowing." (Page 33.) He believes that if this wish is strong enough then God may through grace give glimpses of what things were like before Adam and Eve ate the apple. No stories tell us much about what else the Christian might glimpse, but Shamans enter a trance state through broadly similar methods and are able to state exactly what went on in that state, and who they met and what powers they acquired. So what we might call 'the entry process' is an area that might be filled with imaginary experiences newly devised by the writer. An extreme example is The Story of Rabbi Joseph della Reina who sets out on a very complex, and dangerous spiritual journey and fails at the last moment. It is full of incantations and symbolic acts and sacred words and sacred numbers.
Where access to spiritual power involves a physical item, some importance is found in the purpose which the item normally serves. The activities of knitting and spinning have a relationship to the human life span being similar in respect of creation and completion. Scissors are an obvious means of termination, so we find that The Norns of Norse mythology snip off threads to end a human life. And a sinister meaning is easily found in the old woman sitting alone at her spinning wheel or drawing on her last ball of wool.
Links of purpose and antiquity also attach to the wheel. It suggests constant movement and renewal and return, and also danger. The concept of sympathetic magic suggests a link forged between two worlds that enables the practitioner to act out a scenario with one object and have a similar effect on a person elsewhere. So, should the theory be true, a skilled witch in the 20th Century could drive a nail into a car tyre in her own garage and cause her victim to plunge over a cliff when a tyre on his vehicle suffered a blow-out. That modern scenario would add originality to a very old theme.
The effectiveness of such magical action increases if the artefact has great antiquity and if its use is precisely simulated. The scythe is a good example. It is very old, the physical action is distinctive and it used in stories by Father Time. The writer using this as a hook to introduce originality has plenty of scope. Where did the practitioner get the scythe? How did he or she learn to use it, and simulate the physical action realistically? What happened to the victim as a result? Similarly, an anvil is very old and its purpose is to beat an object into a desired shape. The purpose of a sieve is to separate things desired from things unwanted. In The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe we find that God is using a sieve. "His sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat".
Creating a wax image of an enemy and sticking pins in it has been rather overworked. But paintings still offer scope. They have existed since prehistoric times and some theorists believe that images of prey on cave walls had a magical use in making a successful hunt more likely. How about a series of pictures on the walls of a witches cellar that show the stages of the victims downfall? The story can include descriptions of the witch gloating over each picture as it becomes true.
And then there almost untouched opportunities in the digital world. It is so complex that few people, if any, understand all aspects. So the witch or wizard can make images appear on the victims screen or words come out of the speakers. In a 1934 novel the voice of the absent witch is heard 'live' coming from the mouth of a doll. (Novel by A.Merritt.) In 2013 it could come from the speaker, or appear magically on Twitter. Better still is endowing the computer itself with personality and speech as Robert Heinlein did in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Originality is comparable to yeast. It alters the nature of existing material.
Rudyard Kipling. The Definitive Edition of Rudyard Kipling's verse. London. Hodder and Stoughton Ltd. 1940. p351Great themes like the Grail Legend and the stories of King Arthur are full of characters and events and background scenery. Each writer has made these exciting in his or her own way, building on the traditional concept. Here is what Charles Williams wrote about the Grail on page 275 of his 1930 book War in Heaven. "Suddenly from it there broke a terrific and golden light; blast upon blast of trumpets shook the air; the Grail blazed with fiery tumult before them." He gave a mystic and supernatural twist to the Grail Legend, largely ignoring the history but imparting power to the object itself. His development of that idea opened a new creative door. What other capabilities might the Grail have?
More recently Mary Stewart dealt with the early years of King Arthur. In The Hollow Hills she gave Merlin power to create visible reality for a dying man. "Inch by shining inch, I built that altar-stone for him against the dark, blank wall." (Page 281.) She built a new sequence into the Merlin story and used it to introduce a magical power. She also bought in the remote, unseen hill-dwellers, speaking "the old tongue of the Britons". (Page 240.) That is itself a legendary theme, picked up by Tolkien in The Return of the King when he introduces "The wild men of the woods" negotiating through their chief. (Page 106.)The theme of forgotten people, forgotten knowledge and forgotten skill is always interesting. So are the themes of false imprisonment and the missing heir to a fortune and hidden treasure and prophetic dreams. They last for ever, as does 'Girl of modest status wins love of Hero'. They also offer hooks on which to hang new material.
Support from a supernatural power sometimes comes in the form of a dream. The dream is not sought by the human concerned, but is God-given. This makes it is less interesting than the conscious efforts made by humans to reach out to the supernatural power. These efforts can involve travel, sacred words, invocations and the use of symbolic artefacts. These also invite development.
One discipline much favoured is total separation from the real world by meditation. The Christian writer of The Cloud of Unknowing urges his pupil to clear the mind of every thought of any kind other than a wish to know God. He writes of, "A secret thrust of love at this cloud of unknowing." (Page 33.) He believes that if this wish is strong enough then God may through grace give glimpses of what things were like before Adam and Eve ate the apple. No stories tell us much about what else the Christian might glimpse, but Shamans enter a trance state through broadly similar methods and are able to state exactly what went on in that state, and who they met and what powers they acquired. So what we might call 'the entry process' is an area that might be filled with imaginary experiences newly devised by the writer. An extreme example is The Story of Rabbi Joseph della Reina who sets out on a very complex, and dangerous spiritual journey and fails at the last moment. It is full of incantations and symbolic acts and sacred words and sacred numbers.
Where access to spiritual power involves a physical item, some importance is found in the purpose which the item normally serves. The activities of knitting and spinning have a relationship to the human life span being similar in respect of creation and completion. Scissors are an obvious means of termination, so we find that The Norns of Norse mythology snip off threads to end a human life. And a sinister meaning is easily found in the old woman sitting alone at her spinning wheel or drawing on her last ball of wool.
Links of purpose and antiquity also attach to the wheel. It suggests constant movement and renewal and return, and also danger. The concept of sympathetic magic suggests a link forged between two worlds that enables the practitioner to act out a scenario with one object and have a similar effect on a person elsewhere. So, should the theory be true, a skilled witch in the 20th Century could drive a nail into a car tyre in her own garage and cause her victim to plunge over a cliff when a tyre on his vehicle suffered a blow-out. That modern scenario would add originality to a very old theme.
The effectiveness of such magical action increases if the artefact has great antiquity and if its use is precisely simulated. The scythe is a good example. It is very old, the physical action is distinctive and it used in stories by Father Time. The writer using this as a hook to introduce originality has plenty of scope. Where did the practitioner get the scythe? How did he or she learn to use it, and simulate the physical action realistically? What happened to the victim as a result? Similarly, an anvil is very old and its purpose is to beat an object into a desired shape. The purpose of a sieve is to separate things desired from things unwanted. In The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe we find that God is using a sieve. "His sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat".
Creating a wax image of an enemy and sticking pins in it has been rather overworked. But paintings still offer scope. They have existed since prehistoric times and some theorists believe that images of prey on cave walls had a magical use in making a successful hunt more likely. How about a series of pictures on the walls of a witches cellar that show the stages of the victims downfall? The story can include descriptions of the witch gloating over each picture as it becomes true.
And then there almost untouched opportunities in the digital world. It is so complex that few people, if any, understand all aspects. So the witch or wizard can make images appear on the victims screen or words come out of the speakers. In a 1934 novel the voice of the absent witch is heard 'live' coming from the mouth of a doll. (Novel by A.Merritt.) In 2013 it could come from the speaker, or appear magically on Twitter. Better still is endowing the computer itself with personality and speech as Robert Heinlein did in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Originality is comparable to yeast. It alters the nature of existing material.
Charles Williams. War in Heaven. London. Victor Gollancz. Ltd. 1930, p275.
Mary Steward. The Hollow Hills. Mary Stewart. London. Hodder Paperbacks Ltd. 1974 p240. p281
Unknown author.The Cloud of Unknowing. In The Cloud of Unkowing and other works.Trans. Spearing. London. Penguin Books 2001. p33
J.R.R.Tolkien. The Return of the King. London.George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1955. P106
Julia Ward Howe. The Battle Hymn of the Republic.Boston. In The Atlantic Monthly. February 1862
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