ACT 2.6 — Whose Story Is It Anyway?
Writing in Public — Update #41
“Stories To Ease Our Existence” — A Writing in Public Book — Find out more and sign up to my newsletter — our story has only just begun…
“After a near-death experience, Jireh realises that he is so focused on imposing his own narrative, that he isolates himself from everyone else. Creating conflict, rather than simply capturing it. But now there’s a focus that he’s never felt before. An elucidation of sorts. Drifting in the mainstream isn’t working, so he’s going to have to figure out who he is, and where he is going.”
WHAT’S THE END GOAL OF THIS PLOT POINT?
This is probably the slowest part of the book.
And if the reader is invested in the Jireh’s story, then this will be the most thought-provoking part.
I HAVE to make sure the reader feels Jireh’s pain here. If this fails, the whole book has been a waste of time.
So yeah, no pressure at all…
WHAT POSSIBLE SCENES COME OUT OF THIS?
These scenes follow on from Jireh being fired from the documentary, finding out their dad is in a critical state, and then nearly drowning.
Jireh nearly drowns because he was doing his best to dissociate with the overwhelm, and so gets swept away, literally.
And to be honest, that’s how he has approached most of his life. Just floating away with the currents.
There aren’t a lot of scenes here, but it slows down a lot, and gives us time with Jireh as he reflects on the choices his made in his life.
WHAT FACTUAL/CONCEPTUAL ELEMENTS CAN BOLSTER THIS PLOT POINT?
There’s a guy called Roger Martin (https://rogerlmartin.com), the “Worlds #1 Management Thinker”.
He talks about leaders, and how one of their most important jobs is stemming fear. And that “Fear is generated by stories we tell ourselves”.
He goes on to go and talk about how our brains collect data points, and string them into a narrative. Sometimes these stories are of hope, but it’s much easier to create stories of fear. And because we are not machines, but intelligent meat bags, we don’t realise that these fear-stories aren’t factual.
This fits in nicely with Jireh, because this near fatal event forces him to face his fears, and what stories he is telling himself.
ANY POETIC ELEMENTS TO FIT IN HERE?
Jireh has been “drifting in the mainstream”, and this metaphor that I use often. Mainstream is an overused term, but because I am working with a lot of water metaphors, and Jireh is generally finding themselves drowning, it’s a metaphor that is consistent with my general them of purpose, narrative and the idea of going on a perilous journey across oceans and rivers.
I would like the metaphors to be tied together by a cohesive theme, but that’s a job or the 2nd or 3rd review of the draft. For the moment, I just need to get to the writing part!
I’m a soon-to-be author… Writing (a book) in Public — “Stories We Tell To Ease Our Existence”.
You can follow my journey on:
- LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/malachi-dingis-12949267/)
- Or keep up to date on my project homepage — https://bit.ly/pathbook-biphomepage*
I’m writing this book to explore the tension between happiness and purpose. Between surface and depth. Desires and needs. The stories we tell to weave our past present and future, and make a little more sense of our existnece.
We explore this through the eyes of Jireh, a writer who find the narrative in everything. Conflict and all.
