After a fabulous thunderstorm last weekend, the weather quieted and more rain arrived, a rarity in August. Be still my grateful heart. I’ve
even kept my windows open all day a few times. I’m gardening in the mornings and battling moles–and if I might add, they are worthy adversaries.
During the last heat wave I drove into Portland twice in the same day–in the morning for a lovely breakfast and hangout with a former neighbor who is heading off to her freshman year in college. Since she’s an athlete she enrolled early and among many topics we covered, we talked about keeping a toolbox of coping mechanisms handy in case she feels overwhelmed, stuck, or scared. Because transitions can be tough. And leaving home can be scary as many of us know.
If you write fiction, you’re often penning a tale about a character who is somehow leaving home. Or crossing through a fateful threshold early in the story whereafter life is vastly different. It’s an iconic literary device dramatically employed in fantasy fiction such as The Chronicles of Narnia series or the Harry Potter books where the main characters are whisked to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But thresholds are used in all genres because story people need to enter into new physical and emotional territory in order to meet obstacles, overcome demons–some from within–and grow.
Thresholds or portals can be the starting point for a quest, take many forms, and sometimes feature a barrier such as crossing a river, or a country’s border, descending below the earth, soaring into the heavens, or climbing a mountain. Journeys are often featured with long-ago travels such as Larry McMurtry’s Western epic and Pulitzer-prize winning Lonesome Dove or contemporary road trips such as in the 2004 film Sideways. But there’s always a change in circumstance: arriving at boot camp, the first day of school, moving into a new town, starting a new job such as in The Devil Wore Prada based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel. Often the protagonist chooses to leave such as Luke Skywalker leaving the planet, but just as often they’re reluctant to leave.
Coroline
In the spooky tale Coraline, based on a Neil Gaiman novel, the main character 11-year-old Coroline Jones has just moved to Portland, Oregon with her busy parents. And things are just plain weird from the get-go. Because when characters pass through a threshold they’re typically wobbly. While exploring her new home Coraline discovers a tiny door and once she crawls through a tunnel she crosses into a parralel universe filled with creepy dopplegangers. Actually, they don’t seem creepy at first.
Naturally there are also stories where protagonists don’t stray far, but most are wrested from their ordinary life to be challenged and can end up in some kind of hell. It’s a penitentiary in Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption. Actually the full title of the novella is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
The story is based around banker Andy Dufresne who has been sentenced for murdering his wife and sent to Shawshank State Prison. Problem is, he’s innocent. Andy’s first days and weeks are terrifying and violent. But he finds his way into the prison community by helping fellow inmates with their taxes. This is turn leads him to work for the greedy, corrupt warden and landing a cushy job as head of the prison library. King deftly weaves in a thematic thread as Andy builds an extraordinary resource for the prisoners, including music. Themes of persistence and hope build toward a powerful ending featuring Andy escaping through another portal–a sewage pipe. He painstakingly carved the tunnel with a hammer over 20 years of chipping away. His escape a dramatic reversal of fortune if there ever was one.
An uncommon, extraordinary portal is a thing of beauty.
Returning to my going-away breakfast and “I believe in you” good-byes, I drove home heading east with Mt. Hood looming ahead, the sky hazy from wildfire smoke. Later amid baking, cruel tempertures I drove back into Portland during rush hour which meant crawling along in slow-moving traffic as the region felt baked and choked and forever changed by climate change. Sometimes the world just feels apocalyptic, doesn’t it? EVen if the root word in apocalypse, comes from the Greek meaning revelation, to uncover, lay bare.
But speaking of a dystopian world, I met friends in a delightful wine shop, Blackbird Wine and spent a few hours catching up and talking about books, including I Cheerfully Refuse by the astounding Leif Enger. I’m going to plug it again here, because it’s one of my favorite stories and can teach writers so much. In fact, our get-together was based on discussing Enger’s technniques and choices at every level. It’s also the ultimate story about leaving home –in a rickety sailboat, and begins on the shores of Lake Superior in a small town, Icebridge.
The tale is set in a grim future time where 16 families called ‘astronauts’ control all the news, clean water, mineral rights, prisons, satellites,
and ships. It’s a world where bookstores receive bomb threats and a main characer, the unforgettable Lark–SO aptly named–owns a bookstore. Pandemics have winnowed the population. Indentured servitude is back. Weird drugs, I mean “compliance therapetics ” keep the worker bees in line. Suicide is rampant.
But if you’re not a fan of dystopian tales or possible future horrors, fear not. First, the story is deeply affecting. It’s about a great love and Rainey, or Ranier, is one of the most delightful protagonists you’ll ever encounter. A near-giant, a bass player, he and his beloved wife Lark have managed to carve out a sweet existence surrounded by real community. Then there’s nine-year-old Sol, an orphan worthy of her own tale, who becomes Rainey’s traveling buddy. Much to his surprise.
A clever subplot involves a mysterious book and author. While the world building is brilliant, the characters steal your heart. Good people face off against bad people, weather threatens the vulnerable vessel, but mostly it’s about human connections, seeking impossible answers and solace, and trying to outrun grief.
And, naturally, because it contains a watery journey and unknown territory, falling into new, unthinkable dangers, facing unanticipated hardships and a seeming desperate fate. Speaking of outrunning, Rainey is being pursued by one of those afore-mentioned astronauts. A villain for the ages.
Back to our gathering–we talked about the ever-dramatic Lake Superior the story’s setting; it’s enomormity and dangers and eccentricities. Not to mention sometimes spooky replete with shipwrecks and corpses bobbing to the surface, most long dead. I tried to describe how I fell under the heady spell of the story and Enger’s artful word sorcery. One friend mentioned how Enger can make a single sentence completely explain a character. I recalled a sentence that defines Sol’s realization that Griff isn’t the hero she remembered, more con than grandpa figure. And not only did he tell whoppers, but he never shut up. “The longer he talked, the more she looked anywhere except at him.”
The story features a series of coastal portals and surprises and a darkly drawn world you’ll never forget–and will want to avoid because it seems possible. It’s a story to reread and savor the gorgeous language, but also because it’s filled with hope.
If you outline long fiction you might want to list the thresholds in your stories. Do they propel your protagonists into deeper trouble, creating the most interesting adventures of their lifetimes? Do these crossings force them to fight hard for every win and sane moment?
Using The Hunger Games as an example, I’ve also covered this topic here.
Keep dreaming, keep writing, have heart
By the way I visited the Laika {an Oregon based, stop-motion animation studio} exhibition at the Portland Art Museum and saw many Coroline artifacts and all sorts of wonders. The intricay! That pink Victorian! I heartily reccomend this exhibit if it ever travels your way. But it’s also the film’s 15th anniversary so might be playing on a big screen near you.
