The Hound, the Lamp Post and the Seabird

Hi! I'm Sherry Thompson. I joined LGG just a few weeks ago, so this time I'll just introduce myself and describe how I started writing.

The Hound, the Lamp Post and the Seabird

In midsummer 1970, I was a discontented psychology grad student, halfway between a messy break-up with a long-term boyfriend and a semester in which I would take physiology with no biology since high school while teaching psych statistics. During the day, I worked fulltime at the university library and tried to make sense of the physiology text. I spent my nights fending off the Hound.

The Hound of Heaven was after me though, prodding me to make a decision about what I really believed. Glenn and I had both been agnostics. I had been exposed to Christian teachings via Sunday School from about 3rd to 9th grade and then virtually nothing. For a long time, my only response to the prodding was in bookstores where I picked up books with religious-sounding titles while on the eternal hunt for fantasy books. I had read The Hobbit years ago when I was a freshman and followed it with The Lord of the Rings. Glenn didn’t care much for fantasy and I was extremely busy, so I let my new interest drop until that summer.

Back in 1970, there was little fantasy to be had in spite of the popularity of Tolkien’s work. Lin Carter at Ballantine had reprinted a line of old titles by Lord Dunsany and Mervyn Peake. I found Lindsay’s Voyage to Arcturus in the university library. There was C. S .Lewis but, you see, Lewis was Christian and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get into that whole “mess” of making decisions about things that might change my life.

I reached the point where I really had no other fantasy to choose from in our local bookstore, so I picked up all seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. (I hate having broken sets.) When I was checking out, either the cashier or a customer suggested that I begin with The Magician’s Nephew because that way I would be reading the books in chronological order. I read The Magician’s Nephew that night and was captivated by the idea of a lion singing a world into existence and by a world so bursting with life that a fragment of a lamp post buried in its soil sprang to life. A week later, I went to an evening meeting on campus and accepted Christ as my savior.

Over the following years, I read everything I could find by Lewis and followed that with everything I could find by the other Inkling, Charles Williams. I searched repeatedly for fantasy books I had missed earlier and I found a few from time to time but Tolkien was just beginning to have an impact on the publishing world and I lived in a small town with a small bookstore. Plus, this was the 1970’s B.A. (Before Amazon)

Eventually, I decided to write a fantasy story. I had written a bit before, many years earlier and mostly time travel stuff, but this would be my first attempt at an actual novel. The first step would be to “become organized” and make a list of everything that my novel should have in it.

The Daydream Novel List went rather like this:

a heroine (who would actually be me),
no elves or dragons (maybe for fear of competing with Tolkien?),
wizards, but not like Tolkien’s;
a jump from one world to another (based partially on Narnia but running back to my childhood daydreams of time travel),
the heroine would not instantly cooperate about her visit or her role (aside from Eustace, everyone visiting Narnia seemed to just follow along);
an artifact, for two reasons—1. to be mysterious here on Earth and 2. at the end to be proof that it had all been real (I disliked the insinuation that Dorothy had envisioned Oz while delirious);
heroes who rode horses and carried weapons (a leftover from my early exposure to TV serial westerns;
a really –different- setting,
a sequel with overlapping characters.

I didn’t begin with an story outline—I hated making outlines—but just plunged in with Cara finding the as yet unidentified “artifact”. Each day, my novel grew by approximately eight sheets in my 8x5 spiral notebook. Sorry about the culture shock! This was before personal computers. I had a typewriter but I couldn’t carry it around so I opted for the notebook.

After a while, perhaps a week or two, my inspiration dried up. I had taken enough English courses to realize that I didn’t know what my characters wanted or where I was heading with my plot. Plot? What plot? My list of Stuph was all on the surface. What was going on inside? Staring at the wall established the fact that the wall had cracks and the room needed painting.

Since I was still something of a new Christian, it took a while for the penny to drop and for me to pray for guidance. I asked for help and promptly went into wool-gathering mode

What did I want? What had I been looking for at the bookstore? What had I wanted when I finished The Lord of the Rings? God wanted my salvation. I wanted another good story, not necessarily LotR II but a complex fantasy world with people I could relate to. I positively –loved- The Chronicles of Narnia but technically Lewis had written it for children. What a shame he hadn’t held off on The Last Battle and written more stories bringing in older protagonists from Earth…

Oh.

I “checked in” to see if I were on the right track, and felt I had the go-ahead. Along with it, came a flood of “new ideas”, which I should have considered critical from the beginning.

The Duh List.
The new list of necessary story elements included:

an actual reason for the protagonist’s presence on this other world (aka plot);
a varied cast of characters whom I must get to know intimately;
an agnostic teen or one struggling with doubts about his or her faith;
mistakes leading to regret and feelings of guilt; eventual reconciliation;
a world just as loved and saved by God as ours and Narnia—but in a different way; with a new representation for the Second Person of the Trinity;
the awe and delight of knowing God, shown as Lewis did it. Doing this meant a lot to me. In fact, this had become nearly the whole point of the exercise;
a deeply embedded yet subtle pattern in the setting and culture showing how this world’s reconciliation with God became possible.

And then a biggie, right out of the blue: An alternate history of the church beginning after the Incarnation, Christ’s Sacrifice and His return to Heaven where the abundant miracles of the Early Church would alter over time as needs changed. Enchanters would be called to wield these miraculous powers, each as granted from God. To the casual observer (or reader) it will look like magic but it wouldn’t be.

All of this subtly hidden in plain sight so as not to spook the person I used to be. No question: I was writing for all the other doubting or agnostic fantasy-readers like my old self who needed a subtle invitation to taste and see. If fellow Christians liked the book, that would be great but I needed to help those made nearly impervious to the call, by what Lewis named the Watchful Dragons.

I almost forgot one necessary element. Learning how to write. Sigh. I continue to work on the foundation for that one. I pray that my desire to share the joy of knowing God makes up for my abysmal execution of the message.

I used various plot ideas as testing grounds for my characters, jiggery-poking different elements until I knew what path I was supposed to follow. However, I was still missing a key element. I went to the beach on vacation and while I was there I searched vigilantly until I found it—a silver necklace shaped like a soaring seabird. My artifact, and the representation of Narenta’s Savior.


Under the Mercy,
SherryT

Pass the Palpitations, Please!

What sucks us into a story? Fabulously exotic locations? Not always. Some of the most powerful stories take place in recognizable – even simplistic – places. Characters? Obviously we are drawn to people we can relate to, whether it's the quirky Holly Golightly ("Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Truman Capote) or the ultimately psychotic Mort Rainey ("Secret Window" by Stephen King). We love the suave and debonair James Bond or the bravely chivalrous King Arthur Pendragon. We shiver at the sinister, sexy Count Dracula or the sympathetic – yet frightening – Frankenstein or Wolfman. We frown at the crotchety Ebenezer Scrooge, and rejoice when he reforms, feeling our Christmas spirit soar. We quiver as the shadow of the mysterious Boo Radley falls across the wooden porch, and our palms grow sweaty as we urge Scout and Jem to run. ("To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee)

Yes, we remember those unforgettable people, many of whom become as comfortable as old friends. Never-changing, they make the same mistakes every time we read the book or see the movie they inhabit. But why do we remember them? Return to visit them over and over? I believe it has to do with the emotions these characters evoke. If you are a fan of mysteries or thrillers, I'm sure you've had to wipe sweaty palms as the book reaches its conclusion. And I know of several guys who purposely took their girlfriends to see "Jaws" – just because the girls were prone to screaming and burying their faces in those strong shoulders. Don't you just want to scream at the screen: "Get out of the water, you idiots!" The old adrenaline pumps, the heart races … and we love it!

We love stories that suck us in and hit us squarely in the good old emotional bread-basket. I watched Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" last night. I've seen it many times over the years, but I still sit with riveted eyes, muttering to Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedrin), "Don't go up the stairs. Don't open the door. Has all that peroxide gone to your brain cells? Don't you at least suspect there are birds in that attic room? Go back downstairs and stay put!" But she opens the door, the birds attack through the hole in the ceiling, and she's knocked senseless.

And how about the last segment of the Star Wars saga? We all know that Anakin Skywalker is going to turn to the "Dark Side". We've known it since 1970 when Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke that Darth Vader used to be his apprentice. We've known since Darth Vader spoke the immortal line: "I am your father." in the second installment. Yet how many people shook their heads during the last movie and whispered, "Don't do it, Anakin. Don't give in. Don't believe the emperor." Come on, let's see a show of hands. I'll admit I still scold him when I watch the DVD – as if I can convince the character to change his course of action!

Why do we become so engrossed in movies or books? Because they touch our emotions. Alfred Hitchcock is known as the Master of Suspense. He took normal, everyday John Does and made us walk beside them for two hours at a time. We saw events through their eyes, felt their terror, and experienced their anger, their fears, their phobias, and desires. This was especially true in "Vertigo". My palms grew sweaty, (yes, I am afraid of heights too…) my heart pounded as Jimmy Stewart's character, John Ferguson, climbed the rickety stairs to save his beloved Madeline, and I cringed right along with him as vertigo hit. Mr. Hitchcock surely knew which buttons to push with his chill-seeking, adrenaline-addicted, heart-thumping audiences! In the featurette, "Obsessed with Vertigo", the narrator, Roddy McDowell said: "The master of suspense always liked to show the audience a familiar setting, and then introduce an unexpected twist of malice." Martin Scorsese said: "Over the years, I kept being drawn and drawn to the picture like being drawn into a whirlpool of obsession. A very, very beautiful, comfortable, almost nightmarish obsession…" The movie "Vertigo" is one of Hitchcock's most emotional roller coasters. Screenwriter Samuel Taylor spent a year working on the script with Hitchcock. He had this to say about it: "In those first talks, we decided that the more emotion there was in the man, (Jimmy Stewart as John Ferguson) the stronger the picture would be. And he found without even thinking about it, that he was making a picture that went much deeper than most of his pictures, just because the basic story – not the plot, but the basic story – had a true human emotion. This obsession of a man who, for the first time in his life, had fallen deeply in love." Pat Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock's daughter, also spoke about "Vertigo": "I think Jimmy personified for my father 'every man', so that when people went to see a picture, they could put themselves in Jimmy's place. And especially in "Vertigo". He wanted audiences to identify with Jimmy, which is what everybody did."

Emotions. They nail us with thrills, terror, excitement, sentiment… the entire gamut of the human experience. Hitchcock's "Rear Window" is another Jimmy Stewart classic. We see a house-bound man with a broken leg who watches his neighbors from his apartment window. When it appears that perhaps the man across the courtyard has killed his wife, Jimmy's character steps up his surveillance, even to the point of involving the exquisite Grace Kelly in his obsession. I watched that one last night too, and cringed as she snooped around this potentially dangerous man's apartment. I found myself muttering, "Get out of there! He's coming back! Get out NOW!" Oh yes, our emotions get us every time. That was the brilliance of Alfred Hitchcock. He knew how to evoke emotion in his audience. For almost 40 years, he thrilled and chilled us with stories about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

Stephen King employs the same techniques for this generation. From vampires to psychotic murderers to killer cars, he knows how to keep us on the edge of our seats. We empathized with John Coffey as he sat on death row and performed miracles big and small. And perhaps you shed a tear, as I did, when John sat in the electric chair that ended his life. (The Green Mile) We felt sorry for Mort Rainey, whose wife had left him for another man, and who becomes the target of a psychotic hick who claims plagiarism – right up to the moment we find out that Mort himself is the villain! (Secret Window)

We can find the perfect setting, and describe it so colorfully that people can feel the wind on their faces, feel the streets beneath their feet. And we can inhabit our stories with characters so quirky and real, they practically speak for themselves. But until we tap into the emotions we want our readers to feel, we're missing the humanity – the heart – of our stories. Find the heart --- and you'll captivate generations to come.