Chapter 7 of John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story is called Symbol Web and it deals with populating your story with strong symbols, whether in the words or even title of your script/film/novel or physical objects that take on potent meanings every time the audience sees them.
- Look at the entire character web before creating a symbol for a single character.
- Begin with the opposition between hero and main opponent.
- Come up with a single aspect of the character or a single emotion you want the character to evoke in the audience.
- Consider applying a symbol opposition within the character.
- Repeat the symbol, in association with the character, many times over the course of the story.
- Each time you repeat the symbol, vary the detail in some way.
I need to think about this….
I’ve just spent the morning filling in the new 22 Steps for my script and I think what I need to do now is just do some “spitballing” writing. Short form description of the plot and see what percolates from there. Then I can apply what comes up to the 22 Steps.
© The Trubyphiles and “Blunt Force” Copyright 2009 Melton Eduardo Cartes. All other copyrights are those of their respective owners.
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