Character Development » Douglas A. Burton

Claiming the Sacred Fire: Conflict in Heroine-Led Fiction

Apr 13, 2021

For decades, Joseph Campell’s hero’s journey has been the primary model for narrative structure for writers around the world. This article is part of a series of articles that explores the “heroine’s labyrinth” as an alternative to the hero’s journey and focuses on the symbolism and archetypes of heroine-led fiction. Prior articles discussed the labyrinth versus the journey and examined the recurring villain archetype of the masked minotaur. This article goes right to the source of the heroine’s symbolic potential, her drive for individuation, and the competing forces that she must overcome. The sacred fire theme helps us understand the dynamism of conflict in heroine-led fiction.

Fire worship and sacred fires are intricately linked to mythology, folklore, and religion. In the novel, The Quest for Fire, prehistoric human tribes compete against each other to control fire, sometimes stealing away a burning log during a battle in hopes of keeping the fire ever-burning. Whoever has the fire, survives.

Fire usually represents a powerful, creative energy that can sustain life through heat, or bring light into darkness or craft materials to build tools or structures. But fire can just as easily represent a destructive force that can raze villages to ash, burn human beings, or spread violently out of control if mishandled. Therefore, fire is dual-natured in its potential for creation or destruction.

On the individual level, the sacred fire represents each person’s potential to be either an agent of creation or destruction. Such a powerful range of possibilities creates an ethical orientation for the heroine. Her choices matter. At the beginning of the story, the heroine is often depicted in an immature or inexperienced state. She’s becoming more aware of her agency, free will, or competency, which is to say, she’s becoming aware of her sacred fire. The heroine must claim her sacred fire by expressing some move toward greater freedom and expressing interest in the outside world.

There is a catch though.

The heroine’s claim upon her sacred fire introduces two other claimants—the native culture and the masked minotaur. Let’s take a closer look at the meaning behind all three claims to the sacred fire.

The Heroine’s Claim

The heroine’s sacred fire symbolizes her vast untapped, untested, and unrealized human potential. She has aspirations that exceed her current reality. The colorful and exotic native culture is just outside her window and the heroine intends to merge with that world. She’s aware of her potential and relies upon her imagination to compensate for her lack of experience. This vital pulse of the human spirit is relatable to all of us. We are stirred to the core when the heroine claims her sacred fire in fiction.

Musicals provide excellent examples of sacred fire moments because they are so brazen and memorable. Whatever forces have kept the heroine in her immature state, she’s ready to take a chance on herself and face the world. Elsa vows boldly to let it go. Moana declares her intent to see how far she’ll go. And poor Rapunzel wants to know just when will her life begin. And that’s just Disney. Sacred fire songs are common in many musicals, such as Dorothy Gale’s desire to go somewhere over the rainbow in The Wizard of Oz, or Roxy Hart’s dream to be the name on everybody’s lips in Chicago. These opening numbers are great examples of a heroine’s inner desire for self-actualization outside the labyrinth.

The “sacred fire” moment in the story, whether it’s a specific scene or a musical number, shows the audience or reader that the heroine has her own desires, her own vision, and her own unique outlook on the world. She’s ready. If done correctly, the heroine’s sacred fire moment can be incredibly powerful.

As readers or viewers, whenever the heroine claims her sacred fire, we feel the heroine’s first attempt at empowerment. All that unrealized potential is bubbling up and meeting us at a conscious and subconscious level. The heroine is building her will to act on her aspirations because she has found the words or actions to give force to the feeling. But while the heroine’s sacred fire moment throws a gauntlet at the world, trust me—the world responds to the challenge.

The Native Culture’s Claim

The heroine soon realizes that her native culture’s claim has been staked out long in advance. Whereas the symbolic power for the heroine is individual potential, the symbolic power of the native culture is communal continuity.

A continuous fire that burns through the passage of time links the present moment to the distant past when the flame had been first lit. If the flame goes out, then the continuity breaks—and whatever the flame represented is diminished in the world. All too often in heroine-centric stories, the native culture interprets continuity very narrowly as marriage and children. That’s why so many stories feature a socio-cultural labyrinth designed to steer the heroine toward the archetypes of the innocent virgin, the fertile bride, and the chaste mother—the three archetypes so prized by cultures worldwide.

Therefore, the labyrinth in a feminine monomyth symbolizes the long-standing and highly developed claim that society places upon the heroine.

Each one of us, men and women alike, stands atop trillions of decisions made by thousands of generations of human beings who solved the problems of survival and answered the questions of what it means to be human. They made decisions while facing annihilation by nature, subjugation from rival tribes or civilizations, and warding off collapse from within. Somehow, they made it and we exist today because our ancestors got something right. All fictional characters come from someplace geographically and speak a specific language. This inescapable anchor of human reality means that much of our personal identity comes down to us from something human that came before—our native culture. The phrase “passing the torch” is quite literally the passing of human knowledge, experience, ethics, skills, history, and survival strategies from one generation to the next.

The tension between the competing claims will immediately generate conflict. The sacred fire has been passed to the heroine, now she must pass the flame on to a new generation. But rearing children, while vital to survival, isn’t the only way a sacred fire can transfer from one generation to the next. Stories usually explore all the ways a heroine may contribute and in many cases, the heroine must overcome social expectations and pressures to pass on her sacred fire.

The transmission of specific ideas beyond animal instinct is a uniquely human aspect. Whether we’re talking about music, medicine, or good stories, ideas can also pass through time just as well as our genes. The heroine’s understanding of the world is still within the context of her culture—and so we must understand that the sacred fire that the heroine claims, did come down through the generations through the native culture. This makes the native culture’s claim to the sacred fire a powerful one.

Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones provides an excellent example of the relationship between the heroine’s individuation and the influence of the native culture. First, she is a descendent of the Targaryen bloodline and so she inherits a title, a great house, a history, and the blood of the dragon, which means she cannot be burnt by fire. The three dragons are nearly perfect symbols of Daenerys’ growing potential for the creation of a better world or total destruction through conquest. Throughout the story, we see Daenerys struggle with moral decisions on a regular basis. She demonstrates an incredible individual will of her own and directs many events in the story on her rise to power. She’s as sovereign as they come. But we must not forget that her mission, her vision, and much of her orientation toward the world still stems from the sacred fire passed on to her from her native culture. She never forgets the Targaryen outlook on the world.

In the end, Daenerys oddly attempts to destroy forever the link between her powerful agency and the native culture from which she comes. And she fails.

In many stories, purging either one of the dual natures often leads the heroine to destroy either herself or the native culture, and both are tragic ends. If the heroine subordinates herself entirely to the native culture, she risks destruction at the total loss of self. Like a cult member, the heroine surrenders all individual agency for the demands of the group. Her world shrinks and the trapped heroine loses her human vitality and creative force.

But if the heroine rejects entirely the native culture from where her sacred fire originated, then she risks becoming lost in self-serving quests. She may even come to covet the sacred fire of others or seek out a substitute culture to compensate for the loss. These heroines may even become villains, such as Ursula from The Little Mermaid who gathers souls, or Agatha Harkness in WandaVision, who tries to physically steal Wanda’s sacred fire.

Bear in mind, the feminine monomyth isn’t confined to reinforce the claim of the native culture, but often the opposite. The heroine’s labyrinth is a natural storytelling model that shows us how to break gender norms, push back on social expectations, or challenge outdated traditions rather than blindly follow them. The general goal becomes the self-realization of the heroine’s individuation while also adding value to the continuity of the native culture.

Therefore, the heroine must achieve the proper balance between personal sovereignty and some form of continuity with the valuable human knowledge and experience that came before her.

And to add to this ancient conflict, there is yet a third claimant.

The Minotaur’s Claim

We already discussed the general attributes of the masked minotaur, namely, that they are almost always members of the native culture, they wear a socially acceptable mask while also hiding an oppressive side, and they exhibit a form of possessive love. But the symbolism of the sacred fire provides another layer of understanding about the masked minotaur.

In so many heroine-centric stories, the masked minotaur claims the heroine’s sacred fire for his or her own purposes. And where the native culture’s claim is socially pervasive, the minotaur’s claim is more individualized and self-serving. This selfish aspect introduces a dark and destructive force that threatens to monopolize the creative powers of the heroine. Therefore, the heroine must also overcome the minotaur’s pure and tyrannical claim to her sacred fire. In so many stories, the minotaur often covets the heroine’s feminine essence, her creative powers and energy, and yes, her beauty and eros. The minotaur is usually unable to see past these aspects of the heroine’s sacred fire.

In many heroine-centric stories, you’ll find common cause between the native culture and the masked minotaur. Whenever the minotaur appears as a potential suitor for the heroine, the possessive love of the minotaur aligns with the desire for continuity of the native culture through marriage (and children). Therefore, the native culture and the masked minotaur form a persistent alliance in heroine-centric stories.

In Titanic, the masked minotaur is Cal Hockley, who seeks to possess Rose Dewitt Bukater as his wife. Rose’s mother represents the interests of the native culture and implores Rose that the sacred fire might be extinguished if she doesn’t marry. Rose intuitively understands that accepting Cal’s offer of marriage will destroy her true inner self.

In Tangled, the sacred fire of the heroine is beautifully exemplified by the magic of Rapunzel’s hair. Her long hair is symbolic of her creative power because it restores youth and extends life. Mother Gothel, who is the masked minotaur, hordes the sacred fire to satisfy the vanity of eternal beauty. Locking Rapunzel in a tower perfectly captures the self-serving mentality of the minotaur’s claim. The heroine’s free will is devalued and suppressed.

Beauty and the Beast provides a perfect example of all three claims to the sacred fire being made at the same time. In the opening number, Belle expresses her sacred fire moment by wanting so much more than her provincial life. The townsfolk, on the other hand, make a bevy of remarks aimed at Belle’s non-conformity to the values of the native culture. And finally, Gaston is the masked minotaur of the story, who arrogantly claims Belle as his future wife. Everyone, it seems, seeks the sacred fire of the heroine for a different reason.

Protecting the Sacred Fire

By understanding the archetypal significance of the sacred fire, we can better appreciate the conflict of our favorite heroines. The opening scene to Star Wars: A New Hope, for example, takes on a whole new meaning. The film opens not with Luke Skywalker, but with Princess Leia. She’s desperately attempting to flee with the stolen plans to the dreaded Death Star. But the masked minotaur, Darth Vader, is bearing down on her in a menacing fashion (the head of the star destroyer even looks like a minotaur’s head).

On the surface, Vader is after the Death Star plans. But in archetypal and symbolic terms, Vader is after the deeper symbol that Princess Leia carries with her. She holds a fragile sacred fire—the life force of the entire Rebellion. If she fails, then the life of the Rebel Alliance will be put out across the galaxy. Subconsciously, we recognize that the flame—the continuity of the rebellion—is in Princess Leia’s hands as she races from danger. And the imagery in the film strikes at the very heart of our human subconscious.

The same is true of Sarah Connor in the first two Terminator films. On the surface, Sarah is trying to survive because her unborn son, John Connor, is the future leader of the human resistance. So much criticism is directed at the idea that Sarah Connor plays second fiddle to John Connor, or that her value is confined to giving birth to a man who will save the world. But once again, we must look deeper into the symbolism. Sarah’s value extends far beyond motherhood. Think about it. Sarah would likely protect John’s life even if he was a tax accountant because most parents don’t need an excuse to protect children.

Screencap from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, TriStar Pictures 1991.

But Sarah isn’t just protecting one unborn child. She’s protecting three billion human lives from a future nuclear holocaust. Therefore, Sarah carries the eternal flame of all humanity. She carries humanity’s very right to exist. And our heroine is haunted by the sacred fire that she carries. When Sarah sleeps, her nightmares are not of John’s death, but of Judgement Day and the nuclear holocaust that obliterates billions of human beings. The story was never about John. It’s always been about Sarah and her desperate effort to protect the sacred fire from going out. That’s probably why subsequent films that centered on John Connor all failed, while Sarah Connor’s legacy has withstood the test of time.

Moana is just as much a story about Te Fiti as it is about Moana. Once again, like Princess Leia and Sarah Connor, Te Fiti carries the life force of the islands and sea. In the mythology of Moana, Te Fiti’s sacred fire is symbolized by the green Pulau stone. But the masked minotaur of the story, Maui, seeks to possess the goddess’ sacred fire and succeeds in stealing the Pulau stone. With her sacred fire stolen, Te Fiti becomes Te Ka, an angry goddess made of volcanic fire. She then becomes hostile and destroys life through the islands and sea. Only when Moana returns the sacred fire to Te Ka, does the goddess return to her original self. And life returns in spectacular fashion.

Sacred Fire in the Hero’s Journey

The sacred fire is not unique to heroine-centric stories. In fact, the basic concept is very much the same between both storytelling models. Like our heroines, our heroes also contend with the native culture for independence. The hero, too, can claim their sacred fire for creative or destructive purposes. However, the hero’s journey tends to emphasize the continuity of the native culture through the hero’s mastery of cultural skills and atonement with the father.

Probably one of the best examples of the sacred fire with a hero’s journey is the 1978 movie, Superman. The sacred fire is perfectly symbolized by the green crystal of Krypton. This glowing flame comes from the native culture and is passed to Clark. The crystal represents both the continuity of Krypton as well as Clark’s individual potential as Superman.

Summary

The sacred fire symbolizes the heroine’s vast human potential for creative good or destructive evil.

The heroine claims her sacred fire by expressing her personal desires, which then sets up the conflict between the heroine, the native culture, and the masked minotaur.

To the native culture, the sacred fire symbolizes the continuity of the tribe.

There remains a powerful bond between the heroine’s individual free will and her identity within the native culture.

The masked minotaur attempts to possess the sacred fire for selfish purposes

In the next article, we’ll explore the heroine’s first attempt to solve the three claims to her sacred fire–“the captivity bargain.”

Want to Improve your Writing? Try Role-Playing

Jun 23, 2020

5 Unexpected Virtues of Role-Playing

Want to spice up the writing room? As writers, we all do pretty much the same things—we read the Elements of Style, brush up on our hero’s journey, try to write every day, and of course, unlock the mysteries of story structure. But have you ever considered setting aside the Chicago Manual of Style and picking up instead the Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook?

I know, I know. Our sophisticated writer persona cringes at the thought of teenagers circling a table and talking about half-elves, hit points, and spellcasting. But I can’t stress it enough: role-playing made me a better writer. Period.

Not all role-playing games are fantasy adventures. There is almost certainly a gaming module that matches your preferred genre: science fiction, historical fiction, crime & mystery, Gothic horror, chick lit, spy games, 1980’s urban fantasy…you name it. Role-playing games have evolved to suit every taste and demographic.

Let’s explore five unexpected virtues of role-playing and how they animate the craft of writing in critical ways.

#1 – Diversity of Perspective

If you’ve ever hosted a role-playing game as the revered ‘Dungeon Master,’ you’ll discover that while player characters focus on a single character, you must play all the other roles in the world. That means role-playing people with different genders, personalities, occupations, socio-economic classes, cultures, authority levels, and temperaments. For example, by simply role-playing many women over the years, I experienced the full range of bizarre behavior men exhibit when courting a lady. Unexpectedly, I found myself adjusting my own behavior around women, but more importantly, I also learned to write better female characters. By role-playing so many diverse characters, a writer becomes acutely aware of viewpoints and perspectives that vary greatly from our own.

#2 – Character Development

When you role-play a character that you designed, you naturally take a liking to them. You consider all manner of details regarding their appearance, languages, personality, backstories, gear, and skillsets. To make a character not only capable in their world, but you must also understand their place in the world. This will help writers better understand the relationship every character has with their culture as well as with other people. By building a character and experiencing progress, your inner writer is sharpening crucial skills for great character development. You also develop a natural sense that all action leads to growth. Otherwise, the action loses its meaning.

#3 Improvisation

Once you get over the initial embarrassment of “acting” in front of your friends or even strangers, role-playing delivers real power. Situations change minute by minute. Player characters are all interacting in real-time, and you have to keep up. Witty lines of dialogue or dramatic moments crop up organically. This type of free-flow storytelling and character interaction builds up your writing muscles better than almost any other skill. Your scenes gain that coveted touch of spontaneity that great writing requires. Your imagination auto-populates dialogue, body language, emotion, and interactions at a rapid pace. Scenes flow with authentic precision because the improvisation of role-playing caters toward free-flow experiences inherent to writing.

#4 Conflict

One of the most cryptic aspects of writing is conflict. It takes writers years to learn how to build tension or establish conflict in each chapter. I used to think storytelling was a matter of a logical and, therefore, believable sequence of events. Try being a Dungeon Master. You learn to play off the independent actions of the players while introducing dangers, obstacles, rewards, or incentives and at every turn. Being a good Dungeon Master means keeping player characters engaged, off-balance, misdirected and entertained—exactly what writers must do. Crafting great chapters is akin to hosting a great couple of hours of live gameplay.

#5 Settings

Writers love settings. But only role-playing taught me the real importance of a setting. In a role-playing game, every environment becomes a chessboard for the player characters. I learned never to underestimate the ingenuity of players when it comes to solving problems. Every object and prop, every window and door, every light source and shadow will come into play. More than merely some “backdrop” for characters, a setting reveals a ton about the story, the culture, the values, and the daily mode of operation in your story world. Each setting has a purpose and function in the world, and likewise, each setting brings its own dangers and delights. Role-playing forces you understand the interdependence a setting has on the characters and the story.

Conclusion

These five aspects are just a handful of the benefits writers gain when engaged in role-playing games. Try it out. If you’re a writer, consider hosting an adventure with creative friends or even your kids. Just talking about the genre and setting builds tremendous anticipation and excitement about playing. Choose a compelling world or era. Order a pizza, play music to fit each scene, use pictures, bring props. Whatever brings an imagined world to life will only feed that inner writer in ways that more conventional methods can’t touch. Never forget that play is at the very center of a creative soul.

Douglas A. Burton is a historical fiction author who believes in the transformative power of storytelling. His novel, ‘Far Away Bird,’ which follows the early life of Byzantine Empress Theodora, won multiple awards and garnered critical acclaim. See more at douglasaburton.com.

Women are Changing the Way We Tell Stories

Sep 11, 2019

For the first time in history, we’re getting a glimpse of a heroine-centric world view in our cultural stories. In the long history of humanity, the vast majority of literary storytellers and historians have been men. But I believe there is a historic shift occurring and the art of storytelling, itself, may be changing.

When I sat down to write a novel about Byzantine Empress Theodora, I followed the prevailing model for story structure and character development known as the Hero’s Journey. For decades now, the Hero’s Journey has been one of the most dominant models for storytelling out there and for good reason. It works. However, the Hero’s Journey has been criticized at times for being a little, well, male-centric. I never understood the criticism until recently. While writing my historical fiction novel, which features a strong heroine, I realized that I didn’t understand heroines as much as I thought. At times, I veered away from the Hero’s Journey and found myself following my heroine’s unique journey.

But I needed help.

What I really needed were the insights and perspectives of other women. With a genuine desire to get my lead heroine right, I opened myself up in full, and I listened to the feedback of multiple women beta readers. I knew about Theodora from the history books but I never knew Theodora as a woman. There were small things. For example, some of the most common questions from beta readers were:

“What’s she wearing?”

“What’s she eating?”

I didn’t realize that so many women readers really liked knowing about Theodora’s clothing and delicious Byzantine cuisines. Oddly, answering those simple questions brought Theodora just a little more to life.

But then there were big things. More intense questions were:

“But what about her daughter? You never mention her.”

“Isn’t she nervous in this situation?”

And when Theodora had conversations in certain scenes, the most common question of all: “How does Theodora feel when that person said that? I want to know how she took that.”

I blew by certain moments that the beta readers didn’t. By simply answering the questions thrown at me, I began to see my heroine in ways I never before imagined. I felt as though I was picking up a special frequency that I never paid attention to previously. I dare say that my attitudes toward women in real life also changed. Unexpectedly, I started to see my heroine’s problems in a woman at the grocery store. I wondered “how she felt” during my own conversations. I noticed my heroine’s social frustrations sprouting up even with my wife.

As a writer, I began to recognize the same problems and themes our heroines face in movies and literature. I now watched films with an added focus and a new set of eyes. A pattern emerged that I never noticed before, even when watching movies I’d seen a hundred times. With so many heroines to watch now, from Game of Thrones to Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, I saw something more pronounced, more vivid, more powerful than mere fictional characters.

A heroine.

Her storyline differs from my boyhood heroes. She faces different threats. She’s brave in different ways, goes to different places, and often solves different problems. And surprisingly, I noticed that our heroines face villains who are not far away but close by—members of her own native culture. She encounters what I have labeled a “cult of deception,” which is a systematic way of being misled or misdirected, even by those she trusts. Unlike my male-oriented heroes, she’s not trying to embrace the cultural traditions of her father’s (or mother’s) past but instead trying to break away from them. The past is the problem.

Folks, these themes are not the Hero’s Journey. When I thought about my lead character, my wife, my mother, my female friends and acquaintances, and now these cultural heroines, I realized that I had changed. Some big questions hit me.

What if the Hero’s Journey is the result of an aggregate world view that has been mostly male up until now. What if the aggregate world view of our heroines is creating a different monomyth? What if the very nature of the conflicts that heroines face, the villains they defeat, and the way they save the world all bear notable distinctions? What if the woman as the cultural figurehead of civilization has powerful messages that society has never experienced before on this scale?

That’s cultural change.

If our stories reflect recurrent themes about the male or female experiences in life, then perhaps stories are a starting point. Maybe we can better hear each other more clearly through our stories.

I’m going to write a series of blogs introducing the principles of heroine-centric storytelling. I hope you’re excited to read and discuss it. To see a brief overview of the core concepts of a heroine-centric story model, click here or you can follow me on Facebook to stay updated.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you think that heroines, in general, might have some distinctive qualities that have gone unrecognized? Do you think there is such a thing as a heroine-centric story structure?

Liminal Space

Jun 6, 2019

For storytelling, Liminal Space is a powerful setting. It is the “space” between two different destinations, but it’s secretly also a place between two different realities for your characters. The most common usage of Liminal Space is when the Heroic Figure leaves the safety and protection of their home, and travels toward the dangerous and bizarre Otherworld. As a storyteller, you must recognize the significance of Liminal Space and use it to add power and punch to your world and story. Change begins in Liminal Space.

Psychologist Carl Jung states, “Individuation begins with a withdrawal from normal modes of socialization, epitomized by the breakdown of the persona.” He calls this withdrawal a “movement through liminal space and time, from disorientation to integration.”

The Heroic Figure has left their home behind, and yet they are nowhere, in limbo somewhere. Here are three common occurrences regarding Liminal Space:

Often begins with fainting, sleeping, dreaming, or unconsciousness.
A setting that is “in transit,” through a vast and empty environment or tunnel-like passageway
Contains a person or object that symbolizes home, like a security blanket.

The Heroic Figure, like you and me, inwardly wants to avoid danger. Therefore, our heroes and heroines often “faint” as a defense mechanism when it’s time to leave home and face the dangerous, uncertain world. The overtone of disorientations and unconsciousness appear often as our characters enter Liminal Space. They are infants about to be born. Recognize that meaning. Know that we are looking at our innocent, untested Heroic Figure and pushing him or her out toward the dangerous world. And they aren’t ready for it.

Whenever Liminal Space is portrayed as a vast and empty expanse, like a desert or ocean, it’s to underscore the uncertainty and smallness of your Heroic Figure. Whenever Liminal Space is instead represented by a tunnel-like passageway, it’s to represent a birth canal, the movement away from the safe womb and out into the dangerous world.

Liminal Space cues your readers that change has come…is happening now. The heroine or hero is disoriented. They faint, travel through a strange environment, and cling desperately to something that reminds them of home.

Examples of Liminal Space:

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy falls into a dream-like state when she hits her head. The tunnel-like tornado lifts her actual home into the sky and away from familiar Kansas. Out her window, she sees familiar objects and people from Kansas whizzing about, but soon the window reveals the dangerous sight of the Wicked Witch, who tyrannizes the Otherworld ahead. Toto, who also represents home, comes with Dorothy.

In the Matrix, Morpheus, which is the name for the Greek god of dreams, says to the Heroic Figure, Neo, “How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” He then shows him an empty white space called, the Construct, the place in between the neural-interactive simulation of the Matrix and the “desert” of the real world. His “residual self-image” comes with him. After Morpheus shows him the Matrix, Neo, faints again. “He’s gonna pop.”

In Wonder Woman, Diana boards a boat that must cross a vast and empty sea when she leaves home. She brings her Heroic items, her gauntlets, shield, and sword with her and yes, she sleeps.

In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker leaves home and passes out immediately upon encountering the dangerous Sand People. He soon enters the bizarre and unpredictable world of Mos Eisley Spaceport, a place of transit. When he travels aboard the Millennium Falcon, they enter the tunnel of hyper space.

Avatar features Liminal Space both in hyper sleep en route to Pandora, which floats through the vastness of space. Jake Sully’s wheelchair, a symbol of his weaker, dependent earthly life comes with him to the distant planet. Jake must also “faint” each time he enters his Avatar body by sleeping in a link pod. Each time, his consciousness travels through a tunnel.

In the movie Coraline, our young Heroic Figure must first fall to sleep and dream before she can cross into the Otherworld. Once asleep, Coraline opens a secret door and must crawl through a mysterious tunnel of cobwebs and dust. All the objects of her home surround her but offer the illusion of a better home.

In Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, it is the mother of the aristocratic Jen Yu who falls unconscious when the bandits attack. Jen then pursues a bandit to retrieve her ivory comb, which is the object that symbolizes her aristocratic home life. Rather quickly, Jen finds herself surrounded by a vast and empty desert.

In Fight Club, the narrator faints all the time due to narcolepsy. He states, “If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?” He then comes home to discover that someone blew up his home condo unit. He cannot go home anymore, but keeps his briefcase. He then wanders off to the empty “toxic waste part of town” to squat in an abandoned house on Paper Street.

Like any step in the Heroic Transfiguration, Liminal Space, too, can be expanded upon in amazing ways. The movie Gravity features a Heroic Figure who is trapped in Liminal Space, haunted by ghosts of familiar astronauts and listening to folksy transmissions from earth, far below. She’s even filmed floating fetal-like in zero gravity at one point, an image that evokes feelings of infancy and smallness when faced with the dangerous world just beyond.

Be creative. Design a Liminal Space that echoes your unique world.

How Writing Far Away Bird Changed Me

Mar 24, 2019

Writing my book fundamentally changed me. In my effort to understand my lead heroine, Theodora, I uncovered a range of human experiences that were unfamiliar to me. The more I learned, the more I changed. The three central questions I get are why did you try to write from a woman’s perspective? What made you focus on such a sensitive issue? And what qualifies you to even write about this particular subject matter? I’m going to answer all three questions because the answers will also shed light on how I, myself, changed during my writing of the book.

So, why write from a female perspective? I didn’t see this as a particularly unusual matter, especially since there are plenty of women who’ve written male lead characters. But I guess it’s a curious question anyway. Back in 2009, I wrote, or attempted to write, a Byzantine novel written in the first person with Emperor Justinian as my main character. I wrote a whopping 500 pages and got lost in the woods. I never set up my major plot lines correctly, nor did I introduce important characters that would prove pivotal to the plot and climax. In short, I needed to learn more about story structure. I vowed to one day return and rewrite my Justinian epic, armed with the mysterious knowledge of story structure.

Over the next seven years, I broke down all my favorite movies—Star Wars, Amadeus, Silence of the Lambs, The Matrix, Aliens, Avatar, etc. I read Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I read all the great historical novels such as The Grapes of Wrath, For Whom the Bell Tolls, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Far Pavilions, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, and, yes, even War and Peace. After reading Memoirs of a Geisha, though, I wondered for the first time if Theodora, an actress-prostitute (and notorious exhibitionist), could work as a possible competing story line alongside my Justinian story. Perhaps I could portray the life of a Byzantine prostitute similar to the fascinating Japanese geisha I’d just read about. I wondered whether readers might find it interesting to see a future famous empress in this light. But I decided firmly against the idea because Theodora presented some unique problems. For one, showing a great female leader as a salacious prostitute instead of focusing on her accomplishments as an empress could be a really bad idea…worse than you think…

Let me explain.

There is an account of Empress Theodora’s early life that is so salacious that even I, despite admiring her historically, have struggled to reconcile. In what may be one of the greatest acts of gossip and defamation in history, the Byzantine historian, Procopius, tells a story of Theodora that has followed her through the centuries, a story regarding her portrayal of Leda and the Swan. No one reading or learning about Empress Theodora can be spared this story from her early life. I’ll let you read it for yourself. Here’s the X-rated excerpt from Procopius’ best-known work, The Secret History:

Often in the theater, too, in full view of all the people she would throw off her clothes and stand naked in their midst…she would spread herself out and lie face upwards on the floor. Servants on whom this task had been imposed sprinkle barley grains over her private parts, and geese trained for the purpose used to pick them off one by one with their bills and swallow them. Theodora, far from blushing when she stood up again, actually seemed to be proud of this performance. For she was not only shameless herself, but did more than anyone else to encourage shamelessness.

And Procopius goes on to say:

Never was anyone so completely given up to unlimited self-indulgence. Often she would go to a bring-your-own-food dinner-party with ten young men or more, all at the peak of their physical powers and with fornication as their chief object in life, and would lie with all her fellow-diners in turn the whole night long: when she had reduced them all to a state of exhaustion she would go onto their servants, as many as thirty on occasion, and copulate with every one of them; but even so she couldn’t satisfy her lust.

Procopius goes on and on. Even ‘fans’ of Theodora have to wince and wish they hadn’t read that. Check it out. Wikipedia mentions Leda and the Swan. It’s probably just gossip, but how could I possibly include Theodora’s early life and avoid this utterly unflattering story (along with all the other stories)? Even if I tried to ‘skip’ these accounts, readers would eventually discover them and any ‘untainted’ character portrayal of Theodora would risk collapse. Better to double down on Justinian’s story, and leave Theodora out of the book altogether.

But something happened to change my mind.

Based on a recommendation, I happened to be reading an utterly unrelated non-fiction book called Revolt of the Elites. I wasn’t even thinking about my unwritten Byzantine novel. Near the end of his book, the author attempts a deep-reaching analysis of politics and went into what seemed like a bizarre segue. He cites the work of a psychoanalyst, named Leon Wurmser, who published case studies on female exhibitionism. The psychoanalyst concluded that some of these women battled a deep inner shame and overcame the shame through acts of shamelessness. It’s a form of what’s called ‘counterphobia’ in which people engage excessively in something they fear as a defense mechanism. Here’s the exact passage I read regarding modern case studies:

…her fear of defilement and dishonor made her wish to defile others—a striking illustration of the connection between shameful disgrace and the shameless act of exposure. Another patient wished to hide her face from the world—the characteristic stance of shame—but also had a compulsion to exhibit herself. It was as if she were saying, “I want to show the world how magnificently I can hide.” Here, the rage for exposure was redirected to the self, in the form of an exhibitionism that “knew no shame,” as we used to say.

On the one hand, these patients wanted to see everything, as if they hoped to merge with the world through the medium of the eye. On the other hand, they wanted to dominate the world by making themselves objects of universal fascination. Fearing exposure, they wore the frozen, expressionless face Wurmser came to recognize as the mask of shame: “the immovable, inscrutable, enigmatic expression of a sphinx.” Yet this forbidding countenance served, in their fantasies, not only to hide their own secrets but to fascinate and dominate others, to punish others, as well, for attempting to penetrate their facades. The self-protective mask of shame was also the magically aggressive face of Medusa, which turns onlookers to stone.

By mentioning exhibitionism and shamelessness, I immediately thought again of Theodora and her early life as a “notorious” prostitute and exhibitionist. Did she fit this psychological profile? What if Theodora’s historical infamy was actually due to a childhood trauma? What if the trauma made her so ashamed that she engaged in excessive exhibitionism to overcome the trauma? What if she was actually suffering underneath the whole time? And what if overcoming the childhood trauma was the very thing that helped her become one of the greatest empresses in Byzantine history? Whoa. That seemed like a pretty big character arc.

I renewed my idea of a competing story line for Theodora. I always listen to music as part of my creative process. So, I was listening to this piece and an image popped into my head, an image of a young girl with her back to me. She was kneeling and praying alone in a medieval Byzantine basilica, not long after enduring a terrible abuse. She needed answers. She needed to know why. And she needed to understand why the world favored her rapist over her. These were rather brutal questions, but they resonated with me. That single image made me sympathize with the girl in my mind in a rather powerful way. It set in motion a glimpse of the path for Empress Theodora. The story would explain her salacious past in a new light, and at the same time offer an explanation as to what she had to overcome in order to become the stuff of empresses. It also explained why, after she became an empress, she made rape punishable by death, and why she helped to bring about dozens of laws designed specifically to help women. (She may have even been the first woman ever to truly act in a way consistent with a modern notion of women’s rights.)

In fact, now…instead of shying away from the lurid stories about Theodora, what if I confronted them head on? What if I left nothing out? What if I showed all her most defaming moments in the context of a woman who is attempting to brazenly DESTROY her inner shame at what happened to her? These questions stalked my mind for weeks. I also considered—in my loftiest daydreams—that if my book was ever actually successful, I could reverse the effects of Theodora’s 1,500-year smear campaign. People would know her worst stories, but instead of losing respect for her, they would see a heroine and an actual historical figure.

That’s why I wanted to write about a woman and that’s how the sensitive topic became central to the story.

I wrote out a few pages that tried to capture Theodora as a character and found myself immersed in her realities. I had terrible emotional reactions to the writing. But the more I wrote about her and her situation, the more engaged I felt. I even decided to drop my original plot line with Justinian entirely and to focus all my attention on Theodora.

But am I qualified to write about such abuses? The answer in my mind was a resounding “definitely not.”

Rape, abuse, and sexual assault are big and forbidden topics, especially for a guy without firsthand knowledge to be writing about. I feared (and still fear) that I’d become an unwelcome guest in a conversation that I had no business getting into. Clearly, I wasn’t including rape as a plot device—I saw it as the most likely causal event if the aforementioned case studies were to be believed. A sexual assault could easily create an unbearable shame that could force a girl to reinvent herself as sexually aggressive. It fit Wurmser’s psychological profile. So, I made the decision to be courageous and just write. But I challenged myself to get this right, to the best of my abilities.

I did have some things to draw upon. I have a cousin who experienced sexual abuse when she was very young, and I had a friend who was abused repeatedly by his older brother, and he, in turn, to his younger brother. Years before, both of them shared details and accounts about their experiences, even though I was extremely uncomfortable hearing these things at the time. I circled back to what they told me…I was listening now. The stories they had told me, though, didn’t always match the portrayal of rape I’d seen in movies, etc.

In movies, rape is often portrayed as a violent assault by an aggressive man or group of men. But, the more I read up on true accounts of rape, I discovered that many rapes occur by someone the victim trusted and in a way that was murkier, less obvious to the victim, often because they were young, inexperienced, or dealing with a man of high social status—social, professional, or even within a family.

In these scenarios, I learned that sexual attackers can create what I called a “confusion of consent.” The rapist attempts to convince or seduce the victim rather than risking a violent assault. In many cases, even the victim is left with some ambiguity, whether self-imposed or not, as to what actually happened. Obviously, blatant assaults occur too, but I found the seductive elements to be more horrible in a certain way, because the rapist inflicts a kind of persistent psychological residue that leaves the victim forever confused. The subtle assault is less obvious. Many victims can remember participating consciously or unconsciously in some kind of a lead up to the assault. Other times, victims were blindsided with improper requests by a person of high status. And once the rape takes place, victims are unlikely to speak out because of the powerful and oppressive “confusion of consent.” The waters are muddied. And if the rapist has any kind of high social status, then whatever benefits or favors the rapist is providing— both to the victim and indeed to all those who benefit from the rapist’s position—would be on the line if the victim were to challenge. The victim risks angering everyone and so finds an impossible circumstance of powerful social resistance to their tiny and unwanted claim to justice. This, too, started to hurt me just by trying to comprehend it. And I mean it. The injustice was quite large and would be in place and functional in any culture, in any time period, regardless of the moral norms. The motivation of the rapist would always be there and social nature of human beings would always establish a natural resistance to true resolution.

So, after understanding Theodora’s situation a little better, I had to turn to my villain. I have to get him right too. I learned why films portray male rapists as merely violent. Because as a writer, you cannot dare to give any redeeming qualities to such a man. He must be obviously evil and all evil. But I felt that readers needed to feel the nature of the subtle traps, since possibly, these were the most common traps. So, my villain would be a man of higher social status. My villain would hide in plain sight. He would be especially skilled at creating the “confusion of consent,” and he could deliver certain favors or benefits to Theodora that would make her question any challenge to him. He would deliver favors and benefits to many other people who surrounded Theodora. So, worst of all, the other people in Theodora’s world recognized and valued the social significance of her rapist and would become unexpected enforcers against her desire to challenge. No one will help Theodora challenge this villain, even if they knew what he did to Theodora. By challenging the villain, Theodora would become the villain to others. I felt certain that the villain I was about to create was real, and I knew this person existed around the world in many forms.

I also thought it was important to know who Theodora was before the assault. I had a feeling I knew this girl too. She’d have a positive self-image. She’d think highly of herself. She’d be optimistic and capable. She’d be smart and her ability to succeed would make her willing to take risks. And her innocence would allow her to completely underestimate the villain.

As I wrote about Theodora, I realized that I related to her in other ways. In my own life, I learned that when something really bad happens to you, people really don’t want to hear about it. They avoid you. You become an unwanted guest, viewed as toxic or negative. Wanting to talk about an injustice is bothersome. This part of her story I shared with her. I once lost everything and so, I knew also the sting of a social estrangement, a social collapse.

There were mornings, when after I wrote about Theodora, I’d go up for a shower, look in the mirror and see that my face looked pale. I felt heavy and constricted. I was uneasy for entire days. Trying to enter the head space of Theodora absolutely crushed my spirits sometimes. I’m not embarrassed to admit, there were many days that I cried. I’d get stuck in a stage of anguish from the leftover feelings of writing certain scenes or moments. My eyes were red and people could tell that I’d been crying. If I felt that bad after simply writing about these awful things, then I truly shuddered to imagine any human being who actually experienced this situation firsthand.

The time came for me to beta test my story, to come forward and allow strangers to read the pages I’d written in private about Theodora. My wife encouraged me to be brave about it. To my utter horror, I discovered that my writer’s group were all women. I had one question. When would they all turn against me for my clumsy foray into a room clearly marked “women only?”

To my utter surprise and extreme relief, every woman in that group had my back. They were supportive and engaged. They provided absolutely vital feedback in areas where I was still blind. These women helped me to understand my own lead character even better. And then, one of the writers informed me privately that she had actually experienced a rape in her recent past. That’s when it hit me: this shit’s real. The whole thing I’d been torturing myself trying to articulate was right up close. Real people I cared about were telling me about it. This woman offered to answer any questions I had, which I thought was unequivocally brave. She explained certain things to me, terrible and true details that I would have never known about, things that led me to grasp even more of the reality. Some of my more introverted writing peers left me feedback as well, peculiar feedback that led me to suspect they, too, had some experience with abuse, direct or through a friend, even if they didn’t outright tell me.

When a close friend of our family came over one night, a wonderful, witty, confident girl we’d known for years, and heard about my novel, she too, confessed that she’d been abused as a young girl. Suddenly, my cousin and old friend weren’t isolated stories from my past. The number of women with stories of abuse was getting uncomfortably crowded. And in an impossible coincidence of timing, the #MeToo movement struck in 2017 and my writing topic was now being echoed on national television. This signaled a devastating confirmation that abuse was indeed widespread and was occurring to women of all colors, all classes, all shapes, and sizes.

Suddenly, I saw how my conceptual “confusion of consent” could work on anyone, even the wealthy…even the strong ones. in fact, in what I deem as a truly awful paradox, women with high confidence and a strong self-image could actually see these positive qualities work against them…because a confident woman might not allow herself to acknowledge the awful truth of abuse. How could a high self-image exist side-by-side with a victim scenario? It sets up a perfect situation for self-denial. That actually made sense to me. That explained how a high-profile actress, CEO, or any successful woman could end up tweeting #MeToo. And then when I think about girls (or even boys) with lower self-esteem…I know in my heart that their desire or willingness to challenge their attacker would be reduced to an awful mode of silence.

So, yes, writing this book has had a big impact on me. I learned a terrible truth. That’s why I’ve chosen to go forward with this book on my own. While a child version of myself hopes for success, I care mostly about people getting something out of my story. I want others to experience a similar understanding to a problem that exists today, even if they, too, weren’t looking for it. I want people to learn about and be fascinated at Empress Theodora, because she’s a great woman in history. I believe she’s been obscured in history because the Byzantine Empire is obscured.

Circling back to the conception of the novel, I found again the passages by Procopius that I quoted earlier. He defamed Theodora for the last 1,500 years by telling us stories that shock and unsettle us when we think of Theodora. But, I challenge Procopius. I didn’t shy away from his slanderous description of Theodora. During the climax of my book, I actually have one of my characters speak aloud Procopius’ exact words, reconstructing the passage as dialogue, and setting the words one more time against Theodora directly. I put the defamation out there for all to hear and let the readers judge for themselves whether a sexualized woman is always guilty.

There is a fatalism to our greatest heroes and heroines. They dare where we recoil. I believe that this daring comes from losing a fear of death. In many ways, acts of evil kill the human spirit; they create a living experience not unlike death, right here in this world. That’s why, I guess, I believe heroes are tragic figures, even when they triumph, because sometimes, to triumph is to know that something like death has already visited them. Both the wound and healed scar are hidden from our eyes and so we see only their uncharacteristic bravery.

Theodora changed me for sure. I understand that the Hero’s Journey (or Heroine’s Journey in this case) is not such a glamorous thing if you let it all in. I learned about my own world and about problems that haven’t changed much whether we’re in the Sixth Century or the Twenty-First. I learned what #MeToo means on some deeper level. And I hope, if all goes well, that something as simple as a book can start conversations, thoughts, and solutions about what might solve the problems at hand. That’s why I’m willing to donate part of any profits from the book to a non-profit such as RAINN or the Joyful Heart Foundation.

So, that’s my tale as it relates to the sensitive subject matter of my book. There’s plenty more to the book and to Theodora, of course, but these issues seem to be at the heart of people’s curiosity and relevant to modern readers.