Writing: what is it? It is the art of putting pen to paper or
words on the screen for the purpose of communicating either facts, an
opinion, or telling a story. I'm sure that I haven't covered all the
purposes writing serves; not even close to it. The prose can be as
dry as an academic paper, or as moist as the purplest of poetry.
Human beings first developed writing as a method of inventorying
agricultural products and it is believed by many that it was women
who developed writing for that purpose. Back at the very beginning of
civilization, people offered the Gods and Goddesses the products of
their labors in the fields. This had a dual purpose: to express
gratitude or to propitiate the Mighty Ones, and as a hedge against
famine and disaster.
I write to tell stories. Storytelling too has a long history.
Around the campfire thousands of years ago, stories were told about
the Gods and Goddesses and the arrangements of the stars in the sky
that we call constellations. The shaman or seanachie also told
stories about their the powers about other powers of nature and why
things were the way they were. Today we call such stories myths. Many
dismiss them as fantasies, but they all have a kernel of truth buried
inside them. My speculative fiction and fantasy stories also have
kernels of truth inside that. They do come from my subconscious; that
roiling cauldron composed of all the experiences, racial memories of
the collective unconscious, and the reading and viewing I've ever
done and eventually my sub-unconscious spits out a story.
By psychiatrists and psychologists, writing, as well as other
forms of artistic expression, is a kind of emotional catharsis. In
the ancient dramas which were reenactments of the myths, there
definitely was an emotional catharsis; especially in the ancient
tragedies of the Greeks by such dramatists as Sophocles and Euripides
Choeritus, Aeschylus, Phrynichus, Achaeus of Eritiea, and Eumenides.
These are all dramatists of the 6th and 5th
centuries BCE. The plots follow a pattern which is still largely
followed today. Joseph Campbell described this plot so well when he
came up with the hero's journey which starts with with the call to
action. In Oedipus Rex the call to action is the Oracle's prophecy
that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his own mother. The
refusal of the call, when the infant Oedipus is at first exposed then
farmed out to a farmer's family. His foster father, the old farmer,
died and Oedipus is on his own seeking his fortune. He meets a man on
a bridge who refuses to give way to him. He kills the man not knowing
that this is his own father and meets the Queen Jocasta, who appeared
to him to be an attractive older woman, and the realm she rules isn't
bad either. He marries her and has children with her. The climax of
the story comes when Oedipus realizes how he did fulfill this dire
prophecy and blinds himself and Jocasta takes her own life. That is
the emotional catharsis in the story then the denouement lets the
audience down easily from this catharsis and ties up all the loose
ends. Don't forget to buy a copy of my e-book Palulukon. I
think it follows this ancient plot line and that you will enjoy it,
although it is not a tragedy.
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