The One Point: Aikido and the Point of a Story

All---

Shihonage, Aikido throw
(photographed by Magyar Balazs)

A great many of the things I write begin in my mind with a philosophical question or idea.  A story forms when I envision a character and then throw them cruelly against that question or idea and see what happens.  This is the essence of my particular slant on psychological suspense: a dark story that begins with the tension between individual psychological and transcendent human philosophical questions.

Just the same, I don't make care of the idea of boiling any story down to a theme, a topic, a moral, or (perhaps worst of all), a "point."

Instead, I think it's like something we talk about in Aikido as, "the one point." In Aikido that "one point" is both the source of energy and center of action.  You might link it to the center of gravity.  You might relate it to the focus of psychological centeredness.  At the core, the one point is both the drive and the pivot point for everything we do in Aikido.

The one point isn't static.  It's dynamic.  It moves and shifts with the person.  It changes with the context.  The one point also isn't a physical X, Y, Z coordinate.  It's not something that everyone can look at, touch, and feel.

That's more like the role of the philosophical quesiton or idea that starts my story. It's the driver and the pivot point.  It's always there, and it's source of energy and the center of action -- but it may not be apparent.  You may not be about to see it, touch, or feel it.  You, as a reader, may sometimes see it as clear as it.  You, as a reader, may never know it's the there.  But that's okay, because it may be the one point, but it's not the point of the story.

.Nevets.

Loving the UnLovable

All---

This is not a review of Cinders, nor a response to it, nor a commentary upon it. I am only a page and a half in. However, that first page and a half sparked one of my favorite memes for reflection and ranting and I thought I would share that with you all.

(Incidentally, in case you have been following my chatter the past few days, I decided to start with Cinders instead of The Dog of the North because it's shorter, comes first in alphabetical order by both title and author, and because as much as I have place-name envy for Tim's homeland, I'd live near the rockies in a heartbeat. But I digress.)

As far as I know, this rant has next to nothing to do with any ideas that are expressed in Cinders.

So here's the thing. I hate Cinderella. I hate Beauty and the Beast. I hate most popularized fairy tales that touch upon the notion of someone loving someone who seems unloved and unlovable. Why? Because they don't show what they claim to teach! Typically, the lovely person falls in love with the unlovely person while under the impression that the unlovely person actually is lovely. Often times, the unlovely person is rewarded by becoming permanently lovely.

Excuse me?

This is touching? This is meaningful? This is deep?

The stories may be fun and entertaining at some level, but they really do the exact thing they claim to be teaching people not to do. Cinderella is not about a young woman overcoming her family and position to win the heart of the prince by her own strength and through her own virtues. It is about a young woman who is made to look like someone she is not, and who the prince cannot help but fall in love with because she's fake and created specifically to win his heart over.

She's an airbrushed fake.

The prince, essentially responds to her like some twentieth century schmoe responding physically to a porn star. It's got nothing to do with her. It's got to do with the fact that she's faked up specifically to be attractive to schmoes like him.

And, if I may, I'd like to suggest one further heresy. In the popular Cinderella, her step-mother and her step-sisters are cold and cruel and obsessed with status. Cinderella is humble and sweet and charming.

Ah, but on her own Cinderella has no gown or coach or slippers -- and certainly no right to dance with the prince at the ball.

Magic gives her those things.

She doesn't have to work for them at all. She's just given them.

So of course she's going to shine amongst all the other "proper" girls. She's not one. She just got the same place they did. You know what happens to the people who earn those things by position or effort? They become cold and cruel and obsessed with status.

One theme that runs through my own writing, pretty strongly at times, is redemption. For me, it's always been essential that that redemption not be for obvious reasons. If I want to show the importance of loving someone who is unlovable, that person better darn well be unlovable when someone loves them. If the person transforms first than they are no longer unlovable. And what's remarkable or interesting about people loving people who are lovable?

.Nevets.

p.s. The three-dashes thing ("All---") is a homage to a punctuation technique I crafted in my teen years tour as a space opera writer. It's how people signed on to the communications system. Tap your your fingers together to bring the implants in contact, open the circuit through your body, say the name of the person you want to talk to, and supply three dashes. ---Out.

Revisitng Themes

All---

I am inherently geared towards originality. Among creative types that always sounds like a good thing. In reality, it's a heck of a burden on my mind. I don't know where it stems from. I don't think it's pride or attention-seeking, but I really don't know. Whatever its source, I feel compelled in whatever I do, to do something that is as close to unique as possible. That compulsion had selecting a masters thesis topic a nightmare, believe me. It's the same for all my creative endeavors, and even my everyday life. "Well, the cookbooks all stop there, but I'm going throw some coriander in, just so it's different." It's dumb. I know.

Here's the thing; I don't even like repeating myself. I write songs, and there are two songs which are perfectly good but over which I obsess because they're "too similar." I don't write down my recipes, because I want to make it just a little different next time. My signature is never exactly the same twice. Etc.

This can be a real hassle, and right now I'm bumping up into this issue in my writing, and where I'd love to hear about other writers' or readers' perspectives on this. There are certain broad themes that I know it's pretty inevitable to repeat if you write with any volume. I'm okay with, "the struggle of a person to define his or her existence in the insensible world," as a theme that I will visit more than once. It's pretty general.

On the other hand, I try to never revisit more specific themes if I can help it. I'm well-read enough to know that my themes have been visited by other authors, but my hope is that my take on them is original enough to be different. But I don't want to deal with a theme I've already dealt with.

But I am.

I'd rather not go into details right now because one of the items involved is a story that is unpublished but that I'm hoping to get out there.

In general, though, what do you all think? Is it okay for a writer to revisit themes, as long as the story isn't the same, or is that tiresome? Are your feelings about it different as a writer than they are as a reader?

.Nevets.