Story Building - Recurring Symbols

A friend and I were watching a very silly fantasy movie tonight (because it starred one of our favorite actors), and it had just about every element I'm looking to include in the Ultimate Fantasy Parody epic. The feature it worked to an especially brutal death was the recurring symbol - in this case, a vaguely Celtic swirl and a cross.

UPFE already includes a Chosen One, an ancient order of allies (though this remains very fuzzy and may be the subject of another entry), prophecies, a Bad Guy who at first seems like a Good Guy, and historical roots of the climactic conflict (which is related to the allies and remains similarly fuzzy). And what of the Significant Recurring Symbols? There is at least one thing that pops up every now and then, but it is mostly absent from the earlier parts of the Epic.

It's a rainbow, and it has several important places in the plot: it's the way the magic-wielders are ordered; it's the basis of the astrology; and our gorgeous heroine gets a name that means 'rainbow' because she shows under rainbows, which she's never seen, having grown up in a desert. But it needs to occur more often. Epics don't just drop subtle hints and hope the clever reader picks up on it; these things must be hammered in. Dead horses must be beaten. Etc.

I'm thinking of giving MC a little token from her parents (who died when she was very young, of course) with something of a rainbow on it - and in everything she sews or embroiders, a domestic activity she despises - she works that design in somewhere, no matter how tiny. Because I'm cruel, I might have her lose it at some point, and her first priority when she realizes this will be to re-create the symbol. This may even have to do with how she is recognized by the minions of the Bad Guy - and possibly by the Good Guys, when the time comes.

When she ventures out into the real world, she might get to see some rainbow-like bursts of color, too - in wildflowers, perhaps even in a spray of water. At one point, she is walking to and from a waterfall, and when light refracts through water, it makes a prism. In the wares of merchants selling threads. Excellent, all excellent.

Early on, she has something of an emotional connection with roses. This is shamelessly borrowed from one of my favorite authors; I may change the plant, but I'd like to do something with that. Or perhaps a kind of tree. Later, when we meet the Nation of Bad Guys, one of the reasons she finds them creepy is that they aren't very respectful of their trees. One of the first people she meets in the great outside world gives her a green dress, and it would be very natural (ha) for there to be that exact tree embroidered on it. She gets some of her first food, after she leaves her abusive childhood home, from a tree. When she meets the Good Guy, she's up in an alpine sort of setting, feeling all out of place and out of sorts. What would make her feel better than to see one of her favorite trees in that unexpected place?

Now that I've thought this out a little, I'm starting to see a pattern I could make from this. I fairly recently decided that the main tension in the Epic, as it is in so many epics, is between Destiny and Free Will. It'll be a philosophical point, but it was also play out in some fairly literal ways.The rainbows represent her crazy fantastical destiny, so whenever I decide to inform or remind the readers of MC's Incredible Sparkly Destiny, I'll shove the rainbows into the forefront. Whenever I want to show MC resisting the siren call of fate or generally engaging in some independent thought - damn the consequences! - it'll be trees, trees, trees.

The more I ponder this, the more I like it. Rainbows are ethereal, beautiful creations of light and dancing drops of water, suspended in the sky and eternally out of grasp. They're rare, airy visions with religious overtones - perfect to stand in for destiny! Trees, on the other hand, have a much more lively kind of beauty, and in addition to decorating the landscape, they also serve some pragmatic functions, and they can weather a lot of abuse. They're literally down to earth (groan), fitting for Free Will and Independence. I still have to consider whether I want to do a particular tree or trees in general; both approaches have their own charms.

I'm happy to report that this was another productive post. Until next time, creative blog.