Randy sez: I’m currently answering questions sent to me on June 2. So the questions are really piling up. I answer all questions and I answer them in the order they come in.

Personally, I don’t like too much symbolism, especially if they don’t flow nicely and seem forced, or an attempt to be funny but doesn’t work. What also bothers me a little are things like long poetic descriptions of nature (not that I don’t like poetry - I do! It’s just not something I want to read in a novel that I don’t expect to be a poetic novel). Then there are “innovative things” that aren’t innovative anymore, like “fat tears” and such.

All I’m saying is that sometimes it’s just easer on the eye to write simple instead of writing complex things that push you out of the story and make you frown. I learned that after writing my novel and then revising it a hundred times, usually making the text simpler because it often works better.

Yeah. I get that.

Like Randy said, symbolism needs to be organic and sprinkled lightly through the book. Too much and the reader may be turned off.

Don’t mistake symbolism for metaphor or simile. Symbolism goes much deeper than these. Symbolism rests on more mythic or heroic themes of human experience. You only use symbolism for important stuff. Don’t mess around trying to work out the symbolic component of a shopping list or the character getting a flat tire.

But if your character is being confronted with some deep aspect of his character and it requires him to change and mature, for example, then symbolism is appropriate.

Check out the basic forms of mythology and fantasy stories, such as the dark sea journey, the quest, the pilgrimage, the battle against the trickster figure, gaining wisdom from birds and animals, and other themes. It is these themes that are symbolic of the most basic of human experiences. And in any form of literature that symbolic component carries force when well handled.

If you maintain discipline in this area you will find that you won’t overuse symbolism in your writing.

BTW: I love symbolism when it’s executed correctly. The whole problem is that it’s a subjective topic. But, I agree if you have to explain it, it’s not symbolism – metaphor, perhaps, or omen if the character finds meaning in the symbol. I see symbolism much the same as using the setting to create mood… subtly is powerful.

Kim, can you or someone else tell me a good books to check out the basic forms of mythology and fantasy stories?

cheerio

Joseph Campbell’s 4 vol work on mythology is a foundation of symbolic understanding, C.G.Jung’s ‘Man and His Symbols’ is another starting point.
Booker’s ‘Seven Basic Plots’ takes some of that stuff into literary theory.

A websearch on ‘basic plots’ will turn up lots of interesting info, including some good critique of people like Booker (who bases much of his stuff on Jung).

It was to Joseph Campbell that Steven Speilberg turned when he was making Star Wars.