I should probably warn you that I like to play with words like those of my youth played with tinker toys. A dictionary to me is a construction set. And the chief cornerstone is already laid in my worldview, so let the building begin. By the way, my foreman allows extensive remodeling to take place and that is ever so reassuring because if the construction is left to me, well - we’ll just not go there shall we?
Now then, playing forward off the inaugural post to this newly birthed blog, the opening line of my ‘techno-stalking’ WIP hints at something dire … injection into story.
As such, I would like to visit for a moment the ‘dictionarified’ take on the word ‘dire’ just to make sure we are on the same page.
dire:
1. causing or involving great fear or suffering; dreadful; terrible
2. indicating trouble, disaster, misfortune, or the like
3. urgent, desperate
4. warning of or having dreadful or terrible consequences; calamitous
5. fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless
Friday the 13th notwithstanding, these definitions certainly sound ‘curse-worthy’ to me … in the sense that humanity is fallen, is fallen. I mentioned earlier today on a fellow crafter’s blog the following:
At writer’s conferences we hear the mantra, “conflict, conflict, conflict” - raising the stakes, etc.
Put your protagonist into trouble and heap it on. hmmmm, sounds rather dire to me.
But is not all of life … biblical stories going forward, a retelling of the tale of dire? Does not God’s Law point to our dire condition? Sad to behold but there are many who are lost … asking the question, “Saved from what?”
Dire straits! That’s what.
But, and it is indeed a Big But - the forgiven have the blessed assurance of redemption. For that reason, story works. And we can stand and say Rejoice! and again I say, Rejoice! For we have something to rejoice about.
Methinks that is why story is so compelling. Because dire preps us for The Way to hope. Forgive me for playing with words here (something I love to do) …
“Dire-ctions to hope!” Maybe I should rename my blog to that instead. hmmmm.
I guess in a verbose and roundabout way I am trying to convey this idea that dire is the state of our present reality - with communities of disonance & imbalance. That invokes an aura of built-in tension which fuels story.
So even if our fiction doesn’t appear to have neat and tidy happy endings or elements where ’temporal’ good prevails … still, its all good! No doubt from the perspective of present reality, many who witnessed the martyrs would be hard pressed to color those experiences as good. And yet, from the perspective of God and his highly mysterious ways - It all works together for Good.
I am “dire-ing” to know what you think.
Blessings,
david w. fry