Fundamental particles and inspiration

 This is one last blog post inspired by the essays in Philip Pullman’s  Daemon Voices.  In the essay ‘Fundamental Particles of Narrative’, he looks at what stories are and how they work, and looks at where inspiration comes from.

He says that the fundamental particles of stories are events, the smallest events we can find.  He calls these image schemas, and goes on to talk about how we get inspiration for our stories, how we use these image schemas.

Pullman says that, to him, “inspiration feels like discovery, not invention”.  “It feels like being blessed.  Something has come from somewhere else to refresh and strengthen me.”

I’ve felt that inspiration on many occasions, when my pen has brought forth an idea I haven’t consciously thought of.  It’s happening a lot with the story I’m re-writing now.  You’d think that I’d know all there is to know about a thirty-plus years old manuscript which I’ve rewritten several times over that period.  But, in the early-morning quiet of my writing sessions, I find myself creating a piece of a character’s backstory I didn’t previously know existed.

I can remember an occasion when this happened as I was writing in a coffee shop.  I was merrily scribbling down ideas - channelling them from elsewhere, there’s no other way to describe what was happening.  But it felt like my brain had split into two, because while I was writing, the logical side of my brain was observing what I wrote.  I can distinctly remember thinking “Where the heck did that come from?” at the moment the words appeared on my page. 

Going back to the idea of fundamental particles, Pullman says “There are many other fundamental particles… such as the journey…. or the one about balance, with equilibrium being disturbed or created… or the one in the form of a cycle… coming back to where you started.”

The journey particle is every high fantasy epic quest.  The balance story is about the rightful king of queen being restored to their throne.  For the cycle form, a fantasy book called The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison popped into my head.  It was written in the 1920s, and is a book about a long drawn-out war based on Viking sagas.  The war comes to an end in the last chapter of the book.  The warriors mope around, mourning the loss of their war.  The final image is of the Worm Ouroboros, up in the sky, a big dragon-like creature biting it’s tail, making a perfect circle.  And the warriors know that war is about to start again.

Pullman’s fundamental particle idea is an interesting way to analyse stories, but I don’t think it’s something I’d find helpful at the plotting stage.  It’s maybe something to look at after I’ve finished a chapter plan, to help me discover the shape of the story, and to help with writing the blurb for it.