Last month Dave King posted about ideas in stories, highlighting this technique drawn from long-form journalism: “treat ideas as characters and tell a story about them.” That started me thinking about the Greek slave called Aesop and his pithy fables with their sharp points.
For instance, the tale of the the ass in the lion’s skin. In this fable, a too-clever ass puts on a lion’s skin and walks into town. The townspeople are terrified…until the animal brays, revealing himself as an ass. The moral of the story is, “When you talk too much, you can reveal too much.” Point noted, at least by some of us outside the Beltway.
Now, fables traditionally are brief. Parables generally are too. As with jokes, they are set up quickly and quickly deliver their surprise punch, the moral. Fiction, on the other hand, is a long-form art. Fables and parables can be long too, however, as allegories can as well, which is why we can find them still today on bookstore shelves.
The story patterns of parable, fable and allegory were definitely not retired after Edmund Spenser and John Bunyan. Their methods can be found in fiction such as 1984, Animal Farm, The Pearl, Lord of the Flies, Siddhartha, Watership Down, The Alchemist, The Thief of Always, The Time Keeper, Eyes Wide Open, The Life of Pi, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and many others.
We all enjoy such tales but few of us would attempt them, or want to. They’re…what? Too simple? Too easy? Unsophisticated? Akin to folk tales, fairy tales, sermons? No one wants to tell stories so plain, purposeful, obvious, or full of characters who are anthropomorphized animals. Right? Maybe, but the methods of parables, fables and allegories can give us some powerful storytelling tools, even when our story patterns are not strictly those of Spenser and Bunyan.
A parable is short and has a point. A fable uses animals as stand-ins for humans. An allegory uses a different world as a stand in for ours. Those, however, are only the most obvious characteristics of such stories. Each type of tale also requires us to recognize a truth. Each has intentional meaning. Their objective is not to capture life but to embrace an ideal. Their characters represent distilled human qualities and their story worlds embody universal conditions of life. Their aim is to change our behavior.
Parables, fables and allegories make judgments. They are not post-modern or morally neutral. They assume good or bad, right or wrong. They recommend caution and provide direction. Their power rests in their truths. Their appeal is that they show us how to live. Is that out of keeping with our cultural moment?
Our western culture extolls inclusion and diversity, yet I would argue that we are pummeled by judgments. Daily. Relentlessly. We are not politically correct, you see, or we are too much so. We should work harder but vacation more. We must protect our kids but not helicopter hover. We must not cause girls to obsess about weight but we must also remember that we Americans are obese. Passing judgment is a universal habit and our unending burden. We can’t win.
On top of all that, we live in a world where no one is pure, the game is zero sum, the prize is an empty throne, and morality is relative. When there are no standards, no absolute right or absolute wrong, no guys wholly good nor wholly bad, shouldn’t we forget morality and disdain good-versus-evil, leaving those bankrupt values to kiddies’ picture books and adolescent superhero movies? Isn’t it better for mature fiction to eschew strong meaning, demure, merely “illuminate”, and take no stand?
Haven’t we had enough of judgement?
It feels that way, but I don’t think we will ever lose our desire to know right from wrong, good from bad. We forever want to know the best way to be. It’s true that heavy-handed morality persuades no one. (The literary form known as the morality tale died for a reason.) However, it’s equally true that when we feel lost in the night we search for beacons, bonfires, and lighthouses. We pray to God. We navigate by the stars.
The complexity of the modern world causes us to crave simplicity. Angst seeks relief. In literature, anxiety is expressed through paradox, irony, contradictions, dilemmas, hypocrisy, and the great imperative of conflict. But always the tide of stories runs toward resolution. Critics may deconstruct texts, denigrate authorial intent, or call the desired effects of stories affective fallacies. Let them. The fact is, we crave catharsis. We long to be transported, if not transformed. We adore beauty, which is to say that we love what is good. We dig plots because they have a purpose. The interpretation of a text that matters the most is our own.
I said earlier that the power of parables, fables and allegories rests in their truths. To tell a truth is not to pass judgment, but to declare what is right, to share what we have in common, and to inspire us to be better. No one wants to be condemned, but we all long to be lifted up. Judgement is oppressive, but truth sets us free.
Who are our beacons? Where are our stars? Those are you, or more precisely your characters. To tap into the power of parables, fables and fairy tales, try these approaches:
- What is a universal truth about the world in which we live? Build your story world on that foundation. Make that truth the core of your society, both its founding principle and first law.
- Give someone in your story world absolute authority. Make this authority unquestionable, and create punishment for those who dare to question it.
- Create an unbreakable Rule. Enforce it. Who flaunts The Rule? Bring about that character’s ruin.
- Box your protagonist into a choice of how to act. If your protagonist does right, what will he or she lose? If your protagonist does wrong, what will he or she gain?
- What is your protagonist’s code? Write it out. Make it fail. Whose code is better? Let that character win—temporarily.
- List your secondary characters. Each one embodies a basic human trait. Make each one even more representative of that trait.
- Simplify your premise into one idea. Base your story on one question. Force your protagonist into one dilemma. Reduce your protagonist’s choices to two, A or B.
- When your protagonist realizes the right thing to do, and does it, bestow a big reward. If another character does wrong, take away everything and destroy that person.
The stories and parables in the Bible have endured for a reason. They convey timeless truths. Those truths can be found in the fables of many cultures, as well. Even economic and ethical principles are conveyed in a story framework. Timeless and surprising truths might emerge in your current novel, too. Heck, why not?
Are you afraid of being obvious? Didactic? Artless? The nice thing about fables, parables and allegories is that their meaning sneaks up on us. Because we are borne along by the current of a story, we don’t immediately see where we are going. The ultimate point, when we arrive at it, takes us by surprise. It lurks metaphorically and reveals itself when we are ready to see it.
Springing a point on readers isn’t artless, it’s artful. It’s welcome. When the point is a truth, we don’t turn away. We become better, and are glad for it. So, go ahead and steal from Aesop. He wasn’t stoned for telling truths. You won’t be either.
And hey, Aesop’s methods are public domain, so it’s not really stealing anyway.
How might the methods of fables, parables or allegories be applied in your WIP? What’s the point you want to make? What’s the truth you are telling?
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About Donald Maass
Donald Maass is president of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. He has written several highly acclaimed craft books for novelists including The Breakout Novelist, The Fire in Fiction, Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist.
Steven Erickson’s Malazan: Book of the Fallen series is a dark, gritty 10 book epic fantasy series. It sprawls across numerous continents, dozens or hundreds of characters, and contains a lot of the most evil actions that have ever been put into my head by a book. Essentially, it’s a darker Game of Thrones with less politics, more soldering, and a lot more thought put into the themes and history of the world.
And its main thematic thrust is the necessity of mercy. You’d be hard-pressed to find the word “mercy” mentioned at all, but every book builds characters and situations around it. Who gets mercy? Who deserves mercy? Does anyone? Does someone need to deserve mercy to receive? What happens when someone rejects mercy? What happens when the justification of mercy is used to punish someone, instead of free them? What forms can mercy take?
These questions aren’t discussed in the open in the books, but the internal and interpersonal struggles are apparent across most of the characters. And sometimes, evil people get rewarded. And sometimes, merciful people get punished.
I would argue that this approach, for adults, is a lot more effective than an Aesop-style, “Person A did a bad thing, got punished. Person B did a good thing, got rewarded.” Adults are used to (or should be used to) living in a messy world, and as they say, “The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.”
I’d say morality tales failed not just because of how blunt they were, but because of how dissonant they were with the real world. It’s nice to say that liars will meet their downfall, but then take a look at our leaders. Will they receive their comeuppance? Probably not.
By treating mercy as a complex, multifaceted concept, Erickson examines it in situations that are not dissonant with the real world, and presents innumerable circumstances to which it applies, both large and small. Someone who has read the Malazan series can’t help but be infused with Erickson’s exploration of mercy, and that is when true change occurs.
John Sandford’s new book Saturn Run feels like a fable about Mercy (spoilers).
In it, two spacecraft (American and Chinese) are returning to Earth from Saturn. The American spacecraft was a little faster than the Chinese on the way out, but the Chinese is a little faster in short distances. The Americans gained a prize at Saturn that the Chinese want, and the Chinese damaged their ship trying to catch that prize first.
Now the Chinese ship sends out a distress call that is almost certainly a ploy, and you’d expect the American Captain to think about it, but she doesn’t. In space you must attempt to answer distress calls by international law. The Americans meet up with the Chinese and give them help, the Chinese use this opportunity to comandeer the American ship.
Since the American Captain didn’t think over the decision, I’d say this is a fable set up with the point being that Mercy is paid for by being vulnerable, and morality tales are still being published. You have to look harder for them, but they are out there.
I wasn’t aware of Steven Erickson’s series before, but I will definitely read it now. Mercy. Great topic. Erickson obviously raises the question–who deserves mercy–and I’m keen to see how he answers it.
Or, more to the point, how he causes me to answer it. After all, morality–what is right, what is wrong–dwells not in fiction but in us.
Which I think is what you’re saying. Erickson strongly provokes. He has a purpose and that is to awaken us–which is the beginning of change.
Thanks so much for commenting, Azuaron.
Great topic, Don. In my first trilogy I included parables and fables inside of the story, as tools for one character to enlighten another. I made it sort of a standard among the Skolani, to remind someone of one of “the Old Tales,” to moderate their behavior or to remind them of something important they were overlooking. I started with the lesson I wanted to tell, then worked backward (as one would, I suppose). I’m not sure if readers enjoyed them, but they sure were fun to write. And I felt they deepened the culture of one of my primary tribal groups.
I suppose if I have a primary allegorical lesson, it’s that every time my protagonist compromises his principles or the virtues he’s been taught in the service of “the greater good,” he takes a step toward the ruin of what he set out to strive for.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve strayed too close to allegory, but it’s always been by accident. I mean, who doesn’t see some sort of allegory when comparing the Roman Empire with modern America? But it generally crumbles under any sort of serious analysis.
Every time I feel like I’m straying toward it, I remember Tolkien’s observations and warnings about allegory in fantasy: “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
Even when I see close comparisons to what’s happening inside the beltway to what I have on the page, it’s always in hindsight. I don’t sit down with the intention of “making Dania great again.” Indeed, the first version I wrote of this story was started in the spring of ’11, long before the rise of nationalism (or is it a resurrection of nationalism?). I think if I tried to be purposeful, it would stray into Tolkien’s disliked “detectable presence,” which would stink of preaching or moralizing. On top of all of that, I want my protagonist to be relatable and to keep readers rooting for his redemption. I don’t see too much of that sort or relatability and redeemable quality in today’s unfolding real-life wild tale. I suppose redemption is always possible. Maybe that will be what offers both the surprise outcome and the moral. Who can tell?
Thanks for jogging the noggin this morning. I’m going to start my writing day by looking up those Skolani parables. I can’t quite remember them all, but they’re sure to remind me how much fun this gig can be.
Hey Vaughn.
Tolkien’s preference for history over allegory, ask me, doesn’t chance that stories have underlying values and points to make. Tolkien did.
What I’m advocating today is using values and making points more deliberately. Maybe I’m looking for moral clarity in a world that sometimes seems to have none.
I like your idea of customizing fables for your story world. We do that in our own worlds. Regionally. In our families. We pass along the lessons we’ve learned…which means we still need to learn lessons.
Wouldn’t you say?
Oh, I absolutely agree, there’s a distinction between purposeful moralizing and making points about values deliberately. And certainly Tolkien sought to make points about values.
Just for kicks, I just googled “Lessons from The Lord of the Rings.” The first Google page was filled with articles and essays, most listing 4,5, or 6 (one had 7) lessons to be learned from LoTR. I scanned through the top four referals, and you know what? There was very little overlap! That’s a lot of reader interpretation going on.
And they all felt pretty true to me, too. But you know, none of them listed my top takeaway, which is that, though you can’t go home again, you can preserve and pass along the best virtues of “home” for others.
Thanks again for the thought provocation!
Your point about putting your character in a box is quite timely. We watched a movie last night where 8 people had to stay in a room for 80 minutes to try and answer a question. A question they weren’t sure how to find. Over the course of the movie, group dynamics reflect the stress of the situation. People’s true natures are revealed, good or bad. The idea of putting my characters together into the same box, figuring out what qualities lie at the very base of their being, is intriguing me. Taking that information and leaving hints or breadcrumbs through the story to give flashes of unseen flaws or graces.
Can you spend too much time on character development before you begin to write? Not much free time in front of a keyboard, but plenty of thinking time lately.
sounds like a fascinating movie – care to share the title?
The movie is called “Exam” and I’m pretty sure we watched it on Netflix or Amazon. Another similar one-room-crisis situation is called “The Circle”. Both show group dynamics reacting to stress and reveal who people truly are at their core. Definitely an interesting exercise/study into how to make your character seem like one thing when deep down they’re something entirely different.
It’s too much character development if you never write any manuscript pages, I’d say.
As a shameless devotee of fairytale and myth, I love what you’re talking about here, Don. There’s a school of thought that fairytales were originally vehicles to transfer arcane knowledge to those ‘with ears to hear and eyes to see.” The less arcane notion is that they were teaching stories passed down in oral cultures. Ours, it seems, has become ‘oral’ in a way, people screaming at one another and Tweeting like mad. I, for one, am craving sanity. But underneath the noise, I believe the basics still apply ( ‘The Emperors New Clothes’ is eerily relevant these days) and I think that our job as writers is to swim in that underground stream, to write characters who make hard choices, fall down, get up, and ride out the consequences. In this present-day climate of ‘truthiness’, I,too, am craving simplicity- not the black and white kind so much as stories about our universal struggle with the dark and the light. Stories that, as you say, “run toward resolution.” Thanks for this!
Craving sanity. Yep, I get that.
I have planned all along to have the child character in my novel love a fable. She sees in it something simple and lovable, how the animals act, maybe even that they make her laugh. But the fable must also underline a truth, one that the novel is addressing. Works of fiction should always entertain, capture and carry away, but they can also bring the reader into a world of truth. Great post.
We need new fables, right? Can’t have enough of them. So, yes, go for it. (You might even get a title out of it.)
Robin LaFevers and Donald Maass back to back makes for an incredibly inspired Writing Wednesday! Thank you so much, WU!
I have a question about the last of your approaches/prompts, to bestow a big reward on a character after they do “the right thing”. Do you see that happening at any moment during the story or is it more of a resolution? I have the Maass Mantra “make it worse” on a loop in my head, and this idea of a reward feels more like a finality than a push forward in the story. Or maybe the reward could risk being taking away by whoever has the unquestionable authority? Hmmm…
This post just elevated my game.
Sky high.
Thank you!
Well, classically speaking rewards are bestowed at the end. Dessert after dinner, not before. But who knows? Any pattern might work.
Thank you for the timely reminder.
The classics are a great resource. My middle-grade WIP takes place in a liminal environ at the edge of real time. My modern characters sink or swim with and against some serious anthropomorphic prototypes back in ancient Egypt as well as the Greek Furies.
Like Aesop’s animals, the animal-headed gods of Egypt celebrated the specific qualities observed in the animal species. Bast, the cat goddess (shown with a human female body and a cat’s head) represents motherhood and nurturing as witnessed in the feline species with their kittens (I hasten to emphasize this only applies to domestic felines… wild lion dads aren’t always as forgiving). Similarly, Sekhmet the lioness goddess is both a protagonist and antagonist huntress to a main character wandering her territory as she has dual aspects of healer and destroyer.
You never know which one’s going to show up, but you can count on learning a fundamental truth the hard way.
Those Egyptian gods. Far ahead of us. Heads of cats and ravens, too. Maybe we should always be thinking of characters that way, as well? You are, sounds like. Cool idea.
The deeper and more important the moral/point/judgment, the better the entertainment value of the story needs to be.
No one wants to realize they’ve been preached at.
But if the point of stories that matter isn’t to examine – and test – what is right and what isn’t, so the reader doesn’t always have to find out via personal experience, then what is?
Exactly.
Don, thanks for adding this perspective on the value of reconnecting to our roots. “When we feel lost in the night we search for beacons, bonfires, and lighthouses. We pray to God. We navigate by the stars.”
Now that to me is one call to fiction writers in this century and particularly the decade ahead as we stare into economic and political uncertainty, and the effects of accelerating technological growth. Liquid living is turning many could-be readers into consumers of distilled information that imparts at best a relative sense of truth. I’m reminded much of Tolkien’s perspective of Ents viewing men in their haste.
My protagonist, oddly enough, is a lover of stories in a world where that love has no place. You agreed with me last month that his mentor’s declaration, “books are for fools” stirred your hackles, but the voice is also the voice of the worldview which Jak (protagonist) encounters. (For what it’s worth, that mentor ends up dead early on, leaving Jak to have to find his next steps. While that might sound like a way of illustrating the point that his belief is off, the fact remains that Jak’s first mentor, who taught him to read and the value of the old stories, when he was only 6 winters old, ended up dead too.) Jak’s journey is very much about finding his place as a lover of stories in a world where corruption and relative knowledge is the tempest which surrounds him, but he goes ahead with this guiding star anyway, even if it is hidden. He will encounter adventure, the promise of love, the allure of Necromancy and destiny, but always Jak’s drive is to understand that wondrous world he first stared into when he escaped into his books and found comfort in his years of wandering.
I suppose I am telling a bit of an allegory. I wouldn’t reject this as Tolkien did, but I would say that my process is asymmetric insofar as the representation of this world and its current issues is deliberately different in many respects so as to speak to (I hope) timeless truths. I read a lot of articles on history, culture, science, and biography and these all work their way in. One thing I have found is this: the more I read about Greece and pre-Christian Rome, or the more I read about our modern world before innovation took over, the more I am convinced that in order to survive intellectually in the coming decades, we need to draw on the past to survive. There is wisdom, ancient and mighty as tree roots, buried in the tapestry of our past, our stories, and my drive as a writer is to bring those to life for those who would listen.
I often feel like Jak in doing this, outnumbered, irrelevant, writing self-satisfying stuff that no one will care about. The elves, after all, did diminsh and go into the West. But I very much care about what I do and, like Jak, on I go, because it’s the only thing I know how to do.
We need to draw on the past to survive, yes, but will we remember it? Sometimes I wonder if we do. We could use a reminder, so write on.
Don, you continue to encourage me that I’m not whistling down the wind as I continue to work on this story that is fundamentally about values. My protagonist does have a strong code, one I actually started the WIP with the intention of disproving. Yet as I’ve pitted her against one challenge after another (yep, making it worse), I’ve actually started to come around to her way of thinking. Not completely, but the convolutions of the story are taking me to a more nuanced position. Off to work on your other questions now! Thanks.
Most welcome.
I love this so much, Don! (Of course, my books are fairy tale retellings- including the one I sold after BONI.) For me, fairy tales were always a return to beauty and awe.
Any sort of retellings (or reimaginings) makes me think of poetry. I’m no poet, but I’ve heard some describe how the rhyme and meter constraints of, say, a sonnet, encourage creativity. Working within a fable or tale or larger framework has always sparked my imagination.
Fairy tale retellings are ready-made for making points, so bravo, especially when the point is a twist on the original, too.
I find so much to nod at in this piece. That’s all. Just me, nodding away.
(Nods back)
Hey all,
I’m on a cross-country car trip with my family, so apologies for my absence but please do discuss, I’ll check in this evening from Rapid City.
Hello from Mitchell, South Dakota, BTW, home of the world’s only Corn Palace. Yes, covered in murals made of corn cobs. Has to be seen.
-Don
Yay for cross country trips. I loved both South and North Dakota. Safe travels with your family, Don. God speed!
Great post. I’ve always enjoyed fairytales and fables and Enid Blyton’s Stories for Naughty Children and Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children are fun, even if message-y.
But stories always make a point, no? I had to write a story to answer the question: Are you your brother’s keeper? I reluctantly had to admit that it’s true, no matter how much we’d rather give that brother to others.
Corn palace? Better get to work on my kingdom of cherries to keep up!
Safe travels!
Don’t miss WALL DRUGS, an American experience. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g54848-d145078-Reviews-Wall_Drug-Wall_South_Dakota.html And of course Mount Rushmore and Chief Crazy Horse. HAVE FUN.
Wall Drugs is crazy. 5¢ coffee? (Well, you get what you pay for.) We zip down to Mount Rushmore tomorrow morning. So far, South Dakota has not let us down. What a great state.
Hi, Don:
You’ve taken a peek at my current WIP, so you know the mythic backdrop. As I continue to write, I increasingly see an almost Odyssean journey unfolding, and that feels right.
But the mythic nature of the story invites a kind of characterization that feels more like I’m creating types than human beings, and that does not feel right.
A type is character confined within his predictability — What he is determines what he does. Characters are the opposite: What they do defines who they are. They are capable of mistakes and transformation.
And so I often find myself going back and reworking a characterization so a flesh and blood person begins to emerge.
And yet I wonder if then I’m diminishing the purity of the truth I intend to convey.
That truth is: Wisdom lies in selfless love. And that requires us to forgive our enemies, embrace the outcast, and heal the wounded.
My task, then, is to portray those enemies, outcasts, and victims as real human beings, without dampening the effect of the moral lesson. I need to show why the enemies inspire hatred and fear (and yet can still be forgiven); why the outcasts engender disgust (and yet can still be embraced); why the victims repel my compassion (and yet still inspire it).
Thanks for the help as I think out loud. Or, rather, in print.
It’s a meaty piece you’re working on, looking forward to more.
Thanks for this, Don. I really loved everything about this post, including the examples you use to make your point. There’s a reason those novels still resonate. One of my all-time favorites is Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach — so simple, yet so inspiring. It feels larger than life every time I read it.
Hope you’re having a great road trip!
I didn’t now while reading this post (I get it in my email) who the author was. I was thinking all along, “wow, this writer’s good.” And then I got to the end and saw it was Donald Maass and said out loud. “Oh, it’s Maass, no wonder.” And had to come to the blog and make a comment. Brilliant post. But then, it’s Maass, so…
How did I miss the Corn Palace? Sounds like your vacation could inspire a fable or two. Enjoy the cooler weather!
I like the suggestion of simplifying a novel with one truth at its core. It becomes the subliminal thread to weave the story together. Brilliant.
I really appreciate your writing tips. I’ve been in major revision mode since your class at PPWC. At some point, I’ll have to send it out. *gulp*
I’m a bit late to the party, but I had to drop in and say that you had me at The Thief of Always. I read that book when I was about 16, and was equally enamoured and disturbed by it. Obviously, I bought myself a copy, and reread it often. There are two things I find particularly interesting about it:
1) After 24 years of consistent re-readings, it still enchants and terrifies me as much as it did the first time I read it.
2) Every time I read it, it imparts a slightly different message, depending on what’s going on in my life.
For such a short, simple book (Written for children? Pshaw.), it stacks up with some of the most enduring stories I’ve ever read.
My current WIP explores the nature of myth and morality through the medium of a character having purposely created a set of “old stories” (to use Vaughn’s terminology) to guide the behaviour of people in her community–but what happens when those morality tales are based on lies? How do people overcome false or unhelpful stories they’ve built their entire lives on? What do we do when the stories of our youth cause pain and suffering to others?