Pondering two and a half days at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, I’m appreciating how the inner scaffolding of a story impacts the enjoyment and resonance for readers.
Perhaps it came home to me most in Callie Stoker’s presentation titled “Allegory in Your Subtext.”
She chose the film “Jurassic Park” to illustrate what she means by allegory with an eye to showing what it can do. What’s the film about when examined through the allegory lens? It’s about preparing for parenthood, Stoker said. She went on to show how Dr. Adam Grant’s thoughts about children and behavior toward them evolve through the film. I didn’t know this but there are many discussions about this aspect of the film to be found online.
That example and others have me examining my own work through the allegory lens, both work that I consider finished and projects that are in process.
Stoker, who’s CEO of an editing service company titled The Manuscript Doctor, offered three workshops, all of them full of ideas for how I can think more deeply about the connective tissue in my stories.
Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now 