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apparently recognized the need for a vision quest and
played the ruby slipper card close to the vest.
    So, Dorothy bids farewell to her friends in Oz,
clicks her ruby slippers and wakes up in Kansas where she is
surrounded by her Aunt and Uncle and the farm workers, all of whom
are ciphers for the characters she met in Oz. Or, perhaps, vice
versa.
    Dorothy now recognizes the value of what she has and
is properly grateful for it. Which allows us the change to step out
of the story, since we now know that it’s safe for Dorothy to
continue on her journey. We trust that she will do well because
we’ve seen her growth, and we know the cost.
    If you look at the first Star Wars flicks,
you can see an almost identical process in Luke’s journey from
annoying dust farmer to someone who can blow up a Death
Star.
    So, that’s the short and long of the Three Act
Structure. You may not be able to watch Wizard of Oz the same way
again; and if you’re a true writer, you’ll be forever plagued with
trying to identify the act breaks in every book, TV show or movie
you ever watch. Don’t blame me…blame the Greeks.

    Jonathan
Maberry—http://www.jonathanmaberry.com
    ###

    20. VISUAL STORYTELLING: IMAGERY
    By Alexandra Sokoloff
    http://www.alexandrasokoloff.com

    In film, every movie has a production
designer—one artist (and these people are genius level, let me tell
you) who is responsible, in consultation with the director and with
the help of sometimes a whole army of production artists) for the
entire look of the film – every color, costume, prop, set
choice.
    With a book, guess who’s the production
designer? YOU are.
    As it happens, Michael brought home the
anniversary edition of the ALIEN series recently. I could go on all
week about what a perfect movie the first ALIEN is structurally as
well, but for today - it’s a perfect example of brilliant
production design—the visual image systems are staggering.
    Take a look at those sets (created bySwiss
surrealist H.R. Giger). What do you see? Sexual imagery EVERYWHERE.
Insect imagery—a classic for horror movies. Machine imagery.
Anatomical imagery—the spaceships have very human-looking spines
(vertebrae and all), intestinal-looking piping, vulvic doors. And
the gorgeous perversity of the design is that the look of the film
combines the sexual and the insectoid, the anatomical with the
mechanical, throws in some reptilian, serpentine, sea-monsterish
under-the-sea-effects—to create a hellish vision that is as much a
character in the film as any of the character characters.
    Oh, and did I mention the labyrinth imagery?
Yes, once again, my great favorite—you’ve got a monster in a
maze.
    Those are very specific choices and
combinations. The sexual imagery and water imagery opens us up on a
subconscious level and makes us vulnerable to the horrors of
insects, machines and death. It also gives us a clear visual
picture of a future world in which machines and humans have evolved
together into a new species. It’s unique, gorgeous, and powerfully
effective.
    Obviously Terminator (the first) is
a brilliant use of machine/insect imagery as well.
    I know I’ve just about
worked these examples to death, but nobody does image systems
better than Thomas Harris. Silence of the
Lambs and Red
Dragon are serial killer novels, but Harris
elevates that overworked genre to art, in no small part due to his
image systems.
    In Silence , Harris borrows heavily from
myth and especially fairy tales. You’ve got the labyrinth/Minotaur.
You’ve got a monster in a cage, a troll holding a girl in a pit
(and that girl is a princess, remember – her mother is American
royalty, a senator). You’ve got a twist on the “lowly peasant boy
rescues the princess with the help of supernatural allies” fairy
tale – Clarice is the lowly peasant who enlists the help of (one
might also say apprentices to) Lecter’s wizardlike perceptions to
rescue the princess. You have a twisted wizard in his cave