Two main points here: Climate Change and Multiple Gods
Okay, so the first analogy I'm sharing from a Fora.tv lecture on the politics of climate change and how poorly it's been discussed in the media (here). The analogy is looking at one snow storm to disprove the existence of Global Warming. The professor explains that it's like trying to determine Willie Mays cumulative batting average by looking at July of 1958. Which is a great way of thinking abou it.
The second analogy is one that I came up with this morning while thinking about where to take the story that I'm writing (link here). The story revolves around a 24 year old woman who is able to take away syptoms of illness and therefore increase the quality of life of the people in the town she lives in. The problem? There's a group of people who apsolutely hate her--and sue me if they look like my idea of demon-spawn: Christians so certain about their own superiority that they spew hatred instead of all the good parts of Christianity--love of your neighbors.
Well, while working through the scene where she confronts the mother of her love interest (I write romances, sue me again), who is a member of the offending church, the mother asks something about whether Scarlet (the main character) believes in God. Scarlet says that it's probably not the same God as the Browns, which, of course, frightens the mother because Christians are notoriously very unhappy with the idea of more than one "True God". Scarlet tries to get out of a theological debate, but the mother's curiosity overwhelms. Scarlet then comes up with this wonderful analogy to the idea of multiple Gods:
"Picture the maple tree outside. Is it the only maple tree in the world? No, of course not. There are maples all over the country and they are all different. They are all affected by the environment where they grow--by the minute differences in nitrogen and phosphorous levels--by whether they are in a city or the country--by whether someone cares for it or not. This is the same for God. The theological being is completely different for everyone--it doesn't matter whether it's two people sitting next to each other in a pew or two people where one goes to a Catholic church and one goes to a Methodist church. I call this multiple Gods. Few people would agree with the Phelps' that their God is your God, and yet they came to their conclusion reading the same book as all other Christians--just as all maples start out with the basic book of "maple-ness" that is then altered by the environment that they grow."
I'm not sure if that debate will make it into the final draft--especially since the story is no where near the point where that discussion is held. I write linearly--I start a story at the beginning and write until it ends--but I imagine the story for months to see how it can get to where it goes. I probably lose a lot of great material because I brainstorm only within my brain, but then again, it's those key events that you know need to go into the story because you keep going back to them.
Okay, so the first analogy I'm sharing from a Fora.tv lecture on the politics of climate change and how poorly it's been discussed in the media (here). The analogy is looking at one snow storm to disprove the existence of Global Warming. The professor explains that it's like trying to determine Willie Mays cumulative batting average by looking at July of 1958. Which is a great way of thinking abou it.
The second analogy is one that I came up with this morning while thinking about where to take the story that I'm writing (link here). The story revolves around a 24 year old woman who is able to take away syptoms of illness and therefore increase the quality of life of the people in the town she lives in. The problem? There's a group of people who apsolutely hate her--and sue me if they look like my idea of demon-spawn: Christians so certain about their own superiority that they spew hatred instead of all the good parts of Christianity--love of your neighbors.
Well, while working through the scene where she confronts the mother of her love interest (I write romances, sue me again), who is a member of the offending church, the mother asks something about whether Scarlet (the main character) believes in God. Scarlet says that it's probably not the same God as the Browns, which, of course, frightens the mother because Christians are notoriously very unhappy with the idea of more than one "True God". Scarlet tries to get out of a theological debate, but the mother's curiosity overwhelms. Scarlet then comes up with this wonderful analogy to the idea of multiple Gods:
"Picture the maple tree outside. Is it the only maple tree in the world? No, of course not. There are maples all over the country and they are all different. They are all affected by the environment where they grow--by the minute differences in nitrogen and phosphorous levels--by whether they are in a city or the country--by whether someone cares for it or not. This is the same for God. The theological being is completely different for everyone--it doesn't matter whether it's two people sitting next to each other in a pew or two people where one goes to a Catholic church and one goes to a Methodist church. I call this multiple Gods. Few people would agree with the Phelps' that their God is your God, and yet they came to their conclusion reading the same book as all other Christians--just as all maples start out with the basic book of "maple-ness" that is then altered by the environment that they grow."
I'm not sure if that debate will make it into the final draft--especially since the story is no where near the point where that discussion is held. I write linearly--I start a story at the beginning and write until it ends--but I imagine the story for months to see how it can get to where it goes. I probably lose a lot of great material because I brainstorm only within my brain, but then again, it's those key events that you know need to go into the story because you keep going back to them.
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