The Kilted Writer

The Giver , by Lois Lowry, contains a lot of mind, body, and spirit symbolism on a variety of levels. First is Jonas and his two friends, Asher and Fiona. Jonas is the mind, Asher the body, and Fiona the spirit. Second is Jonas's family. His father is the spirit, his mother is the mind, and the children in the household collectively make up a body character. When examined individually, however, Jonas is the mind, Lily (his sister) is the spirit, and Gabriel (the child from the nursery they are nurturing during the night) is the body. I just glossed over this without giving any real reasons as to why this is true because I want to get into a slightly different topic. In my workshops, I often talk about occupations and their relation to the mind, body, and spirit symbolism. The Giver is a great example of the use of occupations to help strengthen your character symbolism. Spirit characters have a lot of compassion and tend to put their "cause" ahead of themselves. In...

A common question in my workshop is "Is all this mind, body, and spirit stuff an accident?" In other words, do writers intentionally include it in their work, or is it something so inherent in a good story that writers include it without even knowing they are doing so? Personally, I think some writers do it intentionally. When you read some books or series, the mind, body, and spirit symbolism is so tightly woven into the story it is hard to believe it is accidental. In other stories, though, the symbolism comes across as almost an afterthought, like in the movie Rush Hour , starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. The body and spirit characters are dominant throughout the film, but when needed to push the story forward, a mind character appears.  I don't know if the mind, body, and spirit symbolism in  Rush Hour was intentional or accidental. I would like to believe it was intentional, but it doesn't have to be. It's there because it works, accide...