I may have mentioned that one of my goals is to
increase my writing output, increase my publication rate, and increase the
relevance of my writing. In my WRITING ADVICE column, I had started using an
article my sister sent me by Lisa Cron. She has
worked as a literary agent, TV producer, and story consultant for Warner
Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and others. She is a frequent speaker at
writers’ conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and
journalists. I am going to fuse the advice from her book WIRED FOR STORY with
my recent trip to South Korea. Why?
I made a discovery there. You’ll hear more about it in the future as I work to
integrate what I’m learning from the book, the startling things I found in
South Korea, and try and alter how I write in order to create characters that
people will care about, characters that will speak the Truth, and characters
that will clearly illustrate what I’m writing about.
“Remember when Luke has to drop the bomb
into the small vent on the Death Star? The story writer faces a similar
challenge of penetrating the brain of the reader. This book gives the
blueprints.” – David Eagleman
So…
One of the things
I noticed in South Korea is that they are very much a “1950s America” mentality.
Not saying that they’re American clones – the experience I related in my first
post should provide an abundance of evidence that they are not.
But their internal
morality, combined with an ancient culture – the best preserved Korean pottery dates
back 12,000 years – is far more practiced than our culture which is only a hair
over 200 years old and experiencing radical, constant, and wild change.
Americans of 1818 wouldn’t recognize the culture we have 200 years later (I
doubt an American from 1918 would recognize what has become of the country –
both good changes and not-so-good changes).
In fact,
comparatively, Americans have no culture. This is something much of the world
would agree with…
South Korea has taken
what is best about American culture and applied it to themselves. From a nation
ravaged by war sixty years ago, they boot-strapped themselves to one of the
five most technologically advanced cultures on Earth. Philosophically, they are
flexible and visionary and while the dominant religion is “none”, both Buddhism
and Christianity have helped shape the culture
They know their
past, and driven by a war that HAS NOT ENDED AND IS MERELY AN ARMISTICE
(definition: “a temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement of the warring
parties”), the key word here is “temporary”.
When I was there –
and before – whenever kids or young adults or even adults are in a picture,
they flash a “V”. As Americans, we think, “Awww…they’re flashing a 1960s
vintage peace sign! Isn’t that cute?” However, the “V” is victory – in the war
that is only at a temporary cease-fire – over North Korea, who once nearly
wiped South Korea out of history.
The everyday South
Korean goes about their business, assured that their morality and philosophy
are appropriate to the early 21st Century. The strange thing is that
both ARE. They do not, for the most part, lord their success and wealth over
others. Culture remains unchanged – sometimes to the negative (a friend of my
daughter-in-law is 41 and will likely not marry because in a country where “everyone”
has a cellphone and is literate (2015 = 97.6 (m: 99.2; f: 96.6) – and has a
college degree – he has a vegetable shop in the market. He lives in the back
with his parents. He’s not exactly “a catch”…)
At any rate, I discovered
several things when I was there.
1) South Koreans
are “space crazy”. They have started their space program from the same “rock
bottom” that the American space program started with.
2) As a rule,
South Koreans love their history.
3) South Koreans are science and technology crazy.
4) South Koreans (as clearly as I could gather it), have flipped the American paradigm of a house being the dream home, and an apartment a “way station” on the way to a home. South Koreans have had to build vertically both because of the mountainous geography and the “soft” stone geology – mountains are “low” but cannot hold the foundation of any construction steady. The apartment is the Korean goal; homes are passe.
5) South Koreans
are solidly rooted in a millennia-old culture.
6) Cheomseongdae is an ancient astronomical observatory that not only survived the southern advance of North Korea during the war, but is now a place Koreans visit. It has existed since roughly since 640 AD – about 1400 years.
7) South Korea is building at an incredible rate!
8) My son commented: “Koreans are aggressive drivers, but they’re not ANGRY drivers like Americans are.”
9) Ancient Korean “signature sticks” are now carved via a computer program…
10) A country with a population of 51 million (imagine the population of Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and the northern half of Texas…the area colloquially as Tornado Alley), they have few murders, rape is unusual, and children can pretty much safely walk several blocks through a major city to school.
All of these –
plus the National Fusion Research Institute in the middle of the country. Oh, and South
Korea’s first person in space was a woman and they have had a woman as president -- their 13th president...the US still hasn't had a woman in the Oval Office.
I think…and this
will be the basis of a series of stories: Korea will colonize Mars before
everyone else…
And this Lisa Cron
part? What do I want people to learn? I’m sure my main audience is American. I
think we need to learn that we’re a baby nation with almost no history. We like
to pride ourselves on our openness – but there is such a thing as being so open-minded
that our brains fall out. I think the current crisis of morality is a direct
result of that. We have no history, we have no direction, we prefer to listen
to voices in our echo chamber and not consider that ANYONE who is not echoing
us might have a valid point. We are into “black vs white” both in reality and
metaphorically.
I need to create
story to direct people’s thinking. OTOH, I also need to be part of ANY movement
to reintroduce people to the power of story…
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