A "Dark" Plot

By the end of my summer seminar in Iowa, I had the outline of a basic plot. A believer in strong structure, Sandra encouraged us to build the bones of our stories by focusing on an important place or moment that could recur with greater significance as the story progressed.

I knew my place instantly: a barn.

In each of the three main houses of my childhood and college years, there has been a barn either behind the house or across the street. These barns were off-limits, for the most part, being either abandoned, the property of others, or both. The picture at the top of this post is the actual barn from 16th Street in Willmar, where I lived until 1976. It has since been torn down.

As a student of archetypes, I knew that a character's descent into a dark place is a common, if not essential, moment in a good plot. What's darker than a barn? I plotted Chase's visits to the barn quite deliberately as the framework of the overall structure.

As a student of psychology, I also knew that the descent into darkness represents a look into the unconscious. One's fears, especially, are revealed when that unconscious is glimpsed. As my character's defining fears were a) growing up and facing the challenges of moving into adolescence and b) making mistakes/being imperfect, the barn presented a perfect symbol for his childhood (which must be faced and ultimately left behind) and the place where he would make his biggest mistakes.

Whew. All that to say, the barn at the top of this post symbolizes all that for me, as well. When we left Willmar and moved to Kandiyohi the summer between my 2nd and 3rd grade year, part of my childhood remained behind. Interesting fact: They had turned the barn into a children's theater, which I never dared try out for.

Pop psych question of the day:  How much of my current love for live theater and even directing stems from a desire to get into that barn, to recapture my childhood, and to face my own fears?

Despite my firm efforts, I failed miserably in creating a character unlike myself.