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Cása Árabe
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Index / Activities
Film: "Only Doves Fly" by Concha Fernández
Nights of Ramadan 2019 in Cordoba
May 17, 20197:30 p.m.
On Friday, May 17, we will be screening this short-subject documentary film at our headquarters in Cordoba, with attendance by the director. An event forming part of the Nights of Ramadan.
In a Flash: Morocco
From March 15, 2019 until May 19, 2019Mondays to Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:30 to 8:00 p.m. Closed on weekends and holidays.
After being held in Madrid, Casa Árabe is hosting this exhibition at its headquarters in Cordoba, where it can be seen from March 15 through May 19. This is one of the "guest exhibitions" at the Sixteenth Photography Biennial of Cordoba.
This Long Journey into your Gaze
From March 20, 2019 until May 19, 2019From Monday to Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Sundays and holidays from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Casa Árabe hosts, for the first time in Spain, a retrospective of the work of Rachïd Koraichi, an artist of great international recognition for his work in sculpture, installations, ceramics, textiles, etc.
"The Hajj: Road from the Western Caliphate
From March 27, 2019 until June 14, 2019Mondays through Fridays, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and 4:30 to 8:00 p.m. Closed on Sundays and holidays.
On Wednesday, March 27 at its Cordoba headquarters, Casa Árabe is officially opening this exhibition dedicated to the pilgrimage by Pablo Rojas, with oil paintings, watercolor paintings, etchings and engravings by the artist.
The still or "saadah," Arab alchemy
From April 24, 2019 until December 15, 2019Mondays through Fridays, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:30 to 8:00 p.m. Closed on weekends and holidays.
Casa Árabe's headquarters in Cordoba is hosting this exhibition from April 24 through December 15. It has been organized within the framework of the first International Symposium on Hermetic Philosophy.
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text:
Oxydoras is een geslacht van straalvinnige vissen uit de familie van de doornmeervallen (Doradidae).

Soorten
 Oxydoras kneri Bleeker, 1862
 Oxydoras niger (Valenciennes, 1821)
 Oxydoras sifontesi Fernández-Yépez, 1968

Doornmeervallen

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: AspNet Identity: How to change default table names without effects on Role Authorization I'm using AspNet IdentitySample project installed from nuget.
after install,i changed the default table names with the following code:
   public class ApplicationDbContext : IdentityDbContext<ApplicationUser>
    {
        public ApplicationDbContext()
            : base("DefaultConnection", throwIfV1Schema: false)
        {
        }

        static ApplicationDbContext()
        {
            // Set the database intializer which is run once during application start
            // This seeds the database with admin user credentials and admin role
            Database.SetInitializer<ApplicationDbContext>(new ApplicationDbInitializer());
        }

        public static ApplicationDbContext Create()
        {
            return new ApplicationDbContext();
        }

        protected override void OnModelCreating(System.Data.Entity.DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
        {
            base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);

            modelBuilder.Entity<IdentityUser>().ToTable("Users");
            modelBuilder.Entity<ApplicationUser>().ToTable("Users");
            modelBuilder.Entity<IdentityUserRole>().ToTable("UserRoles");
            modelBuilder.Entity<IdentityUserLogin>().ToTable("UserLogins");
            modelBuilder.Entity<IdentityUserClaim>().ToTable("UserClaims");
            modelBuilder.Entity<IdentityRole>().ToTable("Roles");

        }
}

when i change AspNet Identity default table names, User.IsInRole("Admin") and [Authorize(Roles = "Admin")] always return false and i cant access to the UsersAdmin and RolesAdmin Pages.
Although the default user(admin@example.com) and role("Admin") already exists in the generated tables(Users,Roles and UserRoles).
Is there anything else that should be changed?
UPDATE:
this is my ApplicationDbInitializer class :
public class ApplicationDbInitializer : DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges<ApplicationDbContext>
{
    protected override void Seed(ApplicationDbContext context) {
        InitializeIdentityForEF(context);
        base.Seed(context);
    }

    //Create User=Admin@Admin.com with password=Admin@123456 in the Admin role
    public static void InitializeIdentityForEF(ApplicationDbContext db) {
        var userManager = HttpContext.Current.GetOwinContext().GetUserManager<ApplicationUserManager>();
        var roleManager = HttpContext.Current.GetOwinContext().Get<ApplicationRoleManager>();
        const string name = "admin@example.com";
        const string password = "Admin@123456";
        const string roleName = "Admin";

        //Create Role Admin if it does not exist
        var role = roleManager.FindByName(roleName);
        if (role == null) {
            role = new IdentityRole(roleName);
            var roleresult = roleManager.Create(role);
        }

        var user = userManager.FindByName(name);
        if (user == null) {
            user = new ApplicationUser { UserName = name, Email = name };
            var result = userManager.Create(user, password);
            result = userManager.SetLockoutEnabled(user.Id, false);
        }

        // Add user admin to Role Admin if not already added
        var rolesForUser = userManager.GetRoles(user.Id);
        if (!rolesForUser.Contains(role.Name)) {
            var result = userManager.AddToRole(user.Id, role.Name);
        }
    }
}

thanks for assistance...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
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What healthcare leaders need to know now
Dignity Health's Lloyd Dean leads from experience and welcomes 'healthcare for all'
By furstgroup | September 4 th, 2014 | Furst Group, Healthcare, Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare, executive, faith-based, health system, Modern Healthcare, Blog, CEO, diversity, leadership, Lloyd Dean, Dignity Health | Add A Comment
One in a series of profiles of Modern Healthcare's Top 25 Minority Executives in Healthcare (sponsored by Furst Group)
Lloyd Dean, president and CEO of Dignity Health, has an enviable track record in the volatile world of healthcare, where he made his reputation as a turnaround expert for his work taking the organization (then known as Catholic Healthcare West) from perpetual losses to profitability in the early 2000s. But what continues to make him a leader among his healthcare peers is his anticipation and forward thinking.
In 2009, the organization partnered with Blue Shield of California and a physician network for coordinated care. That put the organization way ahead of the curve on the accountable-care front. Dignity Health's emphasis on outpatient facilities in the last several years also has earned the positive attention of investors. In addition, Dean led the system as it transitioned from an officially Catholic health system in 2012 to one that still honored its Catholic roots while also allowing for growth through partnerships with both faith-based and non-faith-based organizations.
Dean says such moves demonstrate that Dignity Health "possesses a culture that values innovation, future-focused thinking, experimentation and, above all, a bias for taking action."
He's shown a similar decisiveness as he has championed the Affordable Care Act and been heavily involved in California's health care exchanges, which have fared far better than other state's systems.
"So far, so good," says Dean. "The lessons learned in California are that, number one, if there's a will to accomplish something at all political levels, it can happen and, number two, you have to involve the community."
On the national scene, Dean has been a visible and vocal supporter of the ACA.
"In the healthcare field, we are going through not an evolution but a revolutionary change," he says. "I, for one, think it's long overdue. While it's complex and while it's difficult, the objective is sound and it's something we should be pursuing – healthcare for all."
Dean sees the ACA compelling healthcare leaders to change, or fall to the wayside.
"For five years, this change has been on a rapid pace, and I think it has caused us as leaders to look at being nimble and being flexible. We need to make sure we have people in place who have the key ability to adapt to rapid change and instability as we implement the Affordable Care Act."
That includes the C-suite and the board, he adds.
"These are delicate and important times and the stakes are quite high," he says. "Therefore, the times demand an open and transparent relationship between management and governance. The board must be involved and engaged in key strategies, decisions and investments early in the process. Educating the board on key issues impacting healthcare entities has been and continues to be an important accountability of management."
In addition, the changing face of healthcare must become more diverse as population health is addressed, Dean says.
"The demographics of this country are changing," he says. "There are more minorities, and we need to ensure we have leadership that is representative of the nation and of our communities."
Health disparities are something that Dean was immersed in from the day he was born. His parents were from Alabama but migrated north to Muskegon, Mich., to find work. Dean was one of nine children.
"My father worked in a factory, but it was an on-again, off-again kind of thing," he says. "Mom was a housekeeper keeping us on the straight and narrow. We were on welfare many times; I know that system well."
In junior high, Dean was bused to a middle-class white neighborhood, where his fellow students would miss classes because of doctor and dentist appointments, things unheard of among his family and his African-American neighbors.
"My father was the dentist, and I kid people that my mother was the nurse. But I also saw the impact of not having healthcare. I watched people in my community suffering and perishing from diseases. My colleagues at the school didn't seem to be having those kinds of difficulties. Even as a teenager, you begin to think, 'There's got to be a better way.'
"It shaped me in a profound way."
His father contracted black lung disease and emphysema from working in the factory. But not before he and Dean's mother impressed upon their children the importance of education.
"Even though we didn't have any money, education was important, so that gave me a way out," he recalls. "Also, religion and faith were always very much a part of my family – when I think about my healthcare career, 24 years have been spent in faith-related systems. So I'm truly a product of my environment, and that motivates me."
Being around the millennial generation also provides a welcome spark, Dean says.
"We've got young physicians and other talent coming into our organizations with a different perspective on lifestyle and what is important to them," he says. "They come with a greater sense of community responsibility and less emphasis on huge corporate structures. In terms of cultural attributes and leadership opportunities, I'm finding that younger people are advancing at a much more rapid pace. Expectations are higher with the current generation."
At 63, Dean can relate to such expectations, for they resonate with the ones he says he put on himself in a successful career that he is far from ready to close the door on.
"I think about how fortunate I have been to be working in healthcare in this country at a time when reform is actually happening," he says. "I just hope I have used the blessings God has given me to help others receive quality health care regardless of economic status or ethnic origin."
Dean doesn't think much about legacies – there's too much left to do, he says – but hopes his personal imprint on those he's impacted will be just as strong as the professional one.
"I hope my family, friends, colleagues and those I have met along my journey will say, 'He made us smile, and always treated us with dignity, kindness and respect.' "
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About Furst Group
As a leading executive search and integrated talent management firm exclusively focused on healthcare, Furst Group is highly attuned to the challenges of a new era and is now in its fourth decade of providing talent and leadership solutions.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Your Help Needed!
So now that you've seen me run through the checklist several times, I have some questions for you:
Were there any surprises in the movies I evaluated? Did I evaluate them fairly?
Do all of the questions make sense to you?
Do any of the questions seem useless? Superfluous? Redundant?
Are there any that you fear would do more harm than good?
Are there any concepts that I've talked about on this blog that aren't on the checklist but should be?
In general, is the list too long? Too short?
Is the phrasing clear or confusing?
Most importantly, would you use this checklist as-is? Would you skip over any questions or sections?
I've said things about specific steps in the checklist before, so I'll limit this to general comments. I like the length, thoroughness and (sometimes) redundancy of the checklist. There are occasionally questions/issues that overlap, but usually it's pretty specific to certain films. If there are redundancies, it's not usually in the same spot twice. And sometimes thinking of a similar aspect of story construction from a different frame of reference is all you really need to make something click. That's why I wouldn't want to streamline the checklist too much. What's so useful to me is how exhaustive its interrogation of any given story is by the time you get through the whole list.
Time to once again offer my periodic thanks for all the painstaking work you've put into the checklist and this blog in general. Even though I'm sure you're getting a lot out of it personally, you're nevertheless offering a whole bunch of strangers some of the best teaching they've ever had about storytelling. So: Thank you!
You're welcome, and thanks so much for all the feedback you've given so far. In regards to one of your previous comments, I definitely think I need to take some of what I've observed about 'the promise of the premise' and figure out how that applies to specific genres in a future post.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I still don't know whether the checklist is a list of rules to break or simply a set of "guidelines" that can help you if you have trouble with your script, like saying "there's something wrong/something is lacking, but I can't put my finger on it" and looking at the scene-list to see that maybe I should put some irony in there or set up expectations to escalate or flip.
You can use it however you wish, but I think it's most useful in the second case, and you put it well: "there's something wrong/something is lacking, but I can't put my finger on it".
Once you've used the list to identify what's unusual, you can determine if you should change it, or if you should simply be aware of it and work harder to sell it to the audience (such as with Demme being aware of the problem of Clarice disappearing for ten minutes, or Scott being aware of the problem of the slow beginning in Alien)
MCP said...
I obviously find the checklist tremendously helpful. I think the length and thoroughness are assets.
This is probably personal (because it is where I feel weakest in terms of craft), but Part 6 to me seems the least fleshed-out, the Managing Expectations series is excellent, but if you ever find anything else to explore in that sort of "making it page-turning" realm it would be appreciated.
It has been very interesting to see you break down the movies with the questions. To me the Donnie Brasco review was where I learned the most because it is the most flawed movie, and its deviations stood out in the contrast.
Thanks again for all your hard work.
Devin McKay said...
I'm a list kind of guy, so I've been working on my own list for a while now and I haven't been able to compile even half of this. It's pretty tremendous. Thank you so much for creating it! Every time there's some minute aspect of screenwriting I feel I need to work on, I always end up back here, and I'll be damned if there isn't something for me. You really should write a book!
Justin Walsh said...
I've gone through the first section question by question, with comments on each.
Part 1: Is this a strong concept for a story?
Is this an extreme situation based on a universal emotional dilemma? (Are you writing the emotions you know, but on a bigger scale?)
This question has always seemed somewhat poorly phrased to me. 'Universal' is not a great descriptor, as it neither describes well, nor directs. I'd suggest using the word 'explorable' instead, which implies a consideration of how that dilemma relates to the story in total. And if something is explorable, it can be made universal through the application of craft.
The second, parenthetical question is so important, it may deserve a point all its own.
Is the concept a unique twist on a classic type of story?
The only thing I can suggest is mentioning irony here (all twists are inherently ironic).
Is this the simplest and most streamlined version of your concept?
Is the concept simple enough to allow you to spend more time exploring character than explaining the plot?
Both perfect. And important.
Is there a central relationship we haven't seen in a story before?
I feel this question may not be entirely helpful. While coming up with an as-yet-unseen relationship can be enormous, it doesn't seem a requirement, and moreover seems to lend itself to high concept ideas. I think it's more important that the central relationship be compelling, with the as-yet-unseen relationship the loftiest goal of that approach.
Do the plot and character arcs intertwine (The plot is either the hero's greatest hope, or greatest fear, or an ironic answer to the hero's question)?
Again, so important, and implied in the very first question.
Does something inside the hero have a particularly volatile reaction to the plot?
Does the hero transform the situation?
Does the situation trasnform the hero?
All implied in the question about plot and character arcs intertwining, but I think worth stating individually to fully tease out and display their importance. Would all these question be better placed after question 1?
Is the hero the person working hardest to solve the problem?
Another very important point, but it may be better placed in the second section about character. It doesn't seem important to concept.
In the end, is the hero the only person who can solve the problem?
One of the most important plot-related points on the list.
Is it worth posing a question near the start that asks whether the story is about a character's problem? It's a point you've made before, and seems appropriate to ask when describing concept.
Is there at least one actual human being opposed to what the hero is doing?
This question needs clarification, I think. There are certain stories where human opposition, in the sense of character versus character, does not exist. For example, The Road. Personally, I think that story is a failure from start to end, but a lot of people love it, and there really is no character versus character opposition in it; the few people that do show up are plot elements. I'm not sure how to approach or 'fix' this question, I just know it doesn't feel right because there are clear exceptions.
Is this challenge something that is not just hard for the hero to do (an obstacle) but hard for the hero to want to do (a conflict)?
One of the most important questions on the list, and one that should be much higher up, possibly incorporated alongside the volatility question.
In general, I think you need to give more consideration to how the questions are organised, as there seem to be definite clusters of significance, which may yield further insights when ordered.
Is this a fundamentally ironic situation?
A great question that underpins all dynamics of conflict in the story.
Does this story show us an image we haven't seen before (that can be used to promote the final product)?
This seems incongruous as a question about concept, as it is more tied to marketing. Perhaps marketing should be a subsection of concept?
Does the story contain a twist that is not obvious from the beginning?
Is this really about concept? This seems more about structure and plotting, with a twist being a major story moment (that is also hopefully a major character moment). A twist can be central to concept, but then we're back to high concept ideas, which have natural shortcomings, as you've explored. This question may indicate a leaning toward high concept in your thinking (which is worth mulling over, if nothing else), or it may indicate a branching of concept into structure.
Is the story marketable without revelaing the twist?
Is the conflict compelling and ironic both before and after the twist?
Vital benchmarks to consider.
Do you openly or implicitly pose a dramatic question at the beginning that the audience will expect to be answered at the end?
Again, this is so important, I'd put it as close to the start as I could. This should maybe even be the very first question asked. However, this is again a partly structural question
Is the dramatic question answered only at the very end of the conflict?
Always know where the story ends before you start.
My big takeaway from this is that you need to take another look at how the list is structured. It gives the impression of having been cobbled together over a long period (which it has), but having so far not been streamlined.
I think you need to take a look at each individual question (from all your sections) and decide which ones belong together, and under what functional headings (e.g., openly posing a dramatic question at the start may fall under both concept and structure – you have to have that question if you've got a concept, but its placement is vital to strucutre).
Several questions may overlap into different areas, but that in turn should suggest further means of organisation. With anything this complex, you tend to end up with a weave of information, which is why its even more important to be able to prioritise the information you provide. I think you're right to start with concept, as that underpins all other areas, but the concept can only be considered tested and robust once all other areas have been satisfied. To go far is to return.
There's so much great work here, but you can take it further.
If this has been helpful, I'll do the same for the other sections.
Wow, Justin, than you so much, that is so helpful! By all means yes, I'd love it if you kept going through the list (but I'd understand if you tucker out at some point)
As you point out, I haven't given much thought to the order of the questions, and your thoughts on the matter make a lot of sense. And yeah, almost every "concept" question could conceivably go into another category, which implies that my definition of concept may be too unfocused.
You're more than welcome, Matt. Your blog has helped me reach my own understandings about writing more than any other site, book, talk, or whatever. Anything I can give back, I will, with a smile :)
Concept really is a tricky thing, and maybe a process-based account of it would be more illuminating, as it is such a dynamic and volatile undertaking. It always starts with a germ of an idea, an image, a twist, a character, but then comes the wonderful and terrible process of generating, comparing, winnowing, and throwing out.
This is why I think your work is so good, because you've identified a clear decision process for just about every level, without becoming prescriptive. That's some achievement.
Back to ideas about concept, I think the definition is fuzzy only because the process itself is one of discovery. In that way, concept becomes the beginning and final measure of every story. Like DNA, concept is the program that builds the machine that it runs on.
Part 2: Is this a compelling character?
At the beginning, does the hero know exactly what he or she wants…
…but not what he or she needs?
These questions are so fundamental that they could even be considered part of the concept. A logline is going to include either the hero's want or need, so they could also tie into marketing. Given that want ties into all that the hero misperceives about the world, and that his or her need is tied into the resolution of the problem embarked upon, they're also central to plot. Arguably the crux of all story, and the focus of the most powerful irony. This could be the starting point in concept that unifies all other aspects of a story.
Does the hero cleverly and resourcefully pursue what he or she wants?
In going after what the hero wants, does she actually act to sabotage progress toward what she really needs? The question you've stated implies success through admirable action, but the overall arc of the story needs to be kept in mind. Demonstrating potential early on seems to be key. Lots of scope for irony and foreshadowing.
Does the hero have a well-defined public self?
Does the hero's public identity contrast with his or her hidden private self? (Is the hero misunderstood?)
These could be very significant questions, and maybe belong after the want/need question. So much of creating compelling characters seems to be in mining dichotomy and irony.
Something that occurs is that the hero being misunderstood may be by the hero's own choice. This immediately marks the hero apart, gives them a kind of self-possession, and casts them in a role of underdog rebel that is inherently sympathetic. Do heroes tend to maintain their status as misunderstood, or at least not act to change it? If so, why? This could tie into different aspects of their character.
No matter how much the hero changes, does he or she have a default personality trait?
This question is another one that trips me up with its phrasing. 'Default personality trait' sounds like a technical term with invested meaning. Given that the things that change are often only cosmetic, it might be better phrased as, 'No matter how much the hero changes, is there something about him or her that does not?' Even continuing to dress in the same way may have great significance, depending on what has happened during the story. 'Default personality trait' may be too impenetrable and limiting here.
When the hero argues, does he or she have a consistent default strategy for uncovering information or getting others to do things?
I think this can vary from character to character. A 'simple' character may only have one strategy, but a lawyer may have many, and may switch argument strategies mid-stream. In these cases, the default may only show up in times of duress. I think this is a great question that can demonstrate a ton about a character's world view and the rules they live by, and might be better placed beside, and related to, those questions.
Does the hero's language draw from a consistent metaphor family (based on the hero's job, background, or developmental state)?
Not just the hero's. Everybody's!
Does the hero have a universal public fear?
…And a specific private fear?
I'm always torn on the public fear thing. The example that I've seen most often is Indiana Jones's fear of snakes, but that always seems like a copout to me, in order to generate a cheap laugh. Maybe that's the point, and it breaks down emotional barriers between the character and viewer, inviting a safe identification with vulnerability, but I think this needs to be handled well. This is a tough one, and I'm still coming to grips with how it can be best employed.
Private fears can be very powerful though, generating sympathy, irony, empathy. Should public and private fears be directly related to the hero's want, driving them along the path to crisis?
Does the hero use pre-established special skills from his or her past to solve problems (rather than doing what anybody would do)?
I think they have to. Those skills mark the hero apart, and are as inherent to the 'method' of that character as any other aspect of their makeup.
Are all of the special skills needed later subtly planted earlier?
They better be.
Does the hero have a false statement of philosophy at the beginning?
And a corrected statement of philosophy near the end?
Just a great way to set up and pay off the internal part of the dramatic question (which I think has both internal and external components, just as the hero's journey is part within and part without).
Does the hero have a false goal at the beginning
And a corrected goal before the climax?
And the external part of the dramatic question.
Does the hero have a moment of humanity early on? (A funny, or oddball, or out-of-character, or unique-but-universal "I thought I was the only one who did that!" moment?)
Could this be better thought of as the hero showing their inner self, or possibly the potential they have for change? It seems like it would resonate most if it is tied to the hero's final transformation as another expectation/payoff, though you might need to take care to avoid heavyhandedness there.
Do you know why the hero's friends like him or her?
I initially thought this was a pretty throwaway question, but the scope for providing information on how the hero views him or herself, the values of society in which the hero operates, and basically providing the ground against which the specific qualities of the hero can be brought into relief is pretty vast. I think this is an underexplored area in your undertakings so far, and possibly one of the most important ways of showing audiences vital information in a very compressed manner.
Do you know the three rules the hero lives by? (The hero's self image)
So succinct, and so important. Related to and contrasted with the previous question, almost the entire character is on view.
Does the hero engage in physical exertion early on?
A means of showing the hero is a doer at the most fundamental level of being?
Does the hero work harder than other people doing the same thing?
Is the hero surrounded by people who sorely lack his or her most valuable quality?
Is this individual the person we should be most interested in following? This also seems to relate back to the character's volatility.
Does the character have a long-standing personal problem that he or she is now determined to resolve?
The first intersection of essential character and plot. I'm not sure if the hero needs to be determined (there is sometimes a refusal of the call), but the opportunity must arise. Establishing it as a long-standing problem however is so powerful in answering why the hero gets involved, and why she sticks it through.
Is the hero's biggest flaw the flip side of his or her biggest strength?
You've covered why it should be, if possible.
At the end of the story, is the hero transformed (his or her self esteem, ethics, morals, or personality)?
This is another tough one, as there are stories where no change takes place at all, save maybe a kind of reaffirmation (is that even a change?). I think this really depends upon the type of story being told, but a change must happen, and I think most importantly it must take place in the viewer. This is another point that I think could be investigated more, as it goes to the very heart of what a writer is trying to achieve, no matter their medium or genre.
Does the hero engage in reversible behaviour that will instantly tell us that he or she has changed when we see a contrasting behaviour later on?
I don't think it's necessary that the hero display a change in behaviour, but something must. It could be society's behaviour toward the hero, for example. But being able to see what change has occurred goes without saying.
This section seems more powerful than the first, and more rigorous. There's a little reorganisation that could be done, but I think it's mostly there.
The one area I think hasn't been addressed yet is the hero's oppositions to other characters/institutions in the story. This is implied in a lot of different points, but it isn't explicitly stated. As much as the questions you've asked refine a hero, I don't think you can define them until they are placed in complete context with their antagonist(s) and the other characters they struggle against (and with). A hero may have many facets, and each of those facets needs to be reflected in its opposite somewhere, otherwise parts of the hero are left dangling. Could a hero then be described as the greatest possible nexus of all facets in a story?
Wow! Amazing notes! Thanks so much!
I would actually call Indiana Jones' fear of snakes a private fear. What I refer to as "public fear" might more accurately be called "social anxiety", usually something like fear of getting fired, fear of failure, fear of being disliked, fear of being a bad dad, etc. When defined that way, is the concept more or less useful? Should I change the name?
Why their friends like them is an interesting area, because it turns out that TONS of heroes have no friends at all (think Lemmon in The Apartment). I should dig into this and figure out why some heroes need friends and others don't.
In terms of transformation, I played around early on with the idea of the of the Freudian journey (you have to change, like Han) vs. the Jungian journey (you have to discover and trust your core, like Luke), but I never took it any further or worked it into the checklist.
Wow, I completely misunderstood what you meant by 'public fear.' So what you are talking about is a fear of being judged in a certain way by society? That feels so much better, as it gives the hero self awareness and vulnerability, both of which are really seductive qualities. And that fear can change as the story moves. That again seems tremendously powerful.
So, in The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice's public fear would be the one Lector perceives so easily, that she fears being looked down on as a hick. Her private fear is that the lamb will never stop screaming.
If that's the case, I think you may need to look at renaming 'public fear' to 'fear of judgement by society' or something similar.
This could really tie in with heroes deliberately maintaining their distinction from society because they have a really good reason not to let society get too close. And such a fear can motivate all kinds of volatility. Damn. That's amazing. Thank you so much.
I'll have to think more about heroes without friends. The thought that jumps immediately to mind is a redemption arc, but I have nothing to support that.
And the Freudian versus Jungian transformations seem to be the flip sides of the same coin. Whether you stop or start doing something, the potential must be latent. I'll think more about that as well.
Thanks again, Matt.
Part 3: Is this the best structure?
Are the hero's goals clear to the audience early on?
I think this question could do with some clarification, particularly with reference to the story goal of the dramatic question. Some (many?) heroes start in the middle of a micro goal, which gives us something to latch onto straight away. An instant tension. But this doesn't mean the story goal and how it relates to the hero are clear from the outset. I think this fuzziness is reflected in the question itself, where it asks about 'goals.' I guess it also depends what you mean by 'early on,' which could be inside the first couple of minutes, or by the end of act 1.
When we meet the hero, does a longstanding personal problem become more acute, perhaps in the form of a social humiliation?
Should this social humiliation tie into the hero's private or public fear (fear of judgement by society)? Rather than 'becoming more acute,' should the hero's failings make the problems more acute? Becoming more acute could imply outsider action, whereas it seems more powerful if the hero drives their own crisis.
Does the hero find out about an intimidating opportunity to fix that problem?
I think you could incorporate the obstacle/conflict distinction here to good effect. What is it that makes the opportunity so intimidating? Is there more internal or external resistance?
Is there hesitation, as the opportunity becomes more and more appealing?
This seems to follow naturally from the opportunity being intimidating, but are we looking here at the essence of 'plot motivates,' as external pressures mount against the hero, to compel them into action? The internal struggle can't be resolved this early, so this seems almost to act as proof of the 'plots motivates' axiom.
Does the hero commit to pursuing the opportunity?
When does this tend to happen in stories? If it is at a structurally consistent point, I think there's a lot more to say about how and why the hero commits when he does. From where you've placed this, it seems to be the end of act 1, but the hero often does not fully commit until the midpoint disaster, and the point of no return. Maybe 'commit' is the problem word here, I'm not sure.
Does the hero try the easy way first?
I've never really liked the phrase 'easy way,' because it again is neither very descriptive nor directing. It seems logical that the hero will try whatever has worked for him up till now, which should be tied to his fatal flaw, or fears, or whatever the most debilitating and negative part of his makeup is, the part that needs to change. If the hero doesn't do this, then how can he learn that change needs to happen?
Does the hero's pursuit of the opportunity cause an unforeseen conflict with another person?
Not much to say here, but I think who they come into conflict with and over what should have relevance to theme, or some other specific thread that will continue to tie the narrative together and comment obliquely on what is happening to the hero.
Does the hero enjoy some success and have some fun? Is the promise of the premise fulfilled?
I think this is the question that I have the largest problem with, because I'm not sure how someone coming to it fresh, having not read your supporting posts, could understand what you mean. 'Having fun' really sounds like 'having a good time,' which is often not the case at all.
This seems quite a complex area of the script, where you have the hero doing their thing, digging themselves toward a disaster while remaining unaware. The potential for irony seems to abound here, which may also serve to strengthen the midpoint reversal, which can be powerfully set up and possibly reversed. As the midpoint disaster tends to be the first internal revelation, the lead up is really important, and I don't think this question focuses enough on the structure of what is happening, as opposed to the surface goings on. Sorry if this comes across as harsh. This question really bugs me.
I think I see what you're focusing on, which is the authorial sleight of hand to surprise us as the rug gets pulled out, but I could be getting something wrong, or missing something really obvious.
Does the early success culminate in a midpoint disaster?
Does the hero lose a safe space or sheltering relationship at this point?
Yup. Otherwise it would be too easy to fall back into old patterns and not have to face up to taking a new approach and working harder.
By halfway through, are character decisions driving the plot, rather than external plot complications?
Does the hero start to question his or her assumptions, goal, and/or philosophy?
Does the hero learn from mistakes in a painful way?
For all of these, I hope so.
Does the hero find out who his or her real friends and real enemies are?
This follows on naturally from characters driving the plot. At the stakes become higher, motivations clash and realign.
Are the stakes raised as the pace increases and motivation escalates?
If we care for the characters and are invested in their hopes, this should follow naturally.
Is the hero forced to face the underlying thematic question?
Does a further hardship finally force the hero into a spiritual crisis?
After that crisis, does the hero finally commit to pursuing a corrected goal, which still seems far away?
This is the kind of structural analysis that I think is missing to tease out and make explicit what is going on in the promise of the premise question. Here we can see can the structural points that lead to the second revelation, where the hero will often come to terms with his or her greatest failing.
I really love these three questions and what they show.
Before the final quarter of the story begins (if not long before), has your hero switched to being proactive, instead of reactive?
They should have no other option than to become proactive. Otherwise, they haven't been tested enough, and their final transformation will not be convincing. If the story is a tragedy, though, the answer may well be no (which might be an interesting tool for analysis – taking a look at the 'no' answers to all questions and seeing how they correlate to tragedy or tragic circumstance).
Despite the hero's proactive steps, is the timetable moved up unexpectedly at the end, forcing the hero to improvise anyway?
Do or die!
Do all strands of the story and most of the characters come together for the climactic confrontation?
If they don't, they are probably superfluous, unless the structure has been specifically designed in that fashion. I think this is a great way of determining the really important pieces of the story.
Is there an epilogue/aftermath/denouement in which the hero's original problem is finally resolved one way or the other, as he or she realizes (and hopefully shows) how much he or she has changed?
Once again, thanks you so much, these are amazing notes.
It's hard talking about structure without becoming one of those dreaded "Page Number Nazis" that people complain about. As you point out, I keep a lot of these definitions really vague in order to show the similarities between many different types of stories.
As a result, this category is the most descriptive and the least proscriptive, but even so, I hope it provides a little more guidance than most (Problem-Opportunity-Conflict being hopefully more useful than "inciting incident", for example)
I'm about to do an entire expanded How to Structure series, and all of your excellent notes will inform that. Thanks again.
Part 4: Is this a satisfying theme?
Is there a thematic question that is posed early on?
We're at the crossover of theme and structure here, but as I look down this list of questions, there's something big that jumps out at me: most of these questions do not seem to be about thematic satisfaction, as much as dramatic satisfaction instead. That leads on to asking, "Are these one and the same thing, or, if not, how are they related?" This could be another area for further investigation.
Can the thematic dilemma be stated in terms of good vs. good (or sometimes bad vs. bad)?
This is a great way of approaching theme, because irony and the grounds for struggle are clearly visible. This is clearly an argument structure, and goes to the heart of a story being about a character's problem.
A story can have a number of themes, so the questions I'd like to ask are:
Is the main thematic question (or should it be) always related to the hero's want or need?
Is it immanent in, and constrained to, the nature of that struggle?
If not, what is the story about (are you being didactic)?
Are thematic questions tied directly to character relations? Therefore, does each major relationship in a story carry with it a thematic line? (If so, there is a huge amount of underlying structure going on, and one would expect all thematic lines to comment on each other meaningfully.)
Does the story have something to say about real life?
I would consider cutting this question. If you adhere to all the points made so far throughout each section, I can only imagine corner-case perversity or inability leading to something else. That said, it's a good question to keep asking yourself. Maybe this is more suited to concept than theme? One of those quick-fire questions to orient you early and late?
Have you avoided moral hypocrisy as much as possible? (Does the movie practice what it preaches?)
I think this question could do with some further definition, as it's a little woolly. There's a meta level at work here, which is maybe why. The sum of the characters' actions sends a message, so perhaps this could be related to the three rules each character lives by? I think you'd also need to run that sum of actions past a number of other criteria, particularly the hero's revelations and transformations.
On one hand, this seems like a very clear decision process for determining whether you're writing a bunch of dicks. But it also seems to be a potentially very complex area, especially ripe for purposes of commentary, and perhaps revelation within a given theme or themes.
Do the characters' actions reflect how the world works?
The more they do, the more convincing and compelling the drama, and the more weight the story's themes gain. Is theme the synthesised summary of struggle from within the story? (In glorious alliteration.)
Do the difficult decisions have real consequences?
Is every element of your story as ironic as possible?
These seem more dramatic questions.
Do many small details of your story reflect your larger theme?
Like a symphony.
Does the climax make a strong statement about the thematic question, without answering it definitively?
Or should the climax act to re-state the thematic question in light of all that has occurred?
So helpful!
In running the road tests, I think I've finally figured out what "something to say about real life" really means: "Does the movie reference a painful real life event or issue?":
Bridesmaids: The Great Recession
Silence of the Lambs: Ted Bundy's rampage
Donnie Brasco: '70s government overreach
How to Train Your Dragon: The war on terror
Alien: Rise of corporate sovereignty
The Shining: Domestic violence and racism
Casablanca: The concentration camps
In a Lonely Place: Domestic violence and postwar PTSD
Doing this allows you to tap into the pain that audience is already bringing with them into the theater.
Likewise, "Practice what it preaches" might become "Is this issue handled respectfully?" For instance, unlike these movies, "The Avengers" references real-world issues in an incoherent and disrespectful way alternately condemning and glorifying militarism from scene to scene without acknowledging the disconnect.
Is that better?
As for this:
"Or should the climax act to re-state the thematic question in light of all that has occurred?"
I would say no. I think it's important that most movies tip in the direction of one of the warring goods or bads at the end without dismissing either.
Bridesmaids: Moving on is ultimately better than preserving old friendships
Donnie Brasco: Family loyalties are ultimately more important than work loyalties
How to Train Your Dragon: Justice is ultimately more important than loyalty to family
Alien: Self-preservation is more ultimately important than protocol
The Shining: Self-preservation is ultimately more important than family loyalty
Casablanca: The cause of freedom is ultimately more important that personal happiness
In a Lonely Place: Self-preservation is ultimately more important than love
I would say that the one exception where would be Silence of the Lambs, where we truly can't decide at the end whether it was worth it to work with one monster to stop another. The movie gets away with ending on a profound and disturbing uncertainty, but most movies should not attempt that. The ending of Lambs only work because the final uncertainty is so shocking.
Maybe, 'Can this story act as a metaphor for a painful real-life event or issue?' That's semantic hair-splitting, but in case someone coming fresh to all this thought you meant actually referencing such an event.
I like this a lot, as it encapsulates theme, while allowing or even encouraging a respectful sensibility. It should also direct writers toward meaning.
As for re-stating the thematic question, agreed. It was a curious thought.
Part 5: Is this lively dialogue?
Does each character have a distinct voice? (Can you always tell who's speaking without looking at the names?)
I've always felt this question would be better phrased as, 'Does each character have a distinct attitude/point of view?' A character's distinct voice, I think, is made up of two main components: their metaphor family, and how they relate to the world. Those two combined should yield something that is always unique within the story, because any repetition at that level is waste (particularly when you consider how everything must tie into theme, plot, etc.).
Is the dialogue bouncy?
It will be if there's inter-character conflict. If you take a look at Alien, the scenes with Ripley versus Parker and Brett (in fact, most of the dialogue with Parker and Brett versus anybody) is bouncy because it's ironic and filled with conflict. Ripley versus Ash also has irony and conflict, but with far more sinister undertones. It's definitely engaging though. Most of the rest of the dialogue is flat, even forgettable, because conflict is muted: everybody ostensibly wants the same thing. Nobody wants a fight.
Are there pithy and/or quotable lines?
It's always nice to feel that we're smarter than we are.
If you have more than one protagonist, have you polarised them in an impartial way along the lines of head, heart, and gut?
One of the best tools for externalizing inner conflict, creates immediate differences in attitude and point of view, and provides a means to keep characters consistent in general outlook.
Have you listened to the real-life jargon of people in this profession or setting?
The importance of research in general can't be understated.
Do you feel genuine empathy for all of your characters?
There is a risk in over-identifying with the story construct that is the hero, but the hero is only most fully realised when all parts of the story are treated with equal respect. Treating one element of the story poorly diminishes the story in total.
Do your characters consciously or unconsciously prioritise their own wants, rather than the wants of others?
Unless the point of the character is that they don't, I think they absolutely must, otherwise you are forestalling or spoiling conflict and drama.
Are your characters resistant to openly admitting their feelings (to others and even to themselves)?
This might tie back into public and private fears. If the character's fears are being challenged, there is every motivation not to admit feelings to avoid complication. And the hero not admitting those feelings to herself allows her to avoid her internal conflict.
The most important point is that characters should only do this where there is clear motivation. Characters that don't explain themselves when it's clear that it can only be to their benefit are utterly enraging, and easy to stop rooting for.
I think the writer needs to strike the balance between risk and reward, with risk initially being too great against the pain and perceived consequences of allowing vulnerability. That may in fact translate later to courage as the hero decides she must change.
Does each of your characters, including your hero, have a limited perspective?
They need to, or else they've already solved every problem they might have.
Do you withhold exposition until the character and the audience are both demanding to know it?
Seems to be a structural concern.
All good notes. I need to systematize, revise and expand this section for the book, along with theme.
Part 6: Does the story manage its tone to create and fulfil audience expectations?
Are you satisfying the urges that get people to buy and recommend these types of stories?
If you don't, are you actually writing that type of story? Are you making your story easy to mistake? What signifying elements of the story place in its genre?
Have you chosen a pre-established genre? (Or accepted the risks of not doing so?)
This might be a good question to ask in Concept. A lot of this section (down to using genre and sub-genre as metaphors) could fit there, I think.
Are you prepared to fulfil most of the audience expectations that come with that genre…
…and then defy a few of them?
Tie ins to structure and plot here. Are there consistent places these defiances occur? The most likely seem to be at the beginning and end, though I suppose any major twist could potentially count as defying an expectation. I think those you do defy should be related to theme, as that should give them resonance throughout the whole of the work, and make them seem essential, rather than only clever. I love the Usual Suspects, so I was saddened to finally realise the revelation was just clever. In contrast, the box in Se7en seems essential.
Have you chosen a pre-established sub-genre or two (but not three)?
This is a pretty confusing question, and I think it could do with some fleshing out, or could be better approached from a different direction. It's not clear why you should choose sub-genres, or why you should limit. That can be dealt with in a specific book section, of course, but this still feels like it could do more.
Are you using your genre and sub-genre as metaphors for common emotional dilemmas?
And this now ties directly to your revamped questions about having something to say about real life and avoiding moral hypocrisy! Probably the sign of a significant breakthrough, but worth re-examining all the more because of that.
Have you used framing devices (flashforwards, framing sequences and/or first person narration) to establish the tone and pose ongoing questions?
Give the decision-based nature of the rest of the questions, this seems to advocate the use of these devices. It might be better to ask if such devices are more appropriate to the story, or superior in function to a more conventional approach. I'd also warn the writer against allowing such devices to become a crutch. Of all the questions so far, this is the one that I think could be potentially damaging if its intent is misinterpreted.
Have you established a consistent mood?
An author-applied filter to evoke an important emotional relation to the story?
Have you planted the right questions in the audience's mind (in order to keep them from asking the wrong questions)?
Going by 'plot motivates, character complicates,' is this something that is more important early on, to focus the viewer on plot development? It's clearly tied to setting up and maintaining the dramatic question, but it seems that you could go overboard here and railroad the audience. And there are certain genres and twist setups where you want the audience asking the wrong questions. Maybe this is better phrased as asking the right questions to direct the audience's attention to where you want it. More semantic hair-splitting, but the distinctions could be important.
Have you created expectations about what will happen (through foreshadowing or dangling questions?
Sometimes uncertainty is more powerful, and may be more appropriate.
Part 7: Are you getting the most out of each scene?
Does the plot and/or character arc progress in this scene (preferably both)?
I think I'd use a stronger word than 'preferably' ☺
Were false and/or hopeful expectations for this interaction established beforehand?
Were these events foreshadowed?
Does the location naturally create conflict for the hero, externally and/or internally?
Again, the potential for drama, the hero being continually tested.
Does the scene have its own mini-ticking clock?
Or potentially an option clock, where the range of actions the hero can take dwindles toward failure.
Do you know what outcome the audience will be rooting for in this scene (and are you prepared to either gratify or disappoint that expectation)?
This isn't how I approach most scenes as a viewer, though. I'm hoping to be excited and astonished, but it's rare I root 'for' someone. I'm much more likely to root against someone in a scene, or dread a particular outcome (which I guess is rooting for, in a roundabout way). I think dread is a more powerful motivator, as success deflates all drama. But that's an entirely anecdotal point of view.
Do you know what each character wants?
Should possibly be the first question in this section.
Do the characters go after what they want using verbal tricks and traps?
While remaining consistent with their argument strategies, personal rules, and voice.
Is at least one of the scene partners convinced, forced or tricked into doing something he or she didn't intend to do when the scene began?
This is a really powerful outcome, but is this perhaps best reserved for the 'character complicates' part of the script? Once the plot and stakes are established, and everything is clear in our minds, that seems the best time to let the characters start to work each other over. That said, this could make for a really great opening scene.
Are previously-asked question answered?
If you are progressing plot and character arcs, I think they have to be.
Are new questions asked and left unanswered?
Where do you want the audience focusing their attention next?
Are there hints of a character's past (info-drip instead of info-dump)?
This could tie into verbal tricks and traps, characters going after only what they want, characters not admitting their feelings, volatility, etc., etc., as characters chip away at each other in pursuit of what they want.
Is there re-blocking?
Focusing attention through minute but significant change.
Is there literal push and pull between the scene partners (often resulting in just one touch)?
A powerful metaphor for completion.
Are objects given or taken, representing larger values?
Another powerful metaphor. The objects should tie in as much as possible to theme, I think.
Is at least one or both of the major scene partners not focused on the plot, at least at first?
This involves effort on the part of someone (usually the hero? – again, she's trying hardest to move things forward) and conflict (one character wants another to focus on something they may rather not).
Are the characters dishonest, and/or in denial about their own feelings?
Unless being honest serves their purpose better (and creates more drama).
Do the characters avoid direct confrontation as much as possible (but feel compelled to confront each other indirectly)?
Do they confront each other through sub-text moreso than through text?
I think this is vital, and fun, until direct confrontation becomes unavoidable, and desirable from the point of view of the story.
Do you enter the scene as late as possible?
Do you cut away as early as possible?
Unless you have a reason not to.
Do you allow friction caused by the setting or the characters' emotions to slow the scene down when necessary?
I think this is an art.
Whew, that's everything.
I felt I was running out of oomph toward the end, with fewer and fewer relevant things to say. Hopefully it's not all junk though.
The Scene Structure section (7) seemed by far the strongest. As with the other sections, some reorganisation could help, but it felt complete.
If there was one area I could add, it would be one that looked at character oppositions in total in each story. I think that could serve to tie in areas of theme, structure, conflict, plot, and it's really the weave of the story itself. That could be where you synthesise all the other elements you've covered into what a story is and how it fits together.
That was epic. Thanks you so much, Justin, this was so helpful.
I'm not sure what you mean by "character oppositions in total in each story". Do you mean the balance of the ensemble? The nature of the conflict?
Responding to some of your other points:
Maybe a better way to put that one question would be "Have you done whatever you need to do (possibly including flashforwards, framing sequences or first person narration) to establish the tone right away and pose ongoing questions?"
Based on what you said, I think that the concept of "what outcome the audience will be rooting for" should maybe be combined with my later idea of the "hero of the scene"
Don't mention it. It's an honour and a pleasure to help.
Sorry about not being clear on 'character oppositions in total in a story.' That's awful phrasing.
What I meant was taking a look at how all the character relate to each other in terms of values and goals, and how the sum of all those values and goals contribute toward (i) the story's theme, and (ii) what the story is a metaphor for.
For example, in Alien, you've got Ripley's values and goals, and Ash's, and Dallas's, Brett's, the Alien's etc., etc., and the meaning, theme, and metaphor of the film emerge from how those values and goals all interact. The movie would have had a different message and feel if Brett had survived.
As you pointed out, in Alien, Ripley is basically the corporate drone - and an entirely ineffective one at that for most of the movie: Brett and Parker mess her around below decks, Ash ignores her quarantine order, Dallas says he trusts no one directly to her face. She is the epitome of the faceless bureaucrat, determined though she may be, and you've traced her arc already.
But all the interactions contribute toward and comment on each other, and all offer a different take on the themes of self-sacrifice vs self-preservation, and loyalty vs gain. In fact, I think you could make an argument that the real antagonist in Alien is The Corporation, which demands sacrifice and loyalty from others in pursuit of its own preservation and profit, with the Alien itself a metaphor made real to embody the predatory/reproductive nature of the corporation, while simultaneously being part of the corporation's gain-seeking calculus (and then you've got the inhumanity of Ash abetting one commodity versus another).
I just think that consciously examining the web of character relations can really help with getting everything in order and making sure each element of a story is working toward what you want to say with it, or at least ensuring a top-flight consistency and focus.
Take it easy!
Okay, now I get it. Ensemble creation, including everything you talk about here, is something I haven't talked about much (except for head-heart-gut trios and quartets) but I should. I do like Scott Myers' five-part formulation of hero/friend/attractor/trickster/villain, but I need to examine it more.
Matt,
I had a thought while looking at your rule #185 post about heroes ascending, not descending. If you make a hero's desire something he wants for himself, and his need something he wants for other people, then you can build character growth into the fabric of your character.
Love it. Of course, the problem is that most modern movies would fail it.


text:
Modernist Setting
Mar 5, 2018 Edited by: Hannah Freed-Thall and Dora Zhang
What does it mean to for a work to be "set" in this place or at that time? This cluster—the first investigation of its kind—explores setting as a primary shaping force of modernist form.
From Balbec to Ballyba: Toponyms, Transportation, and the Etymological Imagination
Hunter Dukes
We are accustomed to reading modernist works in the light of actual cities, glossing literary setting as a somewhat faithful recreation...
What is a Revolutionary Setting?
Jonathan Flatley
In periods of widely experienced political depression and frustration, it can be easy to forget that otherwise discouraged, alienated or cynical...
The Expansion of Setting in Gertrude Stein's Landscape Theater
If you're looking for a theory of modernist setting, you could do worse than to turn to Gertrude Stein's plays and landscape theater poetics....
Film's Atmospheric Setting
Louise Hornby
Aerial perspective is grounded strictly on the important fact that all mediums called transparent are in some degree dim.
Smelling Setting
Hsuan L. Hsu
In Terror from the Air, Peter Sloterdijk characterizes Western modernity as a series of experiments with "air conditioning." [1]...
The Fence and the Chair: Isamu Noguchi, Appalachian Spring, and Internment as Modernist Setting
Marci Kwon
"New land, new home, new life; a testament to the American settler, a folk theater. I attempted through the elimination of all non-essentials to...
Mar 5, 2018 By: Hunter Dukes
London Underground Map from 1908. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
We are accustomed to reading modernist works in the light of actual cities, glossing literary setting as a somewhat faithful recreation of place. This tendency is not without cause: James Joyce famously boasted that if Dublin were to disappear, it could be reconstructed out of Ulysses.[1] On the other hand, Virginia Woolf cautioned against the consolidation of map and territory, arguing that "we run the risk of disillusionment if we try to turn such phantom cities into tangible brick and mortar."[2] The examples to follow sever setting from the "experiential realism" of place, only to reconnect it to the built environment in novel ways.[3]
I am going to approach the porous boundary between literary setting and urban geography via the toponym, a form of designation whose complexities are often overlooked. Fin-de-siècle innovation in public transportation not only revolutionized spatial-temporal perception, it also led to the widespread distribution of signage.[4] The inauguration of the Paris Métro in 1900 and the expansion of the London Underground throughout the late nineteenth century created new urban spaces that appear in some of modernism's most noteworthy works. These spaces, however, also exhibited their own topographical texts, which featured unique kinds of graphic experimentation. Edward Johnston's typography for the London Underground helped popularize sans-serif, and was used to emboss station names onto placards, seating, passageways, and friezes.[5] During the same period in Paris, Hector Guimard's Art Nouveau "Métropolitain" banners became exemplars of the style.[6] The rapid growth of railway, omnibus, and tram networks in Ireland, Britain, and France distributed toponyms further afield, demarcating travel routes through lists of printed names.[7]
I suggest here that a greater modernist fascination with place-names stems from nineteenth-century developments in infrastructure, which scatter toponyms throughout transportation networks. When names are distanced from the places they denote, the connotation of the sign becomes increasingly visible. Marcel Proust and Samuel Beckett are limit cases, marking the respective upper and lower bounds, for how modernist writing widens the possibility of literary setting. By inverting the causal relationship between toponym and topography—allowing a place-name to determine a corresponding sense of place and not vice versa—both authors mirror how transportation technologies privilege designation over locale. While Proust's etymological imagination enriches the connotative sense of his toponyms, which, in turn, inflects his narrator's conception of unseen landscapes, Beckett (using his careful reading of Proust) achieves the near opposite effect, as obfuscated etymologies generate equally vague settings. I want to propose, ultimately, that place-names have a supplementary function in the age of rail-based transit. If, as historians of transportation argue, the "railroad caused the foreground to disappear," speculative etymology becomes a technique for recuperating a landscape lost to the velocity and perceptual fatigue that came with new forms of travel (Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey, 64).
The Underworld of Names
At least since Plato's Cratylus, writers and philosophers have attempted to make names mean something more—to unearth a sense of place by looking closely at a place-name. John Stuart Mill offers an account of this process in A System of Logic (1843), when he claims that the names of places are denotative but not connotative. Turning specifically to the toponym "Dartmouth," Mill argues that while this name may denote a town situated at the mouth of the Dart, if the river were to suddenly disappear, "the name of the town would not necessarily be changed."[8] This is certainly true; however, Mill passes too easily over what a strange entity "Dartmouth" would become. As the record of a vanished landscape, the toponym functions as a linguistic time-capsule, capable of storing specific types of information no longer present in the corresponding topography. This fantasy of nominal fossilization opens itself to imaginative inquiry. What other forms of sedimented knowledge can be uncovered through the analysis of toponyms?
When place-names are offset from the places they denote, affixed to railway boards and underground stations, it becomes easier to privilege connotation over denotation, to engage in the kind of etymological speculations we find in Proust and Beckett. In The Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin describes the Paris Métro as an "underworld of names," devoting an entire section of his unfinished work to the "sensuality in street names."[9] As subterranean labels for above-ground places, the place-names in the Métro "have all thrown off the humiliating fetters of street," the restraint of cartographical correlation, gaining quasi-animate embodiment as "misshapen sewer gods, catacomb fairies" (Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 84). In Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room, a similar distance appears between name and place, as the standardization and dissemination of Underground signage makes visible a toponym whose topography is largely out of reach: "Beneath the pavement, sunk in the earth . . . large letters upon enamel plates represented in the underworld the parks, squares, and circuses of the upper. 'Marble Arch–Shepherd's Bush'–to the majority the Arch and the Bush are eternally white letters upon a blue ground."[10] On an urban journey from center to periphery, Tube stations become names without places, an experience of connotative sense without corresponding reference. London's neighborhoods only become real, materializing out of their names, where you can afford to resurface. Proust makes a similar observation about the railway, which carries passengers from "one name to another name." [11] As we shall see, when "Balbec" transports Marcel's imagination, it is spatialized through the experience of modern transportation. Railway stations capture "the essence of [the place's] personality just as upon their sign-boards they bear its painted name"—a name which, through etymological connotation, imposes an "outline" onto the place itself (Proust, Within a Budding Grove, 302).
In a similar vein, the Dublin United Tramways Company that crops up throughout Ulysses is used to think about the circulation of place-names. The opening of "Aeolus" comments on how transportation technology increases the visibility of toponyms.[12] Offset from any kind of corresponding topography, Joyce's list of names anticipates the noisy headlines that interpenetrate the episode. While preparing the manuscript for Dubliners, Joyce sparred with editor George Roberts, who took issue with the inclusion of real public houses, cake shops, and churches.[13] He mocks Roberts in his poem "Gas from the Burner," referencing P. W. Joyce's well-known etymological study of Irish toponyms: "Do you think I'll print / The name of the Wellington Monument / Sydney Parade and Sandymount tram. / Downes's cakeshop and Williams's jam / I'm damned if I do—I'm damned to blazes! / Talk about Irish Names of Places!"[14] While Wellington, Downes, and Williams are potentially libelous eponyms, Joyce's inclusion of Sydney Parade railway station and the Sandymount tram draws attention to a broader affinity between names and urban transit.
Several of the texts that have framed discussions of modernist space note a kind of opening between place-names and place in this period. In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre imagines a fictional Japanese philosopher critiquing the modern Western city: "Your streets, squares and boulevards have ridiculous names which have nothing to do with them, nor with the people and things around them."[15] Here the lack of linguistic motivation is both partial cause and symptom of a breakdown in spatial design. For Wolfgang Schivelbusch, the visibility of place-names in nineteenth-century station buildings evidences "the same process that attaches price tags to the commodities" (The Railway Journey, 193). If the railway journey's landscape was characterized by what he calls perceptual fragmentation, the commodified place-name—and its disassembly into constitutive etymons—fills in the cracks left open by the technological conquest of space. For other theorists, minding the "gap" between toponym and topography becomes a political act. Modern urban place-names "detach themselves from the places they were supposed to define," writes Michel de Certeau.[16] In this argument, urban exploration is "determined by semantic tropisms," because the meaning of words [le sens des mots] dictates how someone moves through urban space [le sens de la marche] (de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 105). Since names and streets both "hierarchize and semantically order the surface of the city," a creative inquiry into connotation creates "liberated spaces that can be occupied," spaces in which names cease to be proper (105).
Proust and the Etymology of Place
For Proust, names do not merely denote places, they are actively involved in how characters perceive topographical setting. Throughout the last section of Swann's Way, "Place-Names: The Name," the narrator frequently privileges connotation over denotation when imagining distant landscapes:
But if their names thus permanently absorbed the image that I had formed of these towns, it was only by transforming that image, by subordinating its reappearance in me to their own special laws; and in consequence of this they made it more beautiful, but at the same time more different from anything that the towns of Normandy or Tuscany could in reality be, and, by increasing the arbitrary delights of my imagination, aggravated the disenchantment that was in store for me when I set out upon my travels.[17]
The special laws [lois propres] of the proper name transform its referent through an appeal to connotation. Fantasizing about the fictional town of Balbec, a place he has never visited, Proust's narrator can distinguish "waves surging round a church built in the Persian manner," "storms at sea," and the "Norman gothic," all from looking closely at the name, listening to its phonemes (Swann's Way, 551, 554). These impressions reveal little about the place itself; rather, they preempt and predetermine how the town will be perceived in "Place Names: The Place." Proust's etymological modernism becomes a literary rebuttal to doctrines of the arbitrary sign. "Balbec" may not truly reflect Balbec, but the signifier bleeds, nevertheless, into the phenomenological perception and "disenchantment" of place itself.
In Mimologics, Gérard Genette pushes back against Roland Barthes's assertion that Proust's names lead to "the essence of things," arguing, instead, that the author fails to enmesh place-name and setting.[18] Explicating "Balbec," he writes that while it may be possible to hear a Norman and Persian influence in the toponym's "sonorities," "it is more difficult to find in this name an echo of the storms."[19] In examining the phonetic sense of Balbec rather than the word's etymological associations, Genette misses the storms that he seeks. "Bal" conjures the French balayer, meaning to sweep along or blow away, associated with storms through the idiom tout balayer sur son passage. It also has a sense of overwhelming size, tied to oceanic words like baleine (whale). The suffix "bec" is a common place-name suffix, meaning beak, mouth, spout, or lip, used to describe points and capes abutting water.[20] Take, for example, riverside towns like the French Bec-de-Mortagne or the English Weedon Bec. This sense of "bec" descends from the Old Norse "bekkr," a word for stream.[21] Note also that "Baal" is a common name for the Semitic god Hadad, lord of thunderstorms. Within the toponym, Proust's narrator finds an imaginative setting that extends beyond the borders of its corresponding topography—a setting that will not live up to his expectations when he visits the place itself.
Etymological speculation peaks during Sodome et Gomorrhe, when Brichot explains the counterintuitive logic behind place-names glimpsed from a train carriage. The narrator sees signs for "Fiquefleur," "Honfleur," and "Harfleur" and assumes that the suffix –fleur comes from the word for flower. Similarly, when he encounters the place-name "Bricqueboeuf," he naturally concludes that the place once had something to do with beef. "But the flower vanished, and also the beef, when Brichot (and this he had told me on the first day in the train) informed us that fleur means a harbour (like fiord), and that boeuf, in Norman budh, means a hut."[22] Just as his initial fantasies of Balbec led him imaginatively astray, the narrator once again faces disappointment as -fleur and -boeuf are not the suffixes he suspects. Like a "Dartmouth" no longer located near the river Dart, these place-names are perversely polysemous, containing origin stories in the fold of every morpheme.
Proust's narrator is not alone in his desire for correspondence between a toponym and its topography, for it reflects a much older tradition. Isidore of Seville's seventh-century Etymologiae chronicles how the similarities between objects in the world are etymologically mirrored by proximity between those objects' names.[23] From the perspective of landscape, the medieval Irish tradition of dinnseanchas, or the lore of place, creates similarly motivated relationships. Comparable to Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion, the dinnseanchas turned place-names into historic texts, whose etymologies contained a cultural inheritance. By uncovering the hidden meaning of a name, one could supposedly reveal a forgotten memory of the place itself—a feature no longer present in the visible landscape.[24] It is no coincidence that this form of etymological inquiry occurs on a train car in Proust. "All early descriptions of railroad travel testify to the difficulty of recognizing any but the broadest outlines of the traversed landscape," writes Schivelbusch (The Railway Journey, 85). Speculative etymology becomes a supplemental technique for filling in the details of these outlines, regaining a sense of topography by means of the toponym.
Beckett's Obscurant Imagination
In his early study of Proust, Beckett describes speculative etymology as a mirage of imagination that—upon visiting a place or learning of its true linguistic heritage—becomes replaced by the mirage of memory. "Balbec had still the mystery and beauty of its name, before reality had replaced the mirage of imagination by the mirage of memory and explained away . . . by the etymology of Brichot and the appeasing contempt of familiarity."[25] Churning in Proust's wake, Beckett uses etymology for near opposite ends. If Proust's toponymic fantasies expand the possibilities of setting beyond the delimitations of place, Beckett withholds toponymic connotation to create literary settings of deprivation, obscured within the mirage of memory. In a well-known passage from Molloy, Beckett hints at the names Balbec and Parma—toponyms that get extended treatments by Proust—but ultimately turns away from denomination.
And now it was a name I sought, in my memory, the name of the only town it had been given me to know, with the intention, as soon as I had found it, of stopping, and saying to a passer-by, doffing my hat, I beg your pardon, Sir, this is X, is it not?, X being the name of my town. And this name that I sought, I felt sure that it began with a B or with a P, but in spite of this clue, or perhaps because of its falsity, the other letters continued to escape me.[26]
With the notable exception of works such as Murphy (1938) and Mercier and Camier (1970), Beckett frequently couples namelessness and placelessness. As Molloy hints, if he could only recover the name of his town, flesh out the letters after "B" or "P," then the place might leap into view. Instead, deadened by habit and time, Beckett's scarce settings reflect what he calls "a compromise effected between the individual and his environment . . . the guarantee of a dull inviolability" (Proust, 7-8). In some ways, Beckett's toponyms present an inversion of the Adamic fantasy: rather than naming things into existence, his characters' anomic aphasia revokes the illuminating possibilities of connotation. For John McGahern, toponymic refusal is the equivalent to taking "the image out of art," reducing the landscape to abstracted ornamentation.[27] This is not to say that Beckett is insensitive to the toponym's evocative powers. In a 1936 letter to Mary Manning Howe, he anticipates an unseen poem being "rich in place names."[28] A year later, he reports to Thomas McGreevy that (like James Joyce) his brother has bought P. W. Joyce's The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places, and "knows a lot already about Celtic etymologies"—a knowledge Beckett garnered through the acquisition of similar books (The Letters, 487).[29]
When toponyms do appear, Beckett teases the etymologist. On the geographic front, take, for example, the region known as "Molloy country," composed of "Bally" and its constituent parts. Here again we find a nod to Proust, as bal- inherits connotations from Balbec's first syllable. Instead of the French landscape, some scholars hear an Irish topography in the place-name, as "Bally" evokes "Baile," a common word for town.[30] This impulse toward linguistic repatriation should be balanced with Molloy's own warning: "when the icy words hail down upon me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named" (Beckett, Molloy, 29). While "Bally" has etymological affinities with Irish, as perhaps the most generic and widely-used topographic prefix, it is a word that offers little descriptive content.[31] The subsequent suffixes that Molloy appends to Bally, –ba and –baba, sound more like infantile language than national designation, recalling the denomination of his mother as "Ma" or "Countess Caca" and his father as "da." In a subversion of syntactic intuition, adding –ba to "Bally" creates "Ballyba"—a denotation of "Bally plus its domains" (Beckett, Molloy, 14). Appending the same suffix again to create "Ballybaba," however, illogically denotes an area even smaller than Ballyba: "the domains exclusive of Bally itself" (14, 139-40).
To enclose Molloy's landscape within a specific countryside devalues the indeterminacy of Beckett's toponyms. This indeterminacy is mirrored by an etymological uncertainty that frustrates attempts at speculation. Recall Beckett's evasion when Theodor Adorno insisted that the character "Hamm" derived from Hamlet: "Sorry, Professor, but I never thought of Hamlet when I invented this name."[32] Similarly, when Hans Naumann wrote to ask if Molloy includes an Irish tradition, Beckett invoked W. B. Yeats to offer a winking reply of neither acceptance nor denial: "I had no need to drink at the magic foundation to be able to bear living outside it."[33] In Beckett's cunning silence we find the Anglophone meaning of "bally," a euphemism for bloody, which carries a sense of that which has been confounded, dashed, and blasted.[34] Like the connotative implications of the neighboring "Turdyba," the place-names in Molloy lead the confounded etymologist into the mire.
One of Beckett's more genuine etymological gestures can be found in the radio play All That Fall (1957). Reminiscent of the opening of Watt (1953), where a tram stop becomes the location for Mr. Spiro's anagrams, the railway setting at the end of Beckett's play serves as a sonic backdrop for etymological speculation.[35] The text records Maddy Rooney's walk to meet her husband, Dan—a name possibly shared by Molloy's father—and their subsequent return home.[36] When she arrives at the "Boghill" railway station, she learns the train had been delayed, and then Dan tells her about his trip to the toilet. "I got down and Jerry led me to the men's, or Fir as they call it now, from Vir Viris I suppose, the V becoming F in accordance with Grimm's Law."[37] Grimm's Law refers to a rule for the translation of consonants between languages, which he wrongly employs to trace the Irish word for "man" back to a false Latin origin. While the signage is partially a result of the Free State's reinstatement of Irish as a national language, I want to suggest this amateur philology is equally inspired by the railway setting.[38] At the end of the play, it is revealed that a child lost its life on the train tracks, causing the "unheard of" fifteen-minute delay to the train (Beckett, All That Fall, 28). The velocity of modern transportation comes at a cost, which Mr. Rooney tries to mitigate with a turn to etymology.
Proust and Beckett both utilize scenes of public transportation to think through questions of speculative etymology, the latter in the wake of the former—for these settings reveal a historical and material correlate to modernism's linguistic preoccupation with place-names. This is not to say that an exploration of etymons is a solely modernist or technologically-contingent activity. William Wordsworth's Poems on the Naming of Places from the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads are concentrated precursors to this type of thinking, while works by Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel, John Montague, and Don DeLillo become its successors. And yet, for Proust, Beckett, and other modernists, the toponym serves as a rich site of etymological experimentation, intensified through innovations in transportation, which differentiates setting from place by widening the space between connotation and denotation.
[1] See Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses, and Other Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 69.
[2] Virginia Woolf, "Literary Geography," in The Essays of Virginia Woolf, ed. Andrew McNeillie (London: Hogarth Press, 1986), 1:32-36, 33.
[3] Robert Alter, Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Language of the Novel (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), x.
[4] For three distinct takes on this speed-up, see George Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," in Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, ed. David Frisby and Mike Featherstone (London: Sage, 1997), 174–86, 175; Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century (1977; rpt., Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 171; David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (London: Blackwell, 1989), 240.
[5] See Sheila Taylor, The Moving Metropolis: A History of London's Transport since 1800, revised by David Lawrence (London: Laurence King, 2001), 282, and Allan Haley, ABC's of Type (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1990), 58.
[6] See Meredith Clausen, Frantz Jourdain and the Samaritaine: Art Nouveau Theory and Criticism (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 186–87.
[7] For a history of the railway in France, see Allan Mitchell, The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry, 1815–1914 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), 3–36, 85–119. For an account of how London was affected by these developments, see Steen Eiler Rasmussen, London: The Unique City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982). For a general treatment of the intersection of urban planning and transportation in European capital cities, see Thomas Hall, Planning Europe's Capital Cities: Aspects of Nineteenth-Century Urban Development (London: E & FN Spon, 1997). Transportation has been surprisingly undertheorized in discussions of literary place and period, leading the editors of a dedicated volume on the subject to write, as recently as 2015, that "research on transport in literature is rare" (Transport in British Fiction: Technologies of Movement, 1840–1940, ed. Adrienne Gavin and Andrew Humphries [London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015], 1).
[8] John Stewart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Connected View of the Principle of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1882), 1:32.
[9] Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 84, 517.
[10] Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room (London: Penguin, 1992), 55–6.
[11] Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 2003), 302.
[12] See James Joyce, Ulysses (New York: Random House, 1986), 7.1–5. For an account of this scene and its relationship to colonial identities, see Andrew Thacker, Moving through Modernity: Space and Geography in Modernism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 125.
[13] See James Joyce, The Letters of James Joyce, ed. Richard Ellmann (New York: Viking Press, 1966), 2:315.
[14] Quoted in Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 336.
[15] Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 156.
[16] Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 104.
[17] Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright, (New York: Modern Library, 2003), 550-51.
[18] Roland Barthes, New Critical Essays (New York: Hill and Wang, 1980), 67.
[19] Gérard Genette, Mimologics, trans. Thaïs E. Morgan (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1995), 252.
[20] See OED Online, June 2017, s.v., "beak, n.1"; and Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue française du 16e siècle, June 2017, s.v., "Bec., n.1."
[21] Margaret Gelling, Place-Names in the Landscape (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1984), 14.
[22] Marcel Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 2003), 679.
[23] See The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, ed. Stephen Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 17–29.
[24] See Alex Houen, Terrorism and Modern Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 248. For more on these poems and their relationship to Irish modernism, see Maria Tymoczko, The Irish Ulysses (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 159–66.
[25] Samuel Beckett, Proust (New York: Grove Press, 1970), 26.
[26] Samuel Beckett, Molloy (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), 28–9.
[27] Quoted in Seán Kennedy, "Introduction: Ireland/Europe…Beckett/Beckett" in Beckett and Ireland, ed. Seán Kennedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1–15, 11.
[28] Beckett to Howe, The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929–1940, ed. Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 358.
[29] For an account of Beckett's etymologies, see Dirk van Hulle and Mark Nixon, Samuel Beckett's Library (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 195.
[30] See, for example, Patrick Bixby, Samuel Beckett and the Postcolonial Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 178, as well as Emile Morin, Samuel Beckett and the Problem of Irishness (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 61.
[31] See Alan Graham, "'Godforsaken hole called … called …': Place, Nation, and Spatial Crisis in Beckett's Fiction and Drama" Irish Studies Review 24, no. 2 (2016): 159–74, 163.
[32] Quoted by Siegfried Unseld in an address to the Second International Beckett Symposium in The Hague, April 8, 1992, cited in James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 1996), 428.
[33] Beckett to Naumann, The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 2, 1941–1956, ed. George Craig, Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, Dan Gunn, and Lois More Overbeck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 465.
[34] See OED Online, June 2017, s.v., "bally, n.1."
[35] See Samuel Beckett, Watt (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), 21.
[36] See Beckett, Molloy, 14.
[37] Samuel Beckett, All That Fall: A Play for Radio (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), 33.
[38] Brynhildur Boyce, "Pismires and Protestants: The 'Lingering Dissolution' of Samuel Beckett's All that Fall," Irish Studies Review 17, no. 4 (2009): 499–511, 502–3.
Jonathan Flatley, Wayne State University