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Story Doorways

I believe that in good storytelling there is always a door. I talk about doors in all my lectures and consultations. Recently I ran across a wonderful new quote about the importance of doors in stories:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“If we address stories as archaeological sites and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical. It is the moments when the doors open, when things flow between worlds, that stories happen.” Alix E. Harrow, Ten Thousand Doors of January

Ten Thousand Doors of January is a wonderful award-winning debut novel by Alix E. Harrow. The young female protagonist, January Scaller, is named after Janus, the Roman god of thresholds, beginnings, doorways, and endings.

She goes on to say, “Doors introduce change. And from change come all things: revolution, resistance, empowerment, upheaval, invention, collapse, reformation– all the most vital components of human history (and personal transformation).

In Harrow’s novel, January almost bypasses her doorway. “Doors are like that”, she says, “half-shadowed and sideways until someone looks at them just right.”

Hope As a Door

This meshes perfectly with a quote I have long used from The Soul of Politics by Jim Wallace:

“Hope is the engine of change. Hope is the energy of transformation, Hope is the door from one reality to another.”
“Things that seem possible, reasonable, understandable, even logical in hindsight-things that we can deal with, things that are not extraordinary-often seemed quite impossible, unreasonable, nonsensical, and illogical when we were looking ahead to them. The changes, the possibilities, the opportunities, the surprises that no one, or very few, would even have imagined be­come history after they’ve occurred.”
“What looked before as though it could never happen is now easy to understand. Once it is upon us, we accept the inevitability of the first multiracial election in South Africa. In hindsight, we can see how everything fell into place, and it was quite natural, even reasonable, that it would hap­pen. It was inevitable, at least it seems that way in hindsight. Inevitable in hindsight and impossible in foresight.”
“Between impossibility and possibility, there is a door, the door of hope. And the possibility of (personal and) history’s transformation lies through that door. The gains, victories, and transformation that seemed impossible at first became possible only by stepping through the door of hope. Spiritual visionaries have often been the first to walk through that door, because in order to walk through it first you have to see it, and then you have to believe something lies on the other side. Not everyone can see the door, and most people can imagine nothing on the other side.
Jim Wallis’ The Soul of Politics is about how things change when we take personal responsibility for making those transformations and walk through the Door of Hope.

The One Hour Screenwriter

If you need help seeing and walking through the story door for your script The One Hour Screenwriter might be just what you need. It is an eCourse and you can go at your own pace!
“Laurie has taught me more than anyone about the central importance of character in any screenplay. Her method of character analysis provides an invaluable tool for the writer who needs a non-destructive way to self-critique his or her screenplay. At the heart of every Oscar® Winning Best Film, is a screenplay that is the Best. Laurie’s methods help writers create their Best.”
Peter Fudakowski, Producer of Tsosti, Oscar® Winning Best Foreign Language Film

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