The Masque of Words

The secret to tales lies in the three faces of words

The Lock

Upon the age-old door to the treasure-room of tales there is a lock, heavy, massive, and dark. This lock has a strange trait: it will seem different to each kind of talesman. To those who tell tales in pictures it takes one shape. To those who tell tales on the stage it takes another. To those who work in comics, the locks takes yet another shape, and so it changes for each kind of work the talesman would work in.

Here I will write of the lock as it seems to those of us who tell tales in words alone, for that is the shape the lock took on when I first saw it, years and years ago.

Here is that lock:

A man walked down the road.

The Key

To be a great talesman, each of us must find the lock as it takes shape for us, and we must find the key that will unlock it. And then we may go into the treasure-room of tales, and take all the wealth we want — all of it lies there waiting and it will never run out.

Let us go back to the lock as I first found it:

A man walked down the road.

How old is this man? What color is he? What garb does he wear? Is he tall or short, thin or fat, bent or upright, weak or strong? How fast does he walk? Does he go toward some goal, or does he flee something?

What age is the road? What land does it lie in? Wo made it and how long ago? Of what stuff is the road made? Was it well made? Does it cut straight across the face of the land or does it bend with the land’s shape?

What land is this? Does the road lie near or far from the sea? Is it on an island? Is it flat or mountainous, high or low, green or sere? What season is it of the year? What stands on the side of the road? Are there trees? Are their buildings? Are there other men? How do these men (if there are some) look upon the man in the road? Are they like him or unlike?

The list of questions stretch as long as all the roads. But we can point to three faces of the words if we look past the questions and their answers, to what they represent.

1. The words themselves and what they mean. Their bare, stark meaning.
2. The images, sounds and other sensations and feelings the audience will get when they hear and try to understand the words.
3. The images, sounds, sensations and feelings (and all else) the talesman aims at with the words.

The key to the lock lies in solving all three at once.

The Dance

The talesman, to unlock the lock of the words, must know all these three things at once, and he must master them.

The words themselves are masks that hide any possible meaning the talesman may have, as well as all possible meaning the audience might take. Through and by the words the talesman leads his audience on a dance between his images and theirs.

He may hope to lead his audience through steps that strictly mirror his own, as exactly as he can. But the trick and great secret in unlocking the lock depends upon a loose lead, so that the audience are free to step just where they please, and lose the sense that their steps are led and controlled, so that they gain the illusion of freely dancing where and as they wish, and yet are led without doubt — and so in the end they reach the place the talesman aims at.

A man walked down the road.

The great art lies in seeing and knowing the words in themselves and in all their possible masks; in knowing what you mean and want to the last detail, and knowing the range of how the audience will take the words; and holding all three in mind at the same time.

(Composed with pen on paper Wednesday, March 5, 2008)