Ep. 1. Introducing the Ceremony Podcast

Transcript:

Imagine a children’s party where the adults are intoxicated.

What happens in that space is unpredictable. There may be violence or the exhilaration of play. The children may be let down by the adults, but they might find creative and mature ways to respond. 

The line between joy and terror is blurred, as the constraints of ritual free people from mundane responsibilities and moral concerns. 

Perhaps, as the sun goes down, a paper lantern catches fire and the sky fills with flames, calling the attention of the adults away. 

This is the ceremony at the heart of a potential story; from these few elements, a world can be dreamed into being. 

This podcast is about the power of ceremony in storytelling and writing. 

The most potent way to share a fictional world is with an illustration that distils its complexities. 

Once you find the ceremony at the heart of a novel, you can tell that story to yourself, and to others, with ease. 

Everything that comes before anticipates the ceremony and everything that comes afterwards is coloured by the ceremony. 

The ceremony is the part that stays in your reader's unconscious and draws them back to your story world time and again. 

If you are a writer, once you discover your ceremony, you will be excited to return to your fiction to write just a few more pages. You will have a clear hook that will make your story stand out and entice readers to stay up past their bedtimes and cancel their plans. 

It could be something as irrevocable as a death, or as mundane as a date. It could be a pilgrimage, a pageant, a festival, a party, a swim meet, an art show, a family dinner, a cord-cutting, a sacrifice, or an initiation. It could be the discovery of a diary in a secret drawer, or an insight in a therapy session. 

In this podcast, I will analyse some of the most thrilling works of fiction through the ceremonies at their hearts. I will also talk to writers with to learn more about their ceremonies and the rituals that allow them to dream new worlds into being. I hope you will join us.