Stories as Symbols (and Other Foundational Assumptions) by Maya

Stories as Symbols (and Other Foundational Assumptions) by Maya - June 2014 Scholarship Essay

I am an intended Creative Writing major, and my roommate is an English major. We get along very well, but I’ve learned a few things about the differences between English majors and writing majors. One is that English majors (or at least my roommate) love reading for the symbolism and styles of writing, while Creative Writing majors love reading because of the stories. My roommate insisted I read John Updike’s The Centaur, and despite my love of Greek mythology, I just could not like the book as a whole. I found the story boring. Everything that was happening was under the surface, buried under layers of symbolism and allegory. Don’t get me wrong – I’m fine with symbolism and allegory, as well as all the other things English majors live for. When done right, they add a lot to the novel. But if there isn’t an engaging story as well, the book is lost on me. Which is one of the reasons why, if I were to write a book, it would be a fantasy story. Actually, I have written a book, two of them, the first during my junior year of high school, and I am currently almost finished with the third book in the series. But I’ve stopped working on that lately in favor of another project.

The book I’m writing now started when my mom’s secretary named her daughter Story. I love names. I collect all sorts of them in notebooks and word documents, and this one struck a spark in my imagination. I started thinking about a character named Poet, and soon I had a whole cast of characters I was more invested in than any I’ve ever dreamed up. I suppose the genre is best described as urban fantasy, set in our world and the current time, with complicated political and magical systems. The idea is that there are many other dimensions, and only certain people can reach them. The struggles over who will control these people are the source of the complications. The series I have been working on since high school features a more straightforward fight between good and evil, with an obvious villain and hero. That sort of thing is fine, because there are obvious villains and heroes in the world. But I’ve found that things are generally more complicated than that, which is part of why I switched projects. I want to tell a story, but I also want to express some kind of truth, and say something meaningful about how I see the world – which, believe it or not, has changed since I was sixteen.

As a child I read more books than almost anyone I knew, and certainly more fantasy. My friends often commented that I “talked smart,” meaning I had a wider vocabulary than most people my age. Part of the reason I read so much fantasy was because I found real life dull and unimaginative. Who wants to learn long division when they could be fighting a basilisk with Harry Potter or outsmart trolls with Bilbo Baggins and company? But as I got older I found that what I had taken away from these stories without even realizing it was something much greater. Harry Potter was more than just a fun escape; along with the rules of Quidditch, it taught me about loyalty, and bravery in the face of fear. (Also, the spells were a fun exposure to Latin.)

I have always known that, whatever my actual job ended up being, I wanted to help people. I don’t think I’d make much of a doctor or scientist, but I am a good writer. I have always believed that fictional stories can make a real difference in real lives, which, as author John Green says in his note before The Fault in Our Stars, “is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.” After all, what is the Bible or the Greek myths if not stories meant to make an impact on how we live our lives? Books belong to their readers, of course, and everyone takes away something different from them. So I will continue writing fantasy books with great stories, and hopefully I’ll tell you something meaningful along the way.