Writing Essentials: Ego/Shadow/Self

To bring meaning to our story, a meaning that resonates with our reader, we look for ways to make our plot character driven.

A character driven plot has a core question imbedded in its subtext and that question is: What does it mean to be human?

Story is created when a protagonist comes across, or is confronted with, an event that makes them react. Their reaction leads to them making a choice. The choice ties directly in with the plot progression: an event at point A leads to a reaction and a choice, which takes the character to point B where an event leads to a reaction and a choice, and so on.

By keeping our core question of what it means to be human as the heart of our narrative, we will ensure our story connects and resonates with our reader.

How do we make sure we keep the question at the heart of the narrative?

By looking closely at the Ego/Shadow/Self dynamic within our protagonist since this dynamic is what informs our character’s choices.

Because these three core elements are what anchors our protagonist into what it means to be human.

The interplay between this dynamic trio is incredibly helpful when searching for a direction in character building, whether we’ve just begun trying to understand our characters as we write our first draft, or whether we’re deep in the editing process.

Let’s look at an example of how this interplay informs plot from a previous post:

·       A character begins flawed, learns lessons along their journey, and evolves into a more self-aware person.

·       The lessons challenge their self-perception and push them out of their performative persona into a more authentic version of themselves, reflective of their true self.

·       Accepting the journey and learning the lessons typically results in the character being rewarded, not with what they consciously wanted at the beginning of their journey, but with what they needed deep-down all along.

Scaling it back to focus on the core elements, the example would be shaped like this:

·       Our protagonist begins at point A, unaware of who they are truly meant to be, and is set on a journey of self-discovery.

·       As they discover they are led to make choices, some good and some bad, with each choice teaching a lesson designed to open them up to more and more self-awareness.

·       This is because each choice makes them confront aspects of themselves that they never realized held sway over them.

·       Shadow aspects such as shame, guilt, fear, regret, and so on.

·       Each aspect brought to light teaches our protagonist that what they thought was true within their own self-perception is marred by self-deception.

·       Shifting their self-perception brings self-acceptance and self-honesty, connecting them with who they truly are.

·       This begins the integration process, allowing them to start making better and better choices for themselves.

·       These better choices will reflect the reason why they are on their journey to begin with and will warrant them reaching a satisfying endgame.

Let me add a caveat: This is not meant to be a formulaic approach to the character journey but rather promoting an understanding of what makes a character journey the most solid cornerstone for the foundation of our narrative. A deeper understanding of why character as cornerstone works so well means we can vary our approach to character and, by doing so, place the cornerstone in the way that works best for our personal intention with our story.

We begin to find the cornerstone by looking at the contrasts within the Ego/Shadow/Self dynamic of our character. 

We can keep this simple and expand on the simplicity until it’s as complex as any human.

Example

Ego/conscious self: I am placid.

Our protagonist presents themselves as calm. They consider themselves always collected and easy going. When faced with any event that is familiar, this is how they appear to everyone around them. Society’s impression of our protagonist is what they want it to be: they’re reliable, steadfast, quiet. 

This set of traits work perfectly well but there’s no tension. We add tension by how a character’s actions on the page contrast with the parts of themselves they’re unaware of, the parts that shine through in our subtext.

Shadow/subconscious self: I am fearful.

Consider the real reason why our protagonist has such a tight hold on themselves: they don’t feel safe otherwise.

Why don’t they feel safe? 

Because life has taught them that confrontational people lose what they care about.

When did life teach them this?

Let’s say they demanded that their mother spend more time with them and their mother ended up leaving the family.

Our protagonist’s childhood wound manifests as a fear of confrontation but roots itself in fear of abandonment.

Should they find themselves in the middle of an event that triggers either of these fears, how would they be presenting? They would no longer be so calm and collected. And when a character begins to drop their persona to show the wounding underneath, or when a calm character loses their shit over a specific thing, the reader gets to see who they truly are.

And so does the character.

Conflict is brought on to bring our character’s Shadow into the light, little by little, throughout our story because putting our character in uncomfortable situations means they have little choice but to grow self-aware.

A character might refuse their journey but typically this makes the story a tragedy.

Self/true self: I am compassionate of myself and others.

The Self represents our character’s identity and is home to our character’s core traits.

A character’s core traits counterweigh any Shadow traits.

In the scenario above, to find a working contrast with our character’s core flaw - fear of abandonment - we counterweigh fear with what our character needs to discover within themselves to overcome that fear.

So, let’s say what they need to discover is their innate sense of compassion.

Our protagonist’s innate compassion reveals itself as their self-awareness grows deeper until they learn the ultimate lesson: they have no blame in their parent choosing to abandon them and their journey means forgiving themselves and letting go of the past.

Side note: Whether they react with fight or with flight to uncomfortable events that trigger them, gaining compassion means detaching from a reactive mindset into a truly placid one, where any calm collectedness comes from a healed frame of mind. This is a nicely effectively play with contrast within the Ego/Shadow/Self dynamic: even when there appears to be complete self-deception there is a kernel of their true self shining through.

In the next post we’ll dig even deeper into Ego/Shadow/Self along with ways to use choice and consequence as an effective narrative tool.