Symbols

I mentioned my book as a symbol in a prior post. I'd like to take a moment to elaborate on that. A symbol is something that stands in for something else. For a basic understanding of symbols you can look HERE. And don't give me any trouble for pointing you to Wikipedia. Wikipedia may not be the best source for knowledge, but it's a great place to start almost any research project. Plus, it's peer reviewed. How can you go wrong?

Back to symbols though. We use symbols to communicate. That's the only way we can. When we speak we use sounds as symbols to represent ideas. In writing we use letters as symbols for the sounds we make. Words are more complex symbols, and books are even more complex. Even at the book level it's just symbols.

Now two things to remember about symbols and communication:

1 - Even an entire book can be a single symbol. It's a symbol for the whole experience. When you talk to a friend about Harry Potter, or Mistborn, you don't have to recap the entire story each time. You just say "Hey, did you read that?" and they say "Yeah, dude. It was awesome!" The entire book itself has just become a symbol for your shared experience.

2 - Communication takes both sending and receiving. If you say something and no one hears then there is no communication going on. If I write a dozen novels and no one ever reads them then there is no communication going on. But as soon as the reading begins, the communication happens. The symbol is completed by the receipt. Otherwise it's not even a symbol because it communicates nothing. (If you write a secret code and you're the only one who can read it it's still a symbol because you become your own recipient.)

3 - Yeah, I know I said 2, but I like threes. It's my comedic training.

4 - Whoops. I guess I'm committed now....So here's the last point I'll make. When the symbol has been received, then it no longer belongs to the originator. When I read Harry Potter then it becomes a part of my intelligence. Joanne K. Rowling may have sent out the symbol, but the story is mine now. Along with every person who has read it. We all know that she wrote it, but we'll still get up in arms if someone makes a movie and changes some part that we felt was important. That's because it's now a shared symbol, and that's good. That's what writing is, communicating and creating a symbol. Then that symbol can be shared and used in further communication.

So, go create symbols. Communicate. Write something for someone else to read. Expand the discussion.

Good luck!