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The Natural Laws of Story: Master the Art and Science of Engaging Narratives

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Will Raywood

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“What determines the success of a story is not its ability to mirror real life or its escapist value; it’s its power to illuminate specific aspects of the human experience in an engaging way. Ultimately, the main goal of storytelling is to create shared emotional experiences.”

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Book:The Natural Laws of Story: Master the Art and Science of Engaging Narratives
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“Many Englishmen have written about camels. When I open a book and see the familiar disparagement, the well-worn humour, I realize that the author's knowledge of them is slight, that he has never lived among the Bedu, who know the camel's worth: 'Ata Allah', or 'God's gift', they call her, and it is her patience that wins the Arab's heart. I have never seen a Bedu strike or ill-treat a camel. Always the camel's needs come first. It is not only that the Bedu's existence depends upon the welfare of his animals, but that he has a real affection for them.”

CamelsNomadNomadicArabsAnimals And AttitudeBedouinDesert Survival
Author:Wilfred Thesiger
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“As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred change happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives. They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.”

DesertNomadNomadicBedouinDesert SurvivalBedouin Life
Author:Wilfred Thesiger
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“As I listened I thought once again how precarious was the existence of the Bedu. Their way of life naturally made them fatalists; so much was beyond their control. It was impossible for them to provide for a morrow when everything depended on a chance fall of rain or when raiders, sickness, or any one of a hundred chance happenings might at any time leave them destitute, or end their lives. They did what they could, and no people were more self-reliant, but if things went wrong they accepted their fate without bitterness, and with dignity as the will of God.”

DesertNomadNomadic LifeBedouinDesert SurvivalBedouin Life
Author:Wilfred Thesiger
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“I am locked in a little cedar box with a picture of shepherds pasted onto the central panel between carvings. The box stands on curved legs. It has a gold, heart-shaped lock and no key. I am trying to write my way out of the closed box redolent of cedar. Satan comes to me in the locked box and says, I’ll get you out. Say My father is a shit. I say my father is a shit and Satan laughs and says, It’s opening. Say your mother is a pimp. My mother is a pimp. Something opens and breaks when I say that. My spine uncurls in the cedar box like the pink back of the ballerina pin with a ruby eye, resting beside me on satin in the cedar box. Say shit, say death, say fuck the father, Satan says, down my ear. The pain of the locked past buzzes in the child’s box on her bureau, under the terrible round pond eye etched around with roses, where self-loathing gazed at sorrow. Shit. Death. Fuck the father. Something opens. Satan says Don’t you feel a lot better? Light seems to break on the delicate edelweiss pin, carved in two colors of wood. I love him too, you know, I say to Satan dark in the locked box. I love them but I’m trying to say what happened to us in the lost past. Of course, he says and smiles, of course. Now say: torture. I see, through blackness soaked in cedar, the edge of a large hinge open. Say: the father’s cock, the mother’s cunt, says Satan, I’ll get you out. The angle of the hinge widens until I see the outlines of the time before I was, when they were locked in the bed. When I say the magic words, Cock, Cunt, Satan softly says, Come out. But the air around the opening is heavy and thick as hot smoke. Come in, he says, and I feel his voice breathing from the opening. The exit is through Satan’s mouth. Come in my mouth, he says, you’re there already, and the huge hinge begins to close. Oh no, I loved them, too, I brace my body tight in the cedar house. Satan sucks himself out the keyhole. I’m left locked in the box, he seals the heart-shaped lock with the wax of his tongue. It’s your coffin now, Satan says. I hardly hear; I am warming my cold hands at the dancer’s ruby eye— the fire, the suddenly discovered knowledge of love.”

ReligionFamily
Book:Satan Says
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