As he walked by the red rose bush, strutting with his blood-red waistcoat and popping his red collar, a single petal fell to the path he'd trodden. The red flowers withered behind him, clearly losing their innocence for some inexplicable reason. He was an ordinary red-blooded man, at least as far as the readers knew.
Flashing his golden tooth and twirling his ironically-evil moustache, it was time for him to reveal his true nature. Did I mention he was wearing red? Okay, good. Also, the sun cast red beams of light down onto him, painting his shadow with a red hue. Slowly, he reached towards the red apple tree and took a good-guy bite from the reddest apple he could find—
Are you done?
...And his eyes were also red. Okay, now I'm done. What were we writing about today?
Well, you usually start off with utter nonsense for a few paragraphs.
Oh. So far, so good.
In any case, let's talk symbolism! We all know what that is — a motif or representation of a higher concept in the plot. Flowers symbolise purity, red symbolises violence, reflections symbolise introspection of oneself; just about anything can be symbolic in the right context. But what does it all mean?
It means that if you want to win a writer's award, just make something red.
Okay, so perhaps some readers treat symbolic imagery with much more admiration than it deserves. Am I an artistic genius because I made a character wear black in a scene where they bring death to the table? Was it a stylistic choice, or was my brain wired that way through years of common media tropes?
Symbolism is a subtle art. It reaches back into the early days of mythology, where the gods themselves embodied concepts like femininity, courage, musical talent. One image can bring about a whole host of complex meanings, so how is that not a brilliant technique?
Because this isn't a multiple choice test, you donkey!
Absolutely right. The tricky part is that your perception of the world is never the same as someone else's. It's a difficult concept to explain, but readers will never be able to experience the senses as the author. You know, barring some horrific nerve-swapping surgery.
Take colourblind people, for instance. When you look at a traffic light, you see red — bright, foreboding, a telltale sign of danger. What they see is something entirely different, because they haven't experienced the same conditioning as you. They don't associate red with pain, blood or even caution.
The same rule stands for symbolism in novels. If you read into anything too much, you're going to start connecting dots that probably aren't there. Some classic authors even admit that critics have highlighted 'social commentaries' on war and politics that were never originally intended!
That's the beauty of it, though. These hidden codes make the reader feel smarter, regardless of whether the colour is red or green. You literally can't go wrong when it comes to something as subjective as symbolism.
You just don't understand their deeper meanings, you filthy casual!
Hold on now. I'm not saying that symbolism is a cop-out for lack of any actual depth in your novel. In fact, some of the more in-your-face representations have made real-world impacts on younger audiences.
Take a look at how the old X-men universe treated mutants as second-class citizens, almost parallel to how 1950s America was treating the non-white population. That's called a symbolic allegory — the ability to showcase an entire racial conflict in a way that made opposing readers more sympathetic to the cause.
Political symbolism and satire will always have its place in history, but we are now living in an age where these motifs have become cliches and dead tropes. Nowadays, whenever someone wears lots of red in a book, it's more like foreshadowing their villainous side instead of a cheeky eagle-eyed nod.
So what do you want here, exactly? Subtle symbolism, or ram-it-up-your-nose symbolism?
Honestly? Symbolism should be a complete afterthought. You need to write your baseline as it was intended, with all of the themes and gags intact. Wanna know why? Because you'll already have included the symbolic undertones without even realising it.
Symbolism happens unconsciously these days. No painter knows the number of ways their work will be interpreted. Often at times, the painting's origin story changes as the artist rediscovers their past influences.
Trying to force meaning into your novel is like stuffing a turkey with a shovel. It will come off as crude, desperate and completely ham-fisted. Be upfront and wear your story's message on its sleeves, because the age of subtlety is over.
If you have something you want to get across, just say it. It can be as quiet as a whisper or as loud as Yoko Ono's singing career — just as long as you tell the story you want to tell, instead of hiding behind layers of colour motifs and clever puns.
----
Sometimes red isn't as ingenious as you think it is. Sometimes red is just a colour, and I think that needs to be okay again. Sure, it's nice and predictable when you have telltale imagery to let you know that good guys wear fairy-blue, baddies wear the blood of their victims.
Do you want to write stories that predictable, though?
Let your readers explore the world for themselves, shroud your characters in a symbolic void. Maybe your blue goodie was the bad guy all along? When you have centuries of society's colour-conditioning at your disposal, use that to your advantage and subvert those expectations!
I'm not against symbolism at all. It's fun to pick apart, enhances already-epic stories and can even influence social attitudes of the time. In the right hands, it sheds a delicate light on the issues that most people refuse to address.
Just don't let subtlety itself become the purpose for your art.
Flapping flapjacks, dude. How many times have you said symbolism today?
22.
I need help.