Pivotal Moments: Turning Points in Life and Story
A reflection on epiphanies, transformation and following the Golden Thread - with a guided writing exercise
Sometimes my memory feels like a photograph album. An amalgamation of moments, frozen in time, apparently disconnected. Yet when I look more closely, I can see the fine thematic threads that connect them and express themselves through outward events. There are so many turning points, minor and major, and the occasional epiphany; all catalysts for change. Good, bad and in-between, these moments have imprinted themselves in my memory and in my body, creating causes and effects that have sent me in unexpected and sometimes unwanted directions.
Life is filled with turning points, as are stories. Some turn us to the light, others to the dark, while a few of the trickier ones seem to send us in one direction but actually take us in another, the long way around. The path least walked. If we’re wise enough to suspend judgment we might wait and see where a turning point takes us, because it’s almost always only in retrospect that understanding comes.
There’s a very old story about a farmer who works his land patiently and with great perseverance. One day his horse runs away. His neighbours visit and commiserate. What bad luck,’ they say. The farmer replies ‘maybe, maybe not.’ Some time later the horse returns, accompanied by a beautiful and powerful stallion. ‘What good luck,’ say the neighbours. The farmer replies, ‘maybe, maybe not.’ Soon after this the farmer’s son tries to ride the stallion but falls and breaks his leg. ‘What bad luck,’ say the neighbours. But the farmer only replies, ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ A few days later the army comes along to conscript all the young men in the area to fight. The farmer’s son, with his broken leg is overlooked. ‘What good luck,’ say the neighbours, amazed. But the wise farmer simply says, ‘Maybe, maybe not. . .’
Like the neighbours, most of us can only recognize the patterns in our lives when we look back into the past. But if, like the farmer, we can remain stoic in the face of the seemingly good and bad events that fortune brings us, then we can open ourselves to synchronicity and begin to see the meaningful connecting points between seemingly disparate events.
The Turning Point
Whether for ourselves or our characters, turning points represent a sudden understanding that shifts our perspective, changing us and changing our forward direction. A turning point can sometimes be dramatic and catastrophic, such as an accident, an illness or a job loss, or it can be dramatic and exciting, such as a lottery win. Either way it is a moment that triggers great change and also asks us to choose how we manage that change.
However, many turning points aren’t dramatic and they don’t appear out of nowhere, though they may seem to. It’s only when we look back to the time before the turning point that we can see it was the result of the joining of any number of dots. We tend to give importance to the turning point itself because of the way it impresses itself on us, but whether it’s dramatic or simply a quiet understanding, a shutting down or an opening up, the turning point is not an autonomous moment in time.
Turning points emerge from the past, exist in the present and reach into the future. They have an effect on us. Something has changed; sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Turning points represent an opportunity but in life, as in story, it’s all about what we make of them. And it’s here that we’re offered a choice that will change or strengthen the trajectory of our lives, depending on how we respond. Do we take the opportunity to integrate the new knowledge and act on it, consciously changing the patterns, the cause and effect threads that direct our lives? Or do we respond by reinforcing the patterns we’re already trapped in? In story this choice becomes the difference between an upward or downward character arc.
The Epiphany
While an epiphany is a turning point, it differs in one major respect. A turning point can sometimes be a shutting down, a movement towards darkness but an epiphany is always an opening up. An epiphany is a gift but one that comes only when we are able and ready to receive it.
An epiphany is one of those beautiful moments that stops you in your tracks. It might be a momentary recognition of the oneness of everything or a remembering of something we have forgotten. It might be a sudden, intuitive perception or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something. An epiphany isn’t a grasping desire or an intellectual analysis but rather a momentary stopping of thought and desire. A moment of pure connection.
The word epiphany originates from the Greek epiphaneia which means manifestation, revelation. It’s also the name of an important feast day in Christianity, which principally but not solely, celebrates the Christ child appearing before the Gentiles. In literary terms, an epiphany is that moment in the story where a character comes to a realisation an awareness or a new understanding. It’s a transcendent moment. After it, events and life itself are seen through the prism of this realisation. James Joyce described an epiphany as the moment in which “the soul of the commonest object … seems to us radiant, and may be manifested through any chance, word or gesture.”
Short stories and personal essays often revolve around an epiphany or turning point but only allude to how it came about (the past) and where it might go (the future). Longer stories tend to contain at least one major epiphany or turning point, as well as a number of smaller turning points that signal increasing understanding and incremental changes within the character, all of which lead up to and enable a major realisation. In turn this enables a positive character arc, as the character begins to integrate the new understanding, gradually changing their perspective and often their behaviour.
The Golden Thread
In one of my all-time favourite books, A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin wrote, ‘As a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.’ This is the Golden Thread. A life lived following the clues, the synchronicities, a life in which we have no choices simply because we know exactly what needs to be done at any one time.
There are many turning points dotted throughout our lives, some might say that every moment equals a turning point or at least a moment of choice but when we’re caught in a chain of unconscious cause and effect we lose our agency to decide and life moves automatically from the past into the present where it forms our future.
As Socrates is purported to have said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ In life and in story, we are given opportunities to step out of our comfort zones and examine ourselves. Again and again we are shown, through the course of events and our reactions to them, what it is within us that needs addressing and the consequences of failing to do so. Different experiences but the same themes, in an endlessly repeating pattern until finally we have that moment of understanding and say: ‘Aha, I get it.’ Only then can we free ourselves from the pattern and find that Golden Thread that will lead us to where we need to go, stepping out of the vagaries of fate and into our destiny.
They say when we die, we are shown our life unfolding before us and we get to see the cause-and effect-threads, the unconscious patterns that guided our choices and formed our fates. But these patterns can be seen in the stories we read and write, and also within our own lives if we take the advice of Socrates and examine it. What if we can make these patterns conscious while we’re here on earth? What if we can break free of them and create new pathways, conscious and positive? What if we can learn to act rather than react? And what if we step into the flow of synchronicity?
What a different world we would create.
Rosie
A Guided Writing Exercise
This exercise requires you to open the photograph album of your life, step into the past and take a look at your life. It can also be used to work with a fictional character you’re developing.
Close your eyes, open your mind’s eye and slip into your memory, searching for the turning points and the epiphanies that have punctuated your life so far. These are the moments (for good and for bad) that have imprinted, impressed themselves on your mind, on your body.
Allow the memories to gradually seep into your consciousness., What you’re looking for are turning points or epiphanies – as many as you can think of.
The first memories will probably relate to the big transitions in life, the births, deaths and marriages. But remember that the smaller turning points are important too: a passing compliment, an unjust accusation, a new idea, a closing down, an opening up. Anything that has changed the direction of your life, even in the tiniest way.
Make a note of anything that comes to mind.
When you’ve finished, ask yourself these questions:
Are there any connections between the memories?
Can you identify any cause and effect threads that create one or more patterns in your life or the life of your character?
Is there a positive pattern of threads?
Is there a negative pattern of threads?
Or do they contain both the positive and the negative?
And somewhere amongst these threads can you see a golden one?
Now choose one of the memories – ideally one that doesn’t contain trauma as this can be confronting. Then close your eyes again, step into the memory and explore it from all angles.
Small or large, turning points imprint themselves on us, so you will most likely see them quite clearly and be able to reproduce details of the experience.
Make some notes.
Then write the turning point as a scene, bringing it back to life on the page. If you like you can incorporate reflection on the nature of this turning point and the changes it wrought (small or large) in your life.
You can do this with each of the memories, reflecting on each and looking for the connections, the patterns they have created in your life.
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I’m Dr Rosie Dub, a novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as a creative writing teacher, mentor and developmental editor. My PhD research explored the purpose and function of story as an evolutionary tool for individuals and societies. I’m also the creator of the Alchemy of Story workshop series.
For me the writing process is priceless, so I do not use AI for either the writing or editing of my articles or books. If you would like to read more about AI and the challenges it brings for writers and readers, have a read of this article: Process or Product? What We Lose When We Let AI Write Our Stories for Us
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I love this. Thanks, Rosie.