The Golden Theme

By Brian McDonald

Libertary Editions 2010

The author has an impressive set of Hollywood credentials. From the back cover of the book:

“Brian McDonald has taught his story seminar at PIXAR, DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION and George Lucas’s ILM. His award-winning short film WHITE FACE has run on HBO and Cinemax and is used in corporations nation-wide as a diversity-training tool.”

Also, impressive was the fact that Charles Johnson, a National Book Award winner wrote a glowing forward for The Golden Theme.

Think of this as a seminar as opposed to a writing text. The main purpose of the book is to highlight and give examples of ways to find our common humanity. If you take nothing else from the book, it will be the theme that “we are all the same.” Even the bad guys.

If you are having trouble creating realistic characters your readers can identify with, McDonald includes powerful examples of ways to imagine yourself in someone else’s skin. He also points out ways we are more alike than we might think. Villains still need a dose of humanity to make them believable and our heroes cannot be too perfect, or the audience will have trouble identifying with them.

One especially effective example the author gives is of having to imagine the character of a slave holder. After explaining the historical circumstances that created a climate where slaveholders may have lived in fear for their lives, he asks us to imagine a motivation for being especially harsh.

    “Find the thing that would make you behave as the cruelest of slaveholders and you will have found his humanity and your own.”

McDonald explains that the purpose of stories since the beginning of time is to give us valuable survival information, and to soothe our souls through the magic of story, letting us know we are not alone.  The Golden Theme is a less a “how to” and more of a reminder of a higher artistic purpose.

    “Your job is to let people know that everyone shares their feelings—and that these feelings bind us. Your job is a healing art, and like all healers, you have a responsibility. Let people know that they are not alone.”