Rise Above
When I was a kid, I thought I was Spiderman. I even had the web shooters for my wrists and used to run around catching household items in my webs. When I got a little older, I wanted to be Wonder Woman. I had a red cardigan with buttons that I would wear as a jacket outside when the Pennsylvania weather was decent. I’d twirl around with my arms straight out the way Lynda Carter did when she’d transform into Wonder Woman. As I spun, I’d take off the cardigan and fasten just the top button under my chin and then run around with it like a cape. [I absolutely love Lynda Carter. I read a story about her years ago that someone had told her, in taking on the role of Wonder Woman, that she’d be loved by men for her beauty but hated by women, for her beauty. And she disagreed completely because Wonder Woman, she said, was a champion for women. She said women could relate to her. And the way she played the character, she was so right.]
One of my longed-for superpowers is the ability to launch myself straight upward, anywhere from 12 to 30 feet high (not too high; I don’t like heights) and just hover there. If I’m indoors, I can even shoot straight up through the roof without getting hurt. Then, when the coast is clear, I can float back down to earth. It’s a great way to escape from villains and evade capture. (I think of these things late at night, usually when I wake from a bad dream where something was chasing me.)
I’m thinking about Superheroes and their powers today because they get us out of trouble. When we get in a jam, they show up and save the day and we’re all better off. In writing, there are various superpower options or turns of phrase that you can use to get a character out of a jam. As my author friend Mike says, “When you get stuck, write in a door.” The door could be an exit or it could be a portal to another world. Either way, you’ve got movement again.
This is how writers solve problems. And not just story problems or problems on paper. We tackle life’s unsolvable issues by saying, “How do I write this?” Then we let imagination take over.
As for superpower phrases, we’ve got tow the line, stay the course, hunker down, dig deep, run for it, reach for it, aim high, take the high road, etc. If you’re wedged between a rock and a hard place, sometimes the best you can do is rise above. Hunkering down won’t help; digging deep won’t help. In fact, nothing downward--visually speaking—is likely to help when you’ve wedged or boxed yourself in. But rising above? That might work.
It’s not that simple in real life, of course. Unless it is.
