Applying Permaculture Design to Writing

Some of you will recall a thread involving science fiction, fantasy, etc that followed a permaculture theme. That thread has been gestating in the back of my mind for a while and apparently my subconscious has decided to spit out a little gem relating to it. The idea is to apply the basics of permaculture design to the structure of writing a story/novel. Figuring out the things needed from certain aspects of the story and what they themselves need to function. What they add and what they take away. The idea is still pretty fresh in my head and not fully worked out, but what do people think? How would that work out in designing a compelling story? I would think that a permaculture story written through permaculture methodology would be something really special if it turned out to be any good.

I think this is a brilliant idea. Certain characters sort of represent different plants of an ecosystem. Like you were saying, as we think about which plants give which nutrients to the soil, we can think about characters in the same way. What do their personalities give to the story, or the soil, and what do their personalities take away from the story, or soil.? How do they vibe off of each other? Just like plants do in the soil. Does this sound about like what you were thinking of at all? Or were you coming at it from a completely different direction? I would love to hear more about this idea.

Cassie Langstraat wrote:I think this is a brilliant idea. Certain characters sort of represent different plants of an ecosystem. Like you were saying, as we think about which plants give which nutrients to the soil, we can think about characters in the same way. What do their personalities give to the story, or the soil, and what do their personalities take away from the story, or soil.? How do they vibe off of each other? Just like plants do in the soil. Does this sound about like what you were thinking of at all? Or were you coming at it from a completely different direction? I would love to hear more about this idea.

More or less. I keep picturing Mollison at the chalkboard drawing a box with the word chicken in it and then listing out different aspects for each side of the box. I could see doing this with characters, settings or plots/plot hooks. Coming up with a system of quickly looking at basic archetypes and how they interact with the story and with one another, then fine tuning it based on the unique nature of the actual characters. Putting them together in different ways and seeing how it might create an interesting conflict for a story.

Yeah, so sort of a permaculture technique for brainstorming for writing. I like it. Let me know how this thought evolves and hopefully turns into reality.

Damnit! I demand royalties! I was part of the original thread!

Elaborate please.

Sorry, Just being a capitalist jerk. A poor attempt at humor.

Moving on...

Haha well that clarifies things. I wasn't sure if you were joking or not. All good on my front. What was the original thread?

There is a link in the text of the opening post to the aforementioned thread.

How about Randy Ingermansons Snowflake Method ? Using patterning to devise a novel :

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

I find this thread highly interesting. Not only, because I find it interesting to apply permaculture principles 'out of the box' of their original domain, but more so, because it helps to distill what theese basic principles really are. By trying to apply them, you who try do so, shed some new light on those principles, which in turn helps to understand them better. Thanks a lot, even if I doubt, that I ever will write a fictional story - still - who knows.