A couple months ago, I was reading a book in preparation for our next graphic novel called Story Engineering (highly recommend it) by Larry Brooks and was preparing to teach a week-long class for kids on how to draw cartoons. It was my first time teaching a class for 50 kids over the course of an entire day. I'm sure I could fill a blog post full of what NOT to do.
I was scrambling for a month or so to figure out what to say to these kids and hopefully not bore them to death (I only did that to two kids who left after Monday, which only left minor emotional scars on my soul). I was also gearing up to teach them how to put their own mini comic book page together based on the prodigal son story.
In reading the story of the prodigal son, it was amazing to learn from Jesus, the master storyteller, and mash up some awesome concepts from the book Story Engineering. Apparently, Jesus figured out storytelling 2000 years before we did.
According to Larry, characters have 3 dimensions:
1st Dimension: What the character looks like, acts like, favorite music, etc. (externals)
2nd Dimension: Why the character looks the way they do, acts the way they do, favorite music, etc. (backstory)
3rd Dimension: The character-defining choice under pressure (who he really is)
When I read the story of the prodigal son, I overlaid these principles:
1st Dimension: Bad money manager, jerk to his dad, loves to party.
2nd Dimension: We don't really know his backstory except that he hated his dad and wanted all his inheritance.
3rd Dimension: When times got tough, he chose to go back home in hopes to be a rank-n-file slave showing he's just a scared little kid.
Then wham ... it hit me.
In storytelling, we like to identify with the hero and feel what they are feeling. We want to root for them because stories, at their heart, are a metaphor for life. In the story of the prodigal son ... he's us.
I taught the kids in cartooning class this verse from Psalm 51:6 - Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
God sees us in 3D. He sees us in our inward being and desires wisdom in the dimensions that shape and define our character. We can spend our lives shaping our 1st dimension and hide our painful past. We go through life dreading our third dimension character choices because we're afraid of who we really are.
The awesome part is that God changes us in reverse.
When we exercise our third dimension choice and allow Christ to come into our lives, He gives us a defining point in our story. He breaks the timeline of our backstory and starts it over. Over time, He changes our second dimension which changes our first dimension actions.
