Post History
I absolutely agree with @Mike.C.Ford. The importance of each individual symbol lessens in your reader’s mind the more you throw into your story. However, there is also a more practical aspect from...
Answer
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T04:52:19Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/20138 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T04:52:19Z (about 5 years ago)
I absolutely agree with @Mike.C.Ford. The importance of each individual symbol lessens in your reader’s mind the more you throw into your story. However, there is also a more practical aspect from the author’s perspective: it just takes a lot more work to explain why each symbol is critically important in its own right. It is also far more difficult to maintain each symbol’s importance throughout the story, so as to keep your reader from wondering what the big deal would be in losing one of them. So I think those are the two sides of the coin that make multiple symbols a challenging proposition. As @Mike.C.Ford underlines, a common solution lies in binding the multiple symbols together, showing how they form a single unit. Think of the Deathly Hallows in Harry Potter: each Hallow is powerful in its own right, but when they are combined, their power is magnified to provide dominion over death itself.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2015-12-18T18:30:24Z (about 9 years ago)
Original score: 2