WIP

Story Idea

I was thinking about lucky colors today (inspired by Julie over at juleswrites.blogspot.com and a post she did on superstitions), while I tried to remember whether my great-grandparents tied yellow ribbons to their pets and children or if it was red ribbons. I'm leaning towards yellow ribbons, but red ribbons make more sense after I googled and saw that eastern europe and asia saw red as a color that frightens evil away. And indeed, I know that my family has always seen red as a lucky color.

As I sought an answer that did not include lyrics to the song (which furthermore causes the song to repeat over and over in my head while I work), I came across the following link: factmonster.com

Quotes and information are either taken or derived from that above link.

Red

*Signal for battle, color of a soldier.
*Royalty
*Color means beautiful, but also is lucky and wards off evil.
*Red herring is a distraction, something that takes attention away from the real issue.

Green

*Symbolizes victory
*Symbolizes youth and energy
*Symbolizes envy
*Somebody one with nature
*A healer

Blue

*Color of a public servant
*Protection against witches and evil <- Say what?
*Loyalty
*Love
*The unknown

"A blue blood is a person of noble descent. This is probably from the blue veins of the fair-complexioned aristocrats who first used this term." - Fascinating.

Purple, Violet

"The Egyptian queen Cleopatra loved purple. To obtain one ounce of Tyrian purple dye, she had her servants soak 20,000 Purpura snails for 10 days." <- EW!

*Color of mourning
*Regal or authoritative color

"Purple prose” is writing that is full of exaggerated literary effects and ornamentation." <- I knew that

Yellow

*Mourning
*Regeneration or rebirth
*Courage
*Deceit
*Warning

"In tenth-century France, the doors of traitors and criminals were painted yellow." <- I wonder if that is why we call cowards 'yellow'.

"In the Middle Ages, actors portraying the dead in a play wore yellow." <- Hmm....

White

*Peace, or truce
*Spiritual, or of spirit world...
*Good luck, especially if you wed in it.
*White is a pacific color, however "white heat" can be intense passion.
*Savior, or rescuer
*Clean

"The ancient Greeks wore white to bed to ensure pleasant dreams." <- Ha! Now you know.

Black

*Secrecy
*Morbid
*Evil
*Elegance
*Expert
*Occult
*Outcast


"The ancient Egyptians and Romans used black for mourning, as do most Europeans and Americans today."

"The ancient Egyptians believed that black cats had divine powers."

What am I thinking?

Mainly about how when people pick up a book to read, they want to see something new... but there is always that small psychological part of them that wants something familiar or relatable. Or something they can look up and read and understand more about.

That was something I appreciated when I picked up the first Vampire Academy book. When the protagonist's mother gave her a eyeball bead as a present, I PERKED UP, because I'm familiar with the use of an eyeball or gaze thereof in paintings or ancient art. It wards off evil. <- Not that I believe in that, but it is something I'm culturally aware of.

Uhm. Keep in mind I was also also PEEVED when I saw the evil eye bead appear in the VA books and become somewhat popular as a result. <- That's because in my one book, "Marbles", I also made full use of the evil eye bead. Though probably not the same way Richelle Mead intends to do so in her books.

Regarding the colors, I was sitting back and thinking about possible character traits for different characters in a future novel sometime. Yes, it would be somewhat cheezy to put X character in a red dress all the time or Y into a yellow suit to infinity. I'm not talking about writing Clue (even though I absolutely loved those books when I was a kidlet). I'm mainly thinking about little clues, similar to what Steven Spielberg did for Schindler's List, or M Night Shalaman (sp) does in his movies. If you ever watched the special for Sixth Sense, he described the importance of red and white, which he emphasized throughout the movie.

I want to be the type of author who slips little easter eggs and such into my books which MAKE SENSE if the reader spots them. But I don't want to hit them on the head with it, or go over the top with colors.

On the other note... I really DO want to write a new version or fan fiction of Clue.... who doesn't?