Using common symbol in my story?

[cak85]

I am really struggling with this one.

I really want my main culture/race of people to use the Spiral as their prominent symbol for everything. They are basically a race of long-lived giants, who are kind of beast like. So everything in their life ties back to the spiral

I know that the spiral/circle/wheel is a VERY common symbol in pretty much all of the world religions, fantasy stories etc. So I don't want this to feel too contrived.

I am having trouble letting go of using the Spiral because it fits so well, with how I am tying it into their entire culture
-magic
-how they view time
-how they view their place in the stars and sky

Any thoughts?

 

[The Dark One]

No problem using the spiral. Own it, make it yours, and do something slightly different with it if you can.

If there's one overworked talisman/symbol/object in the entire history of SFF, it's the crystal. That hasn't stopped me making crystals a key part of my sci-fi series coming out next year, but I do something with them that has never been done before (as far as I know).

 

[Night Gardener]

Use it, just have it feel endemic to the culture that identifies with it so strongly. Think about subtle things, details, that could have radical or at least interesting implications.

Is there a difference between a clockwise or counter-clockwise spiral? Does the beginning of the spiral indicate something specific? Imagine if a spiral were overlayed on top of a clock: would the spiral that began at say, 3 o'clock position and wound counter-clockwise to the center mean something fundamentally different if it started at 9 o'clock and wound clockwise? What if the opening inlet of the spiral didn't correspond to time, but to doorways, or aspects of gods, or magic forces you were trying to invoke?

What if a spiral was drawn deliberately off-center as it tightened inward, favoring a quadrent instead of the Center? How about double, concentric spirals?
How about the act of drawing the spiral itself? Do you start from the center and draw outwards, or start on the outside and draw to the center? What happens if the spiral line isn’t perfect, and two lines touch accidentally imposed on what should be negative space?

You're only limited by your imagination and the ability to communicate the ideas effectively to the reader.

And, on a side note: if you try to constrain yourself from utilizing such ubiquitous and universal symbols, you'll probably go mad. I actually think it makes more sense to embrace it in your own way. There's a reason (they) seem like they're in use everywhere: it's because many cultures had a sort of artistic "convergent evolution" and wound up independently developing very similar artistic constructs and symbolism... so if your race of giants started using the spiral symbol that would still make sense and feel appropriate.

 

[The Dark One]

Use it, just have it feel endemic to the culture that identifies with it so strongly. Think about subtle things, details, that could have radical or at least interesting implications.

Exactly.

 

[cak85]

Thanks for the feedback! And those were some great thought provoking questions.

The idea really came to me in a pretty unexpected way. I am an elementary school teacher and one day I did a fun math art project using the Fibonacci Sequence. To spare you the details - its basically a series of numbers that spiral outwards, the previous two numbers add up to make the next number in the sequence.

I was inspired because of how this spiral is in nature, art, human body pretty much everywhere. So I thought - wouldn't it be cool if these long lived giants worshiped the spiral because they measure time using a spiral instead of years and they see perfection and balance in the world around them. After that it gradually became more complex with how I was intertwining it into their culture and the way they live.