On the matter of texture

Once while discussing journeys and destinations with a friend I opined that we have different starting places but ultimately come to the same destination (my eschatological hope coming through there). He agreed but said that because of our differing journeys the texture will not be the same. We were speaking metaphorically of the many divides in we experience, the ways we differ, the ways our experiences are colored so differently by context, limitations and possibilities, personal and collective history--how, for instance, men and women experience the world differently though always within our shared humanity. By the time we reach the "other side of glory" we find ourselves in the same gracious presence, finding our fulfillment in the One who transcends all our names and concepts. But we arrive there with a variety of textures. I liked that perspective.

I am now engaged in revising the first draft of my novel. Some suggestions from friends have come in and more are forthcoming, but now I have a chance to return after a time away and think about what I have told (and not told). There are places where I can make the story tighter and places I have limned too vaguely. Overall folks have thus far found the tale engaging enough and rich with characters who are multi-dimensional. OK, I probably flatter myself in this recounting of feedback.

But texture is important to me. I try to visualize these people and the world they move about in and their interpersonal context as richly as possible so that what I relate will have, you guessed it, texture.

Given the complexity of the tale (and that it lays the groundwork for several volumes to follow), you may well imagine the spreadsheets, detailed maps, and other tools that help me keep it all straight. There were timelines laying out the plot, who was where when and what happened day by day, so I could tell the story without falling all over myself. There were spreadsheets that helped me keep track of all the characters and places and how they relate to one another and what they look and act like. Now I have new genealogical softward and more fictional characters in it than I have of my own family (separate files, of course). In the process of pondering the background of sequels I have looked much more deeply at the families of my characters.

I now know things I did not know when I first began to tell the tale. I know about secret oaths, about family relationships, about family members lost in the plague years. I also know whose children will marry whom in the next generation, binding characters in the first book more closely together. In short, I just know more about them. I also have a better idea of the size of the capital of the tribe and a clearer sense of its physical nature and extent.

So as I work my way through the story I correct very minor items and drop in more texture, a few of the things I have learned since the beginning. How will readers believe if I do not? And yes, my friends, I do believe.
--the BB