by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo
Photo by Katia Grimmer-Laversanne
Untethered. That’s how I’m feeling this week.
Having spent the last few weeks finishing a draft of a novel, I am free to delve back into an older, much-loved, close-to-my-heart manuscript. So, while feeling untethered can be disquieting, I am embracing it as an opportunity to revel in freedom.
I am unrestrained and can burrow into and explore the details, my gaze not wide on the piece as a whole, but free to move in close. I can meander in the fine points, meditate and muse upon the words, and my characters can do whatever they please. Anything at all could happen, emerge out of nowhere, drop from the blue of the sky.
Because right now, specific direction does not matter. Structure is of little consequence. This time is free: I am unencumbered by the concerns of plot, of filling in holes, of developing my characters fully. Right now is unfettered, joyful writing.
All this lovely minutiae may become the roots, the branches, the very trunk of this novel. But I’m not thinking about that right now. I am not worrying about what is going to matter and what isn’t.
Instead, I am squatting on the beach in winter, peering into the upturned quahog shells scattered along the shore, painted blue, gray, and ochre inside. There is a shallow pool of water collected in their upturned concavities and the sun glints in the same fixed point in each.
These small moments matter because they ground us. They are the real things. These details matter—if they don’t then nothing matters.
But I am not thinking about any of that pressure right now—I’m just getting lost in the boundless glory and joy of the details.
As a writer, you should seek opportunities to get lost in the details. Immerse yourself in the creases and ridges. Submerge yourself in not only adding another finer point, but appreciating the subtleties that you captured during all of those first revisions. Get lost in the wrinkles, a singular curve, the word in a character’s mouth. My advice is not to gloss over the details in the pursuit of the bigger picture. Narrow your focus and lose yourself in the small things; it’s exactly where you might find your story.
What details do you seek?
What subtleties in another author’s writing do you appreciate?
About Melissa Corliss Delorenzo
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“These small moments matter because they ground us. They are the real things. These details matter—if they don’t then nothing matters.”
So perfectly put. I loved this entry. It’s exactly the philosophy I espouse to myself and others, and yet I still forget. It’s so strange how easy it is to stop seeing what’s right in front of us — one of the true joys of being a writer, that remembering to slow down and take take everything in is part of the job description.
Thanks for the reminder.
TC
As for nuances I admire in other women’s writing…there are so many, but the last author I read who dazzled me in this regard was Lorrie Moor in A Gate At The Stairs.