Below the Surface

 

This morning, while steaming milk for coffee, I removed the sort of skin that formed on the surface before using a whipper to make a homemade variation of latte. The moment I did that, the memory of an old relative, long gone, popped into my mind.

I noted an oddity about myself that had been there for years, but I never filed before. I steam milk every morning, and remove this layer, Lactoderm, from its top every time. The memory of this relative comes before me every time I do this, but rarely at other times.

For the first time, I’m not only noting this, but also wondering why it is so. There is no connection between the surface of steamed milk and this person. Or is there? If there is, my conscious mind can’t access it.

In the midst of revising on my next novel, it occurs to me that such little details pointing to subconscious patterns are essential to writing rich characters. In fiction, we have to make these patterns rise to the surface. The reader will be unsatisfied if we just note them and leave them there without explanation.  

I may have to use my storytelling imagination to build the tiny bridge real life doesn’t.

Fiction is so much tidier than life. In fact, the act of writing is itself an effort to tie up loose ends.