Making Connections

One of the key fac­tors in writ­ing a nov­el is mem­o­ry, which is to say, the abil­i­ty to remem­ber what you wrote, while remem­ber­ing where you are going. One of the strengths of the nov­el is the mak­ing of con­nec­tions, con­nect­ing what has hap­pened to what will hap­pen, remem­ber­ing char­ac­ter traits, or oth­er details that bind the book togeth­er, that can give it depth. Con­sid­er, for exam­ple, the Har­ry Pot­ter books, which, tak­en as a whole, and in this con­text, are a huge achieve­ment. Make no mis­take, read­ers can and will take the author to task if you make a mis­take, if the shoe, so to speak, which was put on the right foot, appears on the left. Read­ers, I believe, love those con­nec­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly when you catch them by sur­prise, yet they grasp what you have done. The seed dropped, so to speak, on page two, which flow­ers on page two nine­ty two, smells sweet. Not only do read­ers love it, writ­ers love it, too.