Layering

Layering is a crucial part of writing and is directly related to the way we work. For me, it comes as I write and the plot evolves. Suddenly something becomes important that was not important before or was not there before so I add in layers of information/emotion to emphasis my points.

I very often write the story or the chapter then go back and construct it by layers. For instance, on my novel The Long Dead, I wrote a scene when an old man recalls his relationship with a German POW in a British camp (now found murdered).

The old man is the only one who the detectives have interviewed who actually met the dead victim. The old man spoke of him fondly, said they played chess together. It started out as a scene as much about forgivenesss in the heart of war.

But I realised as I went on that I wanted an edge, I wanted the relationship to be less friendly. And I wanted the old man to utter a line which 150 pages later would come to my chief inspector and would set him thinking on a new line of inquiry.

So I went back and rewrote that first scene. It is virtually all the same but there is one passage that introduces a slight edge. Not enough to tip the reader off but enough for it come into sharp relief later.

Or you may want to go back to a scene you wrote and inject it with an emotion. Was it too bland, do you want it to have been sad, happy, whatever? Or as I have done, to imbue a couple of scenes with a sense of mystery to create a sense of unease about a place.

All this is layering and for me, it’s vital.
John Dean