The hunt is on. The chipmunk has scooted to safety under a sizeable lava boulder toward the top of the ridge, but Misha, my two-and-a-half-year-old Aussie-Shepherd-Husky mix, and his sister, Harley, just know they can still reach it. They sniff, they circle, they dig, unaware and uncaring that they’re about to teach me about writing in layers.
Confident that they will never catch their prey since they are, thankfully, terrible at this game, I sit back on a rock about 20 feet below and relax. As my 13-year-old Aussie-Golden Retriever Sophie, sniffs around, eventually heading up to check out the younger pups’ activity, I quiet enough to notice the layers of detail that usually get lumped into basic background. A bird call, followed by another from a different species. A dog barking in the distance. The sun on my skin. The breeze through the clumps of high desert grasses. The rock under my butt. The call of a crow and the faint din of a plane way above.
Excited yelps as the pups think they’re getting closer to making their way into the chipmunks’ den, which they’ll never reach now punctuate their digging. Yanked out of my detail-inspired meditation, I begin thinking about how layers of detail, often unnoticed, envelop us. Inevitably, I consider how this relates to writing in layers.
I’ve written about layering in detail into one’s prose as a way to provide texture and to allow the reader to experience what you’re writing about vicariously. Layering doesn’t stop there. You can create layered characters, whether fictional or remembered, by bringing to life their inner and outer lives and conflicts. Layering in plot points, along with themes and full-on subplots, will help you develop a rich and nuanced story while providing you with a way to manage it all and not lose your way. This writing in layers technique also enables you to focus on the part that’s easiest for you, whether that be writing dialogue, action, emotion or description, and then add in the other layers.
In the meantime, whether or not you have a pup who requires a dog walk, slow down enough to notice the layers in your world. It will help add dimension to your life and your writing.
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