{"id":6003,"date":"2019-06-07T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/articles\/fractals-scenes-and-the-bones-of-the-fallen\/"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T12:00:00","slug":"fractals-scenes-and-the-bones-of-the-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/fractals-scenes-and-the-bones-of-the-fallen\/","title":{"rendered":"Fractals, scenes and the bones of the fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading a terrific guest post on our blog by our Craig Taylor. (And actually, \u201cguest post\u201d doesn\u2019t feel like quite the right term, if I\u2019m honest. Craig\u2019s a buddy, not a guest.)<\/p>\n

The post is on how to write a scene<\/a> and, in it, Craig asks:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201c<\/em>If the theme of your work, say, is unrequited love, does your scene angle in to that theme? Does it demonstrate a circumstance or a feeling which is associated with unrequited love? Or does it demonstrate a circumstance or a feeling about requited love, so as to throw into relief the experience that one of your characters will have about unrequited love?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And those are interesting questions, aren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

I, for one, don\u2019t write a book thinking that every scene I write has to \u201cangle in\u201d to my major theme. But what if that\u2019s wrong? What if, in a well-constructed book, pretty much everything angles in to the one same issue? (Or, rather, cluster of issues, because a book that is rich thematically can never be too neatly categorised.)<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s another thought:<\/p>\n

What if you don\u2019t especially think about these things as you build your story? What if you do concentrate on good writing (nice prose, strong characters, a well-knitted plot), but don\u2019t overthink the thematic stuff?<\/p>\n

What happens then? Is the result strong? Or will it never reach the kind of thematic depth and congruence that Craig is hinting at?<\/p>\n

Hey, ho. Interesting questions. So I thought I\u2019d take a look at my own work and see what\u2019s actually happened there.<\/p>\n

So my last book, The Deepest Grave<\/em>, has a cluster of themes that include:<\/p>\n