“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.” —Richard P. Feynman
In every great tale worth telling is a common thread that coils through its hallways, folded within the plot’s interior design, tempting the reader to follow, invest, and trust. It connects each chapter, character, and overall concept—the set-up, conflict, and resolution.
At times, it rests contently on its paper bed of prose, thinly blanketed by the composer’s opaque personality—every hook, line, and twist of its anatomy, entirely exposed. Other times it’s buried in a dense and murky storyline, deeper than the weary reader should be required to dig. Then there are perplexed literary works that have altogether forgotten to place such a vital string of intrigue within its pages, or it simply vanishes so quickly and thoroughly that it seemed to have been an accident, never really believed in at all.
Where does it begin, this theme that runs the length of your piece? Whether book, play, or poem, it is born on page one, paragraph one, line one, and slowly winds its way in—that red thread that ties together all the shards of narrative, names, phobias, failures, and redemption, and assigns them a place; a connection; a home in the complicated inventory of the author’s creative account.
Never lose the theme. Protect it! Continue to shine a slight yet consistent light on the reason for the read. It is the glue that holds the arc in place. The lifeline that steadies the reader’s course. Pen a delicate map of a hundred destinations, tracing the red line from east to west. Don’t lose sight of that thin scarlet silhouette, or your audience will become untethered and set adrift. Guide your ward in a kind and careful direction—to the very end—to the final thrilling sentence that your work has so poignantly said.
Remember your reason for writing. Remember the red thread.
Bleeding In Black and White 