I’ve been mapping out a new novel and having the mostest fun.

I really learned a lot from reading The Year the Swallows Came Early. I read that book a couple of times and the thing that struck me about it was how there was one unifying theme–things aren’t what they appear to be on the outside–and that theme played out in different ways and in different people throughout the book.

The father wasn’t as good as he seemed. The mother wasn’t as bad as she seemed. And on and on it went with all the characters.

But on top of that the author, Kathryn Fitzmaurice, also made several of the characters deal with the same thing. It wasn’t just Groovy who came to realize that things weren’t what they seemed. The mother came to see that the horoscope wasn’t the truth it seemed to be at first. The father realized that “get rich quick” schemes weren’t the relief from trouble they originally seemed to be.

If you haven’t read the book and you want to study a book in which all the parts work together to serve the whole, you should definitely buy The Year the Swallows Came Early.

So, as I map out my new book, I’m trying to keep these things in mind. I want to have my main character learn something–shirking responsibility does not bring happiness, rather, accepting our God-given responsibility brings peace and contentment.

So I’d like several other characters to deal with this same thing. A child can learn to take responsibility for a pet, perhaps. Maybe, the hero can take responsibility for something his sister is trying to shield him from.

I don’t think we have to load every character down with the same shortcomings. But I do think if we deal with the same problem in various degrees in different characters we can make the books richer.

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