It's happening more and more like this. My son returns from an overnight band trip exuding a subtle, yet distinct new maturity. Aside from the little flush of parental pride, I search for words to capture this new person. Listening to him talk I wonder, when exactly did this latest bit of growing up happen?
Was it while sipping his first coffee in Starbucks? Maybe while playing in the hotel pool with friends, his parents wonderfully far away, with knowledge there is much more independence to come? Likely he doesn't know, the moment having fizzled into the subconscious of one who lacks context.
In good fiction, of course, these moments cannot fizzle, but must carve themselves beautifully into the highest points of the narrative. Those places where a character opens eyes to something never seen before that was there all along.
Discovering the instant a character touches glimpse of a fuller self is often the culmination of so many drafts written that seem to touch nothing at all. The writer continues to put one word in front of another, in faith that they will lead, in their own tedious and meandering way, like life itself, toward something true.
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