# Do you Add Layers?



## EmmaSohan (Jun 14, 2014)

BrianJ said that he wrote the first draft, and then went back and added layers.

Does anyone else do this?

And if the answer is yes, what do you actually do?


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## J.T. Chris (Jun 14, 2014)

Interesting. When I first started out as a young writer and was just learning the craft, I actually got a really helpful rejection letter that made me think about "layers," whatever that was. I still have it actually. Here it is:



> Howdy --
> 
> The story's pretty good. I don't want it though. It does get me nostalgic for my own missteps with certain special ladies over the years, and I appreciate that, but it doesn't really do anything else, and I'd really like it to. Like it to mess with me linguistically, and to make me yearn for that gal, but to not be about that at all, to make me twist and understand something entirely outside the scope of the story. You've got your structure, but when it comes to what it's about, it really should be about something else. You don't have enough levels in this.
> 
> ...



As a twenty-year old, I thought, "Levels? What's that?" Then I realized that my writing on the particular story was very stale, merely an omniscient narrator recounting a play-by-play of a guy who meets up with his former girlfriend to bury her dog. That was pretty much it. It didn't go any deeper than that on an emotional level. 

I spent a while trying to figure out how to incorporate these elusive "layers" into my own story. It made me think a lot about character -- what makes them tick, what they want, what they're willing to risk--or aren't willing to risk--to get it. I began asking questions I wanted to try to answer through these characters, touch on one small facet of human connection, a collective moment--what exists beneath the surface of the story really. 

More recently, I've tried to incorporate these "layers" into my narrative. Maybe that was a key. What could serve as a good narrative engine? How can I play with language to better tell this story? 

I don't know. Maybe I'm still trying to figure out all about these "layers" still as an older, more experienced writer than when I first learned about them. Regardless, this letter certainly helped me look at stories in a different way.


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## Clove (Jun 14, 2014)

You add layers by viewing your writing as more than just a story but as a work of literary prose, not merely as 'narration' [which so many contemporary writers seem to think is enough] but all at once as a work of art, as poetry, as a piece that actually needs to be _written_ rather than transcribed. I echo Francine Prose's recent comment when she exclaims about the fact that a lot of writers do not care about how things are written anymore, but are only obsessed with getting the story told in as straight-forward a manner as possible [as if that brevity is an automatic exchange for literary prowess], and that for me comes into arguments of depth versus superficiality. Add layers by going against writing maxims: write about what you do not know; write beautifully and poetically; why _can't_ the coloured drapes represent the protagonist's existential anguish?; write stories that buckle the trend and defy the stylistic norm - and most of all view writing, as I try to do, as not a cold copy of carbon life but as an artificial construct. Only then do you begin to see prose as a symbolic lie, filled with 'layers' to which you as not merely a 'writer' but as, and stealing from the French/film-making term, an _auteur _can stretch your various creative muscles.


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## Bishop (Jun 14, 2014)

Yes, I do this. I generally finish the story and when I read it for my first edit, I try to just read it and correct the glaring issues. Then when I have a feel for how the story affects a reader, I can go in and magnify some feelings, add a little layering and subtext, and flesh out thematic ideas.


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## InstituteMan (Jun 14, 2014)

EmmaSohan said:


> BrianJ said that he wrote the first draft, and then went back and added layers.
> 
> Does anyone else do this?
> 
> And if the answer is yes, what do you actually do?



Yes, at least for pieces I care about. I try to have some depth I the first pass, of course, but then I try to build up more when I revise and edit. If the ideas behind the story are working, this is usually pretty organic for me. I wouldn't say that I am good at it yet, though.


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## BryanJ62 (Jun 14, 2014)

*The perfect word for layers is depth. For me that is what it's all about. I was explaining to Emma how layers (or depth) work for me. It's kind of like a blind date. At first you are trying to get to know one another. If it works into a second date, and third and so on, the layers of that person are revealed. That is how it is for me in everything I have written. The characters reveal themselves with each passing. After a while it's not so much creating than it is dictating. They literally come alive. *


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## garza (Jun 14, 2014)

Think J-K Rowling. If the Harry Potter books were nothing more than fantasy stories for ten-year-olds, they would be quickly forgotten. Beneath the fantasy are levels of sharp commentary on life in the late 20th Century. Rowling comments on education, religion, politics, the media, racial prejudice, and almost any other social issue you want to name in words that Swift would have loved. Just as Swift continues to be read today, so too J.K. Rowling will continue to be read in the future.

'Twould be difficult to add levels, or layers, once a piece is written. The deeper meanings must be intrinsic, key parts of your original concept for the story. 

I don't know about the 'art' part of it. I've never done any 'art'. I'm an old wire service hack learning a new part of the craft of writing. 

One of the rules (and there are only a few) about fiction that for sure I've learned in a lifetime of reading is this: Fiction must never lie. Do whatever you need to do to tell the story, but never lie. (cf Meatloaf 'I Would Do Anything for Love, but I Won't Do That')


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## Kevin (Jun 14, 2014)

> Rowling comments on...


 I wonder if she did all that on purpose or if just came out?  Sometimes... things just come out, don't they? Can't help it.


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## Clove (Jun 14, 2014)

garza said:


> I don't know about the 'art' part of it. I've never done any 'art'. I'm an old wire service hack learning a new part of the craft of writing.



Well if in this craft of writing you utilise any creative expression or imagination, applied through artistic-technical skills, then you have, I'm afraid, gone and done an 'art'. Regardless, my thoughts on utilising the term 'art' is to draw attention to its constructed aspect: you construct a story, and through that story's construction, something worth telling is revealed. 'Mary went to the shop but they were out of eggs' is quite clearly writing, but is it layered art? No. Therein lies the distinction I was tying to point out.


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## garza (Jun 14, 2014)

Kevin - I believe she did it on purpose. There is an underlying anger in her books that is deliberately expressed but well concealed from innocent eyes. Kids can read the books and enjoy the stories of magic and such, and adults can read the stories and see who her targets are and see how skillfully she cuts them down. I remember reading _Gulliver's Travels_ when I was very young, then reading it again in high school. As a child I enjoyed the outlandish adventures. As an older reader I saw the bitterness that lay behind the words and was able to read the message written there. 

Clove - I don't have any artistic skills. I'm a retired journalist with a severely limited imagination and lacking any kind of elite consciousness that is required to be admitted to the ranks of the artists. I'm a simple craftsman, no more.

'Mary went to the shop but they were out of eggs' is an unfortunate example if you are trying to show a bit of writing that has no level beyond the surface. That is a near quote I remember from one of Miguel Sholokhov's stories about the Russian Revolution. It might well be 'The Herdsman', though I'll not promise it is. It's been a while since I've read much of Sholokhov. The breakup of the old system meant that in many villages the shops were, indeed, out of eggs, and almost everything else. The lack of eggs represented the lack of many material items as well as a lack of the old social organisation. The narrator is not describing Mary's disappointment at finding no eggs. The narrator is showing how the world is breaking up. The lack of eggs is more than a symbol. It is a commentary.

Nothing I write has a single, surface, meaning. The simplest of stories can have levels of meaning that the reader may or may not grasp. If you can find my LM story 'Venus in Transit' from a couple of years ago you'll see, in 650 words, an account of three levels of male/female relationships told in simple, straightforward, language. That's craft, if I may be permitted to brag a bit, but I don't know how art would figure into it. 'Tis only a small, story, told very simply, but I tried to show something more than the few events narrated. I tried to show something about people. That's what fiction is for, I've been told, to tell the truth about people.


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## InstituteMan (Jun 14, 2014)

What garza said.

It is hard to create layers out nothing, a story has to have something there to begin with. The example of Rowling is a good recent case: the entire plot is a pretty classic orphan overcoming evil with unlikely companions thing, so the tale has hooks to hold the additional layers. I suspect that she started with a few feelings in her gut and then developed that depth as she revised. I wouldn't call her books profound, but they aren't all fluff either, yet manage to be approachable.

The ratio of plot-driven to layers of meaning can vary, of course. To me, if you want only layers of meaning and eschew plot entirely you would be better off with poetry in most instances. If you just want to write an entertaining plot, that is cool; there is room in this world for entertainment and amusing people is a noble calling, but your work will have to be spectacularly entertaining to be remembered if that is your goal. 

I am not an English major or anything, but these are some issues I have been meditating upon of late. As a result, I at least have a $0.02 to share. Take it as you will.


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## garza (Jun 14, 2014)

For years my job was to tell the story without allowing any flavouring. That was hard sometimes, especially when writing about civil rights, war protests, and the tragedy in El Salvador.  Mostly I kept it straight, or at least straight enough that editors never questioned my copy.

Now I'm free to write it any way I want with no editor to check my copy. I enjoy working with fiction, especially with dialogue, trying to find the limits of what I can and cannot do. I'm not a creative person. I can't write about the kinds of people I don't know and I can't write about places I've never been. I admire the people here who can create from nothing. They are the serious ones who will go far. 

I have picked up a few rules along the way. My first editor was Mr Wilkes at the Daily Herald and his rules were simple - _get it right, get it fast, and just tell the story_. He hated any kind of what he called 'arty' writing. Those were the rules I lived by for 60 years as a journalist. I've brought them with me as I learn fiction, and have added the one mentioned above - to _always tell the truth_. In news gathering you must report facts, and they do no always add up to truth. With fiction the writer is free to shift the facts around to be able better to tell the truth. That is why even the flash fiction I write always starts with something I want to say, an idea that needs to be expressed, but in a quiet way one level down. 

Another rule that I've found to be true is to _write about what you know_. I've written stories about Vietnam and other points East, I've written stories about the Civil War in El Salvador, and I've written stories about New York and Belize, all places I know. but my inclination is to write about those counties in the southeastern corner of Mississippi where I spent  the first 20 years of my life. 

Those are my personal rules and my personal beliefs about writing.


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## Clove (Jun 15, 2014)

garza said:


> 'Mary went to the shop but they were out of eggs' is an unfortunate example if you are trying to show a bit of writing that has no level beyond the surface. That is a near quote I remember from one of Miguel Sholokhov's stories about the Russian Revolution. It might well be 'The Herdsman', though I'll not promise it is. It's been a while since I've read much of Sholokhov. The breakup of the old system meant that in many villages the shops were, indeed, out of eggs, and almost everything else. The lack of eggs represented the lack of many material items as well as a lack of the old social organisation. The narrator is not describing Mary's disappointment at finding no eggs. The narrator is showing how the world is breaking up. The lack of eggs is more than a symbol. It is a commentary.



However in your example, the actual layers that come into play aren't ones found in the line itself, coming instead from context and outside interpretations. You can put a Marxist analysis on it by all means but nowhere in the line - and just that line, mind - does it warrant any; of course any line taken out of context can, when retrospectively placed back in context, have great importance. It is my belief that there are no _layers_ in that line alone simply because it is a retelling, and to turn it into something of a commentary you must go ahead and add layers - and as you just so clearly did yourself, an entire narrative. It remains that the original line contains very few creative - other than its on-the-spot fabrication - nor artistic aspects within it.



> Nothing I write has a single, surface, meaning. The simplest of stories can have levels of meaning that the reader may or may not grasp. If you can find my LM story 'Venus in Transit' from a couple of years ago you'll see, in 650 words, an account of three levels of male/female relationships told in simple, straightforward, language. That's craft, if I may be permitted to brag a bit, but I don't know how art would figure into it. 'Tis only a small, story, told very simply, but I tried to show something more than the few events narrated. I tried to show something about people. That's what fiction is for, I've been told, to tell the truth about people.



I think you misconceive this idea of art. It would would be absurd to argue that fiction did not count as art, that writing could not be an art form. To me it seems you've simply replaced that word with 'craft.' Perhaps 'craft' has better connotations in your mind, but to me craft stands for the mere foundation for all creative activities: grammar, the stringing together of a sentence etc. To show more than just the surface craft must assume a level of artistic creation; the very fact that as you brag about your story's multifarious levels does it sound to me that you are bragging about its artistic qualities must mean that those two terms are conflated somehow.



> I have picked up a few rules along the way. My first editor was Mr Wilkes at the Daily Herald and his rules were simple - _get it right, get it fast, and just tell the story_. He hated any kind of what he called 'arty' writing. Those were the rules I lived by for 60 years as a journalist. I've brought them with me as I learn fiction, and have added the one mentioned above - to _always tell the truth_. In news gathering you must report facts, and they do no always add up to truth. With fiction the writer is free to shift the facts around to be able better to tell the truth. That is why even the flash fiction I write always starts with something I want to say, an idea that needs to be expressed, but in a quiet way one level down.



Your editor and yourself echo a common sentiment against 'arty' writing which is by all means personally justified but hardly a rule. Literature has done superbly well for being 'arty' and the recent fad for minimalist writing will pass just as Romanticism and its purple floridness did when it became the de facto norm.


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## garza (Jun 15, 2014)

Yeah, maybe you're right.


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## Kevin (Jun 15, 2014)

> Your editor and yourself echo a common sentiment against 'arty' writing which is by all means personally justified but hardly a rule


 Reporting facts just might justify such a 'rule'.  That's what he was up to, right? Reporting? Without looking it up isn't that what journalism is, the gathering of information and the presentation of it in a manner that the public may understand it, in a linear, logic-based manner? _Here are the facts and here is how they connect to this outcome... _I can see how any addition of flourish would be frowned upon as egoism, or worse: spin.


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## Clove (Jun 15, 2014)

Kevin said:


> Reporting facts just might justify such a 'rule'.  That's what he was up to, right? Reporting? Without looking it up isn't that what journalism is, the gathering of information and the presentation of it in a manner that the public may understand it, in a linear, logic-based manner? _Here are the facts and here is how they connect to this outcome... _I can see how any addition of flourish would be frowned upon as egoism, or worse: spin.



Fair point. I agree that different genres call for different styles of writing, just as different writers have differing styles. But journalism, to me, isn't just straight-forward reporting; that can be useful, for obvious reasons, but there exists such genres like essay-writing, creative non-fiction, New Journalism, investigative reportage novels [such as Walsh's _Operación Masacre_ and Capote's _In Cold Blood_, or most things by Normal Mailer ] which make journalism as varied as it nowadays, and subject to creative analysis.

EDIT: If fiction and poetry are meant to convey truths, then why not utilise their characteristics when dealing with reporting truths? [I guess, a sense between objectivity and subjectivity, but still, I would love a sonnet on the banking crisis.] Heh, going a bit off-topic but still interesting to discuss!


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## stormageddon (Jun 15, 2014)

I write primarily to carry a message, not to entertain, though I'd hope I manage both. I don't think it's physically possible not to have some deeper meaning attributable to your writing, whether you want it to be there or not; if the reader wants to, they will see it. If they don't, they won't.

Lord of the Rings is a good example of a story that was intended as nothing more than entertainment, yet shows a lot of "truths", as Garza put it.

Clove, regarding your edit. In order to report facts without bias, one must avoid telling truths (as we've defined them in this thread) at all costs - the audience must be left to decide the truth behind the facts for themselves. Fiction and poetry elicit emotion, which encourages subjective, rather than objective audience judgments. Basically, what you already said 

I have more to say, but I'm too tired v.v I'm off to have a nap.


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## BeastlyBeast (Jun 15, 2014)

J[FONT=arial said:
			
		

> Howdy --[/FONT]
> 
> The story's pretty good. I don't want  it though. It does get me nostalgic for my own missteps with certain  special ladies over the years, and I appreciate that, but it doesn't  really do anything else, and I'd really like it to. Like it to mess with  me linguistically, and to make me yearn for that gal, but to not be  about that at all, to make me twist and understand something entirely  outside the scope of the story. You've got your structure, but when it  comes to what it's about, it really should be about something else. You  don't have enough levels in this.
> 
> ...



Forgive me, as I have not written anything worthy of being published yet, but I feel this editor is very full of himself. Reading between the lines, I find the most 'to the point' version of his rejection is 'your story's fantastic, but it's not fantastic by _my_ standards. Therefore, it is not actually fantastic.' Maybe it's just the way he worded it,or I feel he was a bit too frank. I can see where he is _trying_ to go with his letter. He's trying to say it's good, but could be just that little bit better. He just chose very wrong words to get that message across.


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## garza (Jun 15, 2014)

Kevin - Reporting the facts can get a person killed in the right situation. I was never as concerned during a year and a half in Vietnam as a frontline wire service reporter as I was back in my home state of Mississippi reporting on the campaign for civil rights. I was branded traitor, threatened with death, and one effort was made to kill a TV cameraman and I returning to Jackson from covering a demonstration in Natchez.  I was working with a CBS team based at a Jackson television station and the station owner had ordered that we were to stay strictly neutral and stick with the facts. The problem was that the facts in the case all pointed in a single  direction, and those who reported the facts were seen as taking sides. The station across town was blaming all the trouble on 'outside agitators', ignoring the fact that any 'agitation' arose in the local population, tired of having Jim Crow as governor of the state.

stormageddon - There would be no point in writing at all if there is no 'point' to the writing, if you get my point. The message may be very subtle, as is the case with most of Rowling, or it may be a slap in the face, as in 'A Modest Proposal'. Aside from straight news reporting I wrote a steady stream of essays in the sixties and seventies. Most of them were unsigned and syndicated for use by local papers as op-ed pieces. They all had what was considered then a left-of-centre slant: against the Vietnam War, for civil rights, and against U.S. involvement in the Central American civil wars, especially in El Salvador. Truth to tell, though, there was no real need to slant anything. Consider El Mozote.<link


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## stormageddon (Jun 15, 2014)

Garza, you've led a fascinating existence, if a terrifying one.

I agree with you there - I wouldn't write at all if I didn't have points to make, because it would feel (sorry) pointless. I started writing "seriously" in the hopes of brainwashing the masses into acceptance of my views through the medium of entertainment (my goals have developed somewhat since then, and become less sinister).

Quick explanation of my last post: I think unbiased news is very valuable from a reading perspective, but I have no idea why I felt it was relevant here >.> hopefully I will remember not to post when I'm half asleep in future.


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## bazz cargo (Jun 15, 2014)

> BrianJ said that he wrote the first draft, and then went back and added layers.
> 
> Does anyone else do this?
> 
> And if the answer is yes, what do you actually do?


No. I build in 'layers' before I start.


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## garza (Jun 15, 2014)

My thoughts exactly as I passed over the OP on my way here. 

No, I don't add layers to a story already written. That would seem to be a clumsy way to work. All of the story's themes, concepts, points, whatever, must be in place before the writing begins.


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## bazz cargo (Jun 15, 2014)

> My thoughts exactly as I passed over the OP on my way here.
> 
> No, I don't add layers to a story already written. That would seem to be  a clumsy way to work. All of the story's themes, concepts, points,  whatever, must be in place before the writing begins.


You been reading my mind again?


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## EmmaSohan (Jun 15, 2014)

So, no one deliberately writes a first draft with the plan of adding layers later. But they do look to add layers later. Or improve the layers.

The layers can be language use, meaning/moral, and depth of characters. I will add to this list empathy to the problems of a character.

I love the idea of layers, even if I was mostly doing it already. Thanks again, Bryan. And I want to hear more if anyone has anything to add.


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## InstituteMan (Jun 15, 2014)

EmmaSohan said:


> So, *n**o one deliberately writes a first draft with the plan of adding layers later*. But they do look to add layers later. Or improve the layers.



I don't quite agree with this statement. I think the layers get deeper and more fully developed with revisions, but you have to start with some depth or nuance or something in the first draft to hook onto with the later revisions. At least, that is how I have to work.


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## garza (Jun 15, 2014)

No. 

Never after the story is written. I tried to say this in Post 22 in answer to bazz cargo's Post 21.

Any layers or levels of meaning _must be embedded in the original concept_ of the story. 

I know before I write the first word what I want to say with the story. The deeper meaning of the story must be the foundation of the story before ever a word is written. Never, ever, do I try to add any meaning to a story once it's finished. 

In the story mentioned above, 'Venus in Transit', I started with a title and the idea of showing different aspects of male/female relationships in times of transition. That came before I decided on characters, setting, or action. The details of the story's structure were worked out deliberately to illustrate different attitudes and, in the case of the two principal characters and one background character, a change in attitude. The boy, especially, experiences what might be termed an epiphany in the course of the story, and with the story's last line expresses the aimed-for change in attitude. Every word of the story was planned to further illustrate the central idea. There's no way to add on something that needs to be the core of the story.


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## BryanJ62 (Jun 21, 2014)

*Interesting post. I think we can all agree that the story grows. If you've written a 400 page novel you are going to get to know the characters a lot more on page 250 than you did on page 10. The layering, for me, is going back and correcting some of the mistakes I made on page 10 when they were new. Kind of like going on a road trip from Blaine, Washington to San Diego, California. You're going to know that person at lot better in Bakersfield, California than you did in Everett, Washington. *


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## garza (Jun 21, 2014)

My post above was talking about flash fiction, or any short fiction. At 73 I think in terms of writing something I'm more likely to live to finish. 

The story referenced was a 650 word entry in an LM Challenge. With so short a story, every word must count towards re-enforcing initial concepts. However, it would seem to me that the same principle would hold no matter how long the work; the principle that the basic concepts of the story must be worked out before any writing begins. Anyroad, that's how I would do it, if ever I were to decide to write a novel or novella. That's why I believe Rowling created characters, settings, and plot lines based on concepts she developed before she began to write. I've never trusted the apparent meaning of Faulkner's statement that he created characters and followed them around to see what they would do. I believe he created the concepts of the characters; what they represented in the structure of the society he knew. In 'Barn Burning' the two principal characters are mirror images. They are father and son, each obeying a code of personal honour, but each a reversed image of the other. They are depicted as flesh and blood incarnations of two different ideas about right and wrong, about what is just and what is unjust. That could not have been added on but had to have been the initial concept of the story.


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## J Anfinson (Jun 21, 2014)

Adding layers, or depth is also what you hear referred to as fleshing out characters or scenes. I try to make my first draft as good as I can, but I do go back and try to improve what I believe is lacking by adding detail, restructuring clumsy sentences, making dialogue more believable, bring out characters' thoughts more, basically anything I can think of to make the characters more realistic/human and the scenes more engaging to the five senses.


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## garza (Jun 21, 2014)

Then I have misunderstood what is meant by 'layers'. I thought the reference was to levels of meaning, the way Rowling built in levels of deeper meaning in what are, on the surface, magic/adventure stories for children and younger teens. The books contain quite sharp, often bitter, commentary on late 20th Century culture, but the 10-12-year-old is not likely to pick up on that. For that young person the stories are great fun to read. For the perceptive adult the books contain Rowling's analyses of modern religion, politics, racism, cultural and economic elitism, education, sexual mores - the entirety of the society we call civilised. That's what I thought was meant by  'layers', and those kinds of levels of meaning must be in mind before the writing begins. They can't be stuck in later.

 When you talk about 'fleshing out characters or scenes' you are talking about editing a story already written to make it read better.

Now I feel stupid because I've been talking about one thing and the rest of you have been talking about something entirely different. My mistake.


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## Ethan (Jun 21, 2014)

I have gone back on pieces I have written many times and wished I had added more substance, Currently I am writing and have about seventy K words but after reading for the umpteenth time I can see clearly weaknesses in the structure. There are things the reader should be aware of and situations that in all likelihood would never naturally occur. So I mark these omissions and if it means re-writing or filling out the previous chapters, then that is what I do. With every read I can find something I wish  I had said differently or explained more fully. Whilst I know this is natural for writers, it is still a source of irritation, my eagerness to get the story down over-rides common sense. However this is when filling or layering is essential. Unless of course you're fortunate enough to be one of those few who get it all right first time.


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## garza (Jun 21, 2014)

What you are talking about is editing. All the best writing is the result of good editing. 

What do you call what I've been talking about?


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## J Anfinson (Jun 21, 2014)

garza said:


> What do you call what I've been talking about?



I'm not well versed in all the proper names, but _themes_ comes to mind because it sounds like you're talking about buried meanings. Unless I'm way off base.


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## garza (Jun 21, 2014)

'Levels of meaning' is what I've always heard. They can also be called layers of meaning. They lie below the surface story but are the real purpose for writing the story. They are not always so well hidden, or so deeply buried. The best examples in recent literature are the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. In post 30 there is an explanation.

We've been talking at cross purposes in this thread. My understanding was that the discussion was about levels of meaning.  Apparently everyone else was talking about editing to improve the story. You can't add the reason for writing the story after the story has been written. You can't add the foundation after the house has been built. You can paint the house and add furniture to make it more livable, but to change the foundation you have to tear the house down and start over. If the underlying meaning of a story is to be changed, you have to start over and write a different story.


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## J Anfinson (Jun 21, 2014)

garza said:


> 'Levels of meaning' is what I've always heard. They can also be called layers of meaning. They lie below the surface story but are the real purpose for writing the story. They are not always so well hidden, or so deeply buried. The best examples in recent literature are the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. In post 30 there is an explanation.
> 
> We've been talking at cross purposes in this thread. My understanding was that the discussion was about levels of meaning.  Apparently everyone else was talking about editing to improve the story. You can't add the reason for writing the story after the story has been written. You can't add the foundation after the house has been built. You can paint the house and add furniture to make it more livable, but to change the foundation you have to tear the house down and start over. If the underlying meaning of a story is to be changed, you have to start over and write a different story.



I agree. I don't see how you could change a theme or multiple themes without starting over.


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## garza (Jun 22, 2014)

Happy that's sorted out. I'm embarrassed that everyone else was talking about one thing, and I was talking about another. Maybe I need new glasses.

Or a new brain. I fear the one I have may be past its 'best if used by' date.


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## EmmaSohan (Jun 22, 2014)

I should have asked the question, does anyone think of a book as having layers?

In addition to the story, there is language. I can imagine rewriting a book with more elegant language. My WIP is fantasy, so they have their own style of speaking.

And obviously, everyone said meaning or theme.

I don't think out the side story of romance/love well enough when I write the main story. When I have a first draft, then I see there is a piece missing in the romantic part.


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## Mutimir (Jun 22, 2014)

Think of it like making  a cake. You bake it, frost it and put it on the platter. Once it's on the platter you don't go back and start slicing away to put in chocolate and strawberry layers. It would be a mess and a pain to fix. You have to plan for the layers right from the start.

Now I want some cake.


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## BryanJ62 (Jun 24, 2014)

German Chocolate. _Yum..........
_


Mutimir said:


> Think of it like making  a cake. You bake it, frost it and put it on the platter. Once it's on the platter you don't go back and start slicing away to put in chocolate and strawberry layers. It would be a mess and a pain to fix. You have to plan for the layers right from the start.
> 
> Now I want some cake.


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