134: Establishing the Imagery
1/23/2025
I’m having a slow time of getting these last six chapters done: 67-72. Asking For Help, Banyoro Badru, Wanyana’s Song, Siona’s Song, A Friend’s Song, and Bulala’s Song.
I almost gave up and decided not to do them at all, because they felt so flat and uninspiring conceptually. But having gone through my geography notes and researching for more material to flesh them out, I came upon several ideas I could visually incorporate. Placing the characters for each chapter in entirely different settings than I imagined helped tremendously.
The scenes being in each person’s hut and involving different rituals is obviously tedious as hell and not going to work. But by expanding the reader’s awareness of the complexity of the village and its resources I’m now beginning to breathe some life into them.
Asking For Help is now set on the eastern side of the Dula River, involving a huge tree with a hollowed-out tunnel in its trunk just before crossing the Dula along a double-decker suspension bridge supported by vines and aerial roots. And it will involve a waterfall and pool where Siona is bathing. Alena and Joyul split up, Joyul sees Badru, Alena finds her mom to ask her to help with Diallo. When Joyul catches up she can barely hear what’s being said, but that’s okay because all the reader needs to know is that Alena asked for her mother’s help. The visuals and choreography among the characters in this model is MUCH more interesting than simply repeating Joyul’s eavesdropping through a hut’s thatching like she did in Chapter 34: Siona’s Reading, back in Part Two: Twa Yal-Jukun.
Banyoro Badru is set then in this vicinity but now involves her using a honey-guide to harvest honeycombs from a bee’s nest. This occurs just before the two girls and three boys show up.
Wanyana’s Song will be the only one still in a hut. It needs to be since that’s where Diallo is. I’m adding that she holds Diallo’s head in her lap, asking questions where she can tell by the tension and weight of the head what the answers are. If the answer is yes, the head feels heavier. The spirits speak through the head.
Siona’s Song will be set at dusk, while she’s putting Guma’s skull to bed – thoughts of Diallo triggering those of Guma. Possibly set within a grotto along the Dula on her way back to the village where she performs her ritual that will help Bulala.
A Friend’s Song will now be set with all five kids using a harness with a counterweight to swing around the trunk of a tree. I’m not sure about this in terms of how it can be tied in with a ritual, or which tree they’re using, since they’re a mix of boys and girls. Maybe the amori emergent tree. I just love the visuals.
Bulala’s Song now has a colobus monkey that descends from the trees to take hold of her hand and walk with her. Again, I haven’t figured out how to connect that with her ben-ganga ritual that Siona helped her set up.
So, I’ve sort of been building them all at the same time, relocating and reimagining them. That helps, but I still need to figure out a lot of details, hopefully by simply doing the work of writing it.
Present-Day Reflection
10/6/2026
My background is in art – drawing and painting – and a lot of my youth was also spent being obsessed with movies, so I’m very much a visual writer. If I don’t have a good cinematic grasp of a scene’s imagery, it just doesn’t come alive for me. Without a solid visual hook to inspire me, I can’t get a new chapter off the ground.
It doesn’t have to be a dramatically sensational or exhilarating image. It can be subdued and subtle. It just needs to carry an undercurrent of emotional resonance to it. It has to evoke a feeling in me. And it needs to be the right feeling - in the right place at the right time for the context of the story. In this way, I’m like a composer of a symphony. A symphony of emotional triggers, each executed in the service of the whole – while simultaneously providing its own particular rewards in the present moment. Each expressive movement should blend into the next as I ride the wave of images toward the distant shore of its conclusion.
That’s the goal anyway.
