On Balancing Court Gossip and Hell Unleashed

I’ve often become frustrated with books whose authors discard the magnifying glass in favor of the broad-stroked brush. A half-hearted survey from a thousand feet up aids in the progression of events, yet cheapens each in the passing. When implemented across widespread plotlines, it accomplishes the unforgivable; minor characters shrink to dust motes orbiting about the central big bad, their compelling and personal stories thinned to watery soup without flavor. Without inspection beyond the surface-level, why might I care at all for Character B’s low-level contest of wits when at this very moment Character A races across the world to arm-wrestle the Devil himself?

Details and dimension matter more at the atomic level than the planetary. If the lens never gets zoomed in, smaller characters and plots are forcibly rendered into obscurity. Their purpose on the page becomes grueling misdirection, forestalling the only events granted enough focus to be truly cared about.

In my personal estimation, this amounts to grievous sin. The smallest pebble can impact the world as much as the greatest avalanche, if given the proper showing. It is precisely in the lesser details and happenings that we most often find ourselves, and through finding ourselves the unimaginable is made real.

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