Texture can be infused through form as well as through content. In Hidden, both of these factors are at play.Ī woven structure can reflect and support a characters’ fragmented mentation. This is important when the story cannot be known in its entirety by any single character, or when the writer needs to limit the complexity of a character’s thought (as when the character is a very young child). Both my memoir, If A Tree Falls, and my novel-in-progress, Hidden, have “braided” structures: the weaving of multiple perspectives (and in the case of my memoir, multiple time periods).Ī braided form - though admittedly unwieldy when compared to a narrative with a singular point of view – enables the reader unmediated access to the experiential life of multiple characters in a story. Strings figure not only in the imagery but also in the overall structure of my writing. Jennifer has been blogging here all week for Jewish Book Council’s Visiting Scribe series. She is the author of the picture book, The Mitten String (Random House, 2014) and the memoir, If A Tree Falls: A Family’s Quest to Hear and Be Heard (Feminist Press, 2010). Earlier this week, Jennifer Rosner wrote about her novel-in-progress and also a gene mutation, a motherly connection, and the power of string.

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