Not that long ago I took on a project for which I had to abridge a classic text for adults into 750 words (fewer, that word count included any essential vocabulary definitions) for 7 year-olds. The process of distilling a terrible scene from real life into a few panels reminds me of that process. Prune. Trim. Cut. Then, trim some more.
Today’s challenge: What’s the simplest way to depict me and Dad on our weekly phone call? Do I need to include more details of the mundane chit-chat that filled many hours? Probably not. What about his endless challenges with getting his high-tech hearing aids to connect via Bluetooth to his phone? The increasingly large amount of airtime given to our medical complaints - my hip replacement, his COPD and irritation that no matter what inhalers he tried wouldn’t fix the problem, yada yada yada.
And then, dropped into the conversation somewhere after ‘It’s rained here for eight days straight,” and “We had Dani’s amazing tonkatsu for dinner last night,’ he would drop a bomb like, “I’m going blind.”
This particular conversation will continue for a few more panels, but in the context of a whole book about a big life, I am constantly aware that just as there is never enough time with a loved one, there are never enough pages available in a book to tell the full story…