I spent a lot of time today thinking about Uncle Charlie. Not my Uncle Charlie. He’s a character in my novel. He’s pretty important, so I spent a couple of hours rewriting – from scratch – the first several pages of a scene in which I’m first trying to reveal his character.

Charlie left by the back gate, saying goodbye to the boys as he passed them where they played. The vegetable garden beyond the yard smelled ripe. The bottom gate, which kept the garden apart from the infinity of the farm, was made of mismatched wood and bits of wire, and hung from heavy wire instead of hinges. He unlooped the strand that served as a lock, and set the gate aside to pass through. He saw that the part of the copper where they laid there hands was worn brighter, like a penny, while the rest was weathered dull and brown. He whistled for Zeke, who was sniffing around the bushes in the yard, and set the gate in place behind them as they went.

The issue here is how to reveal someone’s essential kindness without coming out and poking your finger in the reader’s eye and yelling this guy is really kind. I mean he’s friggin Buddha. In other words, by showing not telling.

My approach, as I rewrite this chapter, is to show you how much Zeke loves Charlie. Enough said, but as I was thinking about kindness this afternoon, I listened to the 7/23 daily installment of Writers’ Almanac, which includes a poem called kindness. Here’s a sample:

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.