Never the Same Place—Or Person—Twice"

Recently, I was listening to Saturday Cinema, with radio host Lynne Warfel. In advance of the Oscars, Warfel was featuring academy-award winning films and scores, including The Way We Were, a 1973 film starring Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand as two very different people who share time together. Listening to the theme song and reflecting on the poignancy of the music and film, I was reminded of Marcel Proust’s 1900s novel A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, which literally means in search of times lost. All of us return to places we’ve been and people we’ve known, often in search of the past, and many of us write about characters who, in real time or via flashback, are returning for the same reason. How can writers make the most of a scene or story that features a return?

Most of us like returning to places we’ve enjoyed and people we’ve enjoyed being with. Sometimes we go back because we have to. Since the same is true of our characters, here are questions to consider when writing of a return:

• What or who is the person returning to and why?
• Are they looking forward to the reunion? Why or why not?
• Once they arrive, what are their first impressions? What are these based on?
• How will their impressions evolve as time goes by and reality sets in?
• What about the place or person is different or the same and why?
• What’s different about your character and why?
• Do others in the story realize this? How and why?
• What are the effects of these realizations on the characters and overall story?
• How will the return change the character and others in the work?
• What was the character hoping to find?
• Did they find it? Why or why not?
• What are the disappointments in the return?
• What are the benefits and surprises?

If you’re having trouble envisioning the differences in the place or people between then and now, put the people in a scene together, either in an iconic setting or one that’s off the beaten path. Also give them time alone to realize what is different, and why and how this effects everyone’s lives.

To add spice, consider disruptors that would reveal who these people are today and how the place has changed. For example, if you visit Italy, you’re likely to encounter a transit strike—rail, taxi or both. What happens to your main character then? What do they reveal about themselves as they handle the unexpected?

Situations like this also reveal the character to the character. For example, your main character may take a schedule disruption in stride now, but when the person they’re waiting for is late to dinner, they may unravel, wondering why the person is late and what this says about their relationship. How does the character respond when they realize they’re not as cool under this sort of pressure as they once were?

On some level, we know we can’t go back and find the same person or place we left. Yet, returning yields discoveries about the place and the people, and when faced with the effects of time and change, our characters may respond in ways we don’t expect. Instead of censoring them, let the scene play out, and see where it takes you. Times and people past may be lost in one sense, but we can discover a trove of treasures by searching for them all the same.