Show, Don’t Tell

I have always been of a mind to see the patterns beneath things, the hidden formulas in film, television, and literature. I prefer to be shown what is unfolding, not told. I crave a mystery, a twist that lingers just beyond reach. Most of what passes for storytelling today follows the same well-worn path, and more often than not, I can see the end before the first act closes. Books, though, books still hold secrets. That is why people so often say, “The book was better.” I believe that is because a true writer does not drag the reader by the hand, but opens the door and lets them wander. My favorite stories leave space for discovery, for revelation. They trust the reader to find their own truth in the quiet places between the words.

When I first began writing The Guardian, The Angel, and The Goddess, it was not meant to live. It was meant to burn, a ritual of release, a way to lay my past to rest and scatter its ashes to the wind. But before the match could fall, my wife read it. She saw something in it, something worth saving, and she asked that our children read it too. Their reaction was unexpected, and it struck deeper than I imagined. They had lived through my darkness, my fall, my slow return, but like most who live near the storm, they had filled the silence with their own guesses. Now they knew the truth, unfiltered and unkind, and when I apologized, they forgave me.

Then came the question that still echoes: “Why couldn’t you explain this when it was happening?”
The answer is simple. I speak with less grace than I write.

People often mistake quiet speech for an uneducated mind. It’s an illusion, one I have worn most of my life. The truth is, I am well-read, far beyond what my work or background might suggest. Books were my first teachers, my earliest companions.

My love of reading came long before I ever thought of storytelling. In middle school, I became obsessed with history, not for the dates or the wars, but for the why behind them. I wanted to know why the world turned the way it did, why people built what they built, destroyed what they destroyed. Adults were always quick to explain what, but rarely why.In my house, and in school, asking why was an act of defiance. Yet curiosity is not easily killed. It hides, it waits, and it burns quietly until it finds a way to speak.

That hunger still moves me. In Where Ravens Wait, I will follow it deeper, that need to understand how things work, how meaning takes shape in shadow and silence. But I will not tell you what to believe. I will show you. The truths will come slowly, some clear, others veiled. Some you may grasp at once, others only when the story closes its final circle. This is by design. I am writing the kind of book I would want to read, one that reveals itself in fragments, in symbols, in echoes.

There is, I think, a quiet misunderstanding about The Guardian, The Angel, and The Goddess. Many who have read it believe the “Guardian” refers to me, to the man who once wore the badge and carried duty like a shield. It does not. The Guardian is something older, vast, and ancient as breath. It is not bound to flesh. It is a presence that moves through all things, a sentinel that was here long before and will remain long after. Near the end of the book, I come close to naming it. If you read carefully, you’ll see. We never walk alone, not truly.

Sitting Bull once said, “Inside of me there are two wolves. One is mean and evil, and the other is good. They fight each other all the time. When asked which one wins, I answer, the one I feed the most.”
He spoke of good and evil, but I have come to see them differently. Life is rarely that simple. The line between light and shadow runs through every heart. My wolves do not fight for good or evil. They are the balance itself, the eternal struggle to remember who I am and what I must become.

So when you return to The Guardian, The Angel, and The Goddess, read as one who listens for footsteps in the dark. Look for what hides beneath the surface. The numbers, the names, the places where meaning waits. When Where Ravens Wait finally spreads its wings, those small details will matter. The simplest things will hold the heaviest truths.

For those who walk beside me through these stories, know this:
The Guardian still watches. The wolves still circle. And the light and the darkness were never enemies. They were siblings all along.