Today is the posting of the 4th letter in the Post Marked: Piper’s Reach series (this is Jude’s second letter). What began at the beginning of the year is now rolling out weekly even as Jodi and I write new letters.
It’s a weird situation re-reading the early letters, knowing what revelations and intimate details lie ahead in the coming weeks. Yet their future is uncertain and unknown. I am about to sit down and read Ella-Louise’s 8th letter before writing Jude’s response.
We’ve maintained our strict “no spoilers” policy which has made for entertaining reading and frustrating writing.
I have come to love Jude and Ella-Louise as characters. In the initial letters there is a hesitancy, an uncertainty of themselves and of each other. Ella-Louise reaches out from the past, interrupting Jude’s acceptance of it and questioning who and what he was back then. Jude saw Ella-Louise from one perspective when they were growing up but is forced to confront it by reliving the significant events.
They remember different events, different versions or perceptions of shared moments. As the letters continue Ella-Louise and Jude offer the reader an intimate insight into their lives and their memories.
See if you can spot the continuity error in Jude’s letter today; you will need to re-read Ella-Louise’s last letter. Jodi and I like to think of it as two characters remembering different aspects of the past. As a writer, I cringe at the mistake. However, it lends an authenticity to the writing of Jude and Ella-Louise.
At the conclusion of the letters, I would love to compile them as an ebook. There’s something quite ironic about archiving a story written in letters as a digital footprint. But I love the contradiction.
In the meantime, their letters are being collected in The Shoe Box for you to read.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 