I had already completed one novel when I set out to write A Slight Touch. The short stories I had written while working at a job—the stories that had thawed my ability to find joy in writing—I’d eventually strung together to create a whole story. I don’t count it as my first novel, though, because I hadn’t set out to write a book. My first genuine novel was written after I had been let go from that job due to cutbacks. I looked at being laid off as the universe’s way of telling me, “Okay, you want to be a novelist, here’s your chance. Don’t blow it.” It was a test of sorts. A test to see if I could really follow through on a dream, go the distance. I considered it a job (still do) and set up a daily routine, which I stuck to. Three months later, I reached my goal. I had written the first draft of a novel. It was okay, but not great. Part of the problem was that I had taken an older story I had toyed around with back when I was writing screenplays and adapted it. It wasn’t as organic as it should have been; I kept trying to force the story to follow guidelines I’d set up for it in another medium. That novel turned out to be more of an exercise in writing than a good story. It was something I needed to do, though; I needed to prove to myself that I was capable of writing a book. Once I’d proved it the next task was to prove that I could write a novel from scratch, one that didn’t rely on past ideas. I had to come up with something new. So, I looked at the world around me and wondered if others perceived it as I did.
I believe my fascination with perception began in the fifth grade. My teacher, Mrs. Howington, presented a slideshow of creation myths from Africa. Actually, my memory is foggy regarding that presentation. I don’t recall why she brought it in (other than she tried various non-traditional methods of teaching) nor do I remember what part of Africa the myth came from. I’m not even sure it was Africa, but it doesn’t matter. What’s stuck with me all these years is this: there was the Moon and a Frog. The Moon wanted to populate the earth, for company I suppose, and as she contemplated what she should populate the earth with, the Frog, no doubt jealous that he hadn’t come up with the idea first, decided that he would get the party started while the Moon wasn’t looking. The Frog started spitting out creatures willy-nilly and animals of the land, sea, and sky were born. When the Moon realized what the Frog was doing, she reached out to stop him and grabbed him by the throat. It was too late, though; he had enough breath left in him to croak out two final creatures, Man and Woman. They lay on the ground helpless and unformed—dying before they had lived. The Moon felt great pity for them and used the same hands that had strangled the Frog to complete the creatures. She made them something more than all the other of the Frog’s creations; she gave them something of herself and breathed consciousness into them. Man and Woman came into being.
I don’t know if it’s an accurate retelling of that story, but it’s how I’ve come to remember it. I also remember thinking, “Wow!” I don’t know why it had taken me that long to realize that other people from other places had other ways of viewing the world. All I can say is thank you Mrs. Howington for opening my eyes. The other person I would like to thank is whoever realized that I needed glasses. When I got my (black horned-rim, could my mother have actually chosen anything more horrible) glasses I must have spent the entire first day I had them looking at trees. Until that day I had no idea that you could actually see individual leaves from far away. I would put my ugly glasses on, then take them off, over and over, just to see the difference. Those two events changed my perception, both inside and out.
Fast-forward some thirty-odd years and I’m still fascinated with perception. Consequently, while I was thinking about what would be my next novel I contemplated crazy people. The really crazy people, the kind who see and hear things. They have a different kind of perception, right? What if they’re the ones who have realized that you can see individual leaves on trees while the rest of us only see a big green smudge? That became the seed of A Slight Touch. What if something bizarre happened but everyone saw it differently and experienced it according to their own worldview? Not quite a Rashomon thing, but similar. I wanted to take an extraordinary event and find out what it would do to a group of very disparate people.
I started with an idea and that led to the characters. I decided I wanted three people who would never be connected, never even be aware of one another, except by circumstance. I wanted that elevator-type of experience. You get into this little moving box and for a moment you’re bound with the other people in it with you. If the elevator failed and crashed to the lowest level that would become the connection you had to them. That would be the instant fate tied you together. But what about the people who got off on different floor right before the elevator fell? They would know, on some level, that they were connected with those who had died, but would they realize they had a connection with the living, with the others who had been on that elevator and had also escaped death? Doubtful. Those were the people I wanted in my novel.
I had an idea and I had the characters to go along with it, but the characters had to have something to do. I thought about the saying, “God moves in mysterious ways.” Doesn’t matter if you’re devout or atheist, everyone at some point has wondered, even if only for a millisecond, what caused them to do something, what brought them to a certain point. Do we always know why we do what we do? I’m not talking about how we behave but the act of doing. Why did I drive down this road? Why did I give up my seat on the plane? Why did I forget my house keys when I’ve never done that before? Those questions led back to the axiom (to some) that God moves in mysterious ways. If everything is connected somehow then every action has a reaction even if we never see it or know about it.
Now that I knew who my characters were going to be and what they were going to do I needed something for them to fight against. Enter the antagonist. I wanted him to be opposite the other three both in character and in action. I’ve always believed that it’s just as easy (perhaps even more so) to tap into the bad inside yourself as it is to tap into the good. What if circumstances allowed the opportunity for the malevolence to rise up? If it did, were you lost forever or was there a chance of redemption? And what would it take for that to happen?
So, there you have it. That’s what I had when I sat before the keyboard and began to type. The fun part of it was that I didn’t know where it would lead. I had an idea, but because I was letting the story tell itself, I didn’t know how it was going to get there—if it got there at all. Sometimes the story doesn’t end where you thought it would. I stuck with it and trusted in it. With some suggestions from a few people who read early drafts I was able to come up with something I liked very much. I was able to explore my ideas and learn about the characters I had created. The Frog in me had croaked out the story and the Moon in me lovingly formed it.
Thank you again, Mrs. Howington.
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H.L. Cherryholmes is the author of "A Slight Touch". He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. You can reach him at