If I'd Written the Scene ...

If I’d written the scene where the parents drop their son off at college, I would have included a few details to show the newness of it all, like without knowing the last four numbers of his social security number, the boy couldn’t unlock his room. I would have included a section where the two roommates meet and work together to arrange so-much-furniture in such-a-small-space, to foreshadow a peaceable co-existence. In the written version, the boys’ possessions could have provided clues to their personalities.

I would have drawn the parents, eager to help and loath to say goodbye, taking him out to buy books and an Ethernet cable, and then being frustrated when only one professor bothered to notify the bookstore about required texts. I would have had to decide if that was enough of a setback for one chapter or whether to include the bit about the Ethernet cable not working. Perhaps future plot twists would have determined which frustration to describe.

If I’d written the moment of goodbye, the mother would have hugged her son and been inwardly surprised to notice that her head rested on his chest, even though she saw him every day and knew he was tall. And of course, at the end of the hug, the boy would get suddenly busy, looking around for his flip flops. If I’d written that scene, the mother would have understood right away why the need to find flip flops was so urgent.