By the time authors type “The End” at the end of a 95,000-word novel whose creation has probably taken months—even years—you’d think they’d know it pretty well. The close attention demanded by editing, rework, external review, more rework, and maybe a dozen more steps that turn the aspirational “The End” into fact should have exposed all a book’s secrets.

Now that the June 2022 publication of my murder mystery, Architect of Courage, is at hand, I find myself relieved of fretting about it. In that enigmatic saying, “it is what it is.” The End is not only nigh, it’s passed.

Alas, publication and the requisite publicity efforts bring a new set of terrors. I’ve had to look at the book as I believe (hope?) a reader would do. What will they think of it, about it? What am I saying, really? Anything? To my surprise, this fresh lens has helped me see aspects of the novel that weren’t visible to me in the Swamp of Rewrite.

I’ve written a series of posts for my website (vweisfeld.com) over the past weeks under the headings “Where Story Ideas Come From.” Each post examines a different question, like, why I chose to write about an architect, or how I made the two women characters distinctly different (which helps explain how my architect, Archer Landis, could love them both). Thinking intensely about these separate aspects of the novel, rather than the mechanisms of individual scenes or the plot as a whole, led me to understand there’s more “there there” than I realized. Or so I believe.

Take the choice of an architect as protagonist. If you’d asked me about it, I would have said, “architecture is an interesting profession; I didn’t want to write about lawyers or doctors—there’s a lot of that already out there, including thrillers by people trained in those professions; it gives Landis opportunities to travel,” and so on. All of which is true. Plus this: In the novel, the authorities suspect his firm has been infiltrated by terrorists looking for targets, an insinuation he deeply resents. I thought that was for business reasons. Only later did I recognize the symbolism at work. He is a person who builds, and people who would bomb buildings are destroyers. He and they are total, irreconcilable opposites. Not terribly profound, but completely unconscious.

From the beginning, I planned to puncture the facile assumption that all Muslims are terrorists. But, on reflection, I see the issue of prejudice comes up in other guises, as well. Landis’s wife’s family has always disliked him, despite his tremendous business success, because he did not come from their wealthy Connecticut milieu. A married couple moved to the United States because society in neither his home country and religion (Lebanon, Muslim) or hers (Israel, Jewish) would tolerate their mixed marriage. And, one character who is convinced prejudice has harmed his career carries a large and deadly chip on his shoulder. Yet, the word “prejudice” appears in the story not a single time.

What I enjoy most about writing is the sense of discovery when events and characters conspire to show me something new. It’s an unexpected pleasure to find that even after writing “The End” for (yes!) the last time, the discoveries continue.

The mystery/thriller Architect of Courage is available in print and Kindle at Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and on order from your favorite bookstore. Here’s a teaser to tempt you:

In summer 2011, the orderly life of Manhattan architect Archer Landis is upended by the murder of the woman he loves. When, to his surprise, the authorities link her to the Arab American community, their reflexive conclusion is “terrorist.” Landis sets out to prove them wrong but is hindered by additional mysterious attacks on everyone and everything he holds dear. To overcome these tragedies—and to survive—Landis must confront prejudice, self-doubt, the limits of loyalty, and a need for redemption that transcends revenge.