My screenwriting teacher Paul Lucey either said this or quoted someone else saying this:
When you get a paper cut sometimes you don’t immediately see the blood. It takes a second to realize you’ve been injured. Then the blood appears, starts to ooze.
Not sure what it means exactly (!) but something about digging for the pain, waiting for the pain. I think he was talking about the character AND the writer – a writer’s ability to visualize/see the pain that no one else does. To wait for it. To realize it’s there. To imbue your work with it? To reveal your own? Who knows. You tell me. DT