Re: Layering: 'For a moment, she stood in silence'

ShellyS <shelly.s@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_H...@xxxxxxxxxxx (Tina Hall) wrote:
ShellyS <shell...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

That some words don't sound right (feel, rather) is familiar,
though.

I rely a lot on how things sound or feel to me. If someone asks me
why something feels wrong, or right, I have to really think about it
and I don't always have an answer, or not one that makes sense. ;)

:)

"I just know" isn't very convincing, either. <g>

(But then, a certain amount of knowing the feeling of one's own work can
be expected. Certainly more than an outsider could ever feel, as they're
only interpreting the words trying to convey it, without access to the
source.)

(I think I've found my good twin - I'm the evil one in any case - as
much of what you say rings true.)

I used to be evil, but I'm trying very hard to reform. ;)

:)

I used to be nice, I successfully changed that. <g>

Other times, it makes it more confusing.

Or the order looks wrong.

Yeah. The words have to flow "right," whatever "right" is.

<nod>

<snip>

[mini flashback]
I'd like some comments on that (whether to leave it as it is or try
to shape a scene around it where nothing else happens (the story is
much further along), so I'll dump it at the end of this post (with
the line before and the short paragraph after the ones in question).

Okay. I used to love flashbacks, but I'm trying to be more careful
when and how I use them. I like using them as dreams, or nightmares,
or at a moment when someone really would think about the past
incident or even tell someone else about it and then I transition
into the actual incident, then pull back to the present time scene.
That doesn't work well, for me, if the incident is nothing much
happening, though.

For me it's just that they come when they come, not planned. Sometimes
they contain things that I then have to hint at earlier, sometimes they
fit just right, but that's both about an earlier past than a day or so.

In general, I don't have problems with various ways of telling events of
the past, it's just a few spots (like this flashback and the rambling)
that really stand out as not working.

In the WIR, the protag is guest lecturing at a class in political
systems and I use the students answering his questions to cover the
political situation at the start of the book.

Looks useful.

But what do you do when everyone knows what's going on, without
reason to talk about it, and you have to get that across _before_
it's violated? :)

In the case of the students, the class was introductory and the
protag wanted to get them to see beyond the obvious, ie comparing
politics on Mars with what goes on back on Earth.

That's a bit like new information for them, too. I really like it when I
can do that. Sometimes the information is new for me, too, even. It's
just that with this rambling, there's nothing new for the characters.
<sigh> It's the way they live, their intrinsic and learned culture.

It also helped introduce the students and their opinions, one of whom
figures into the plot later. A second student also has a small role in
the plot later. It also addressed the attitudes of the younger
generation on Mars.

All very useful. Sounds like the scene makes sense from several angles.
(Something I like, too.)

I think if you can make the scene do something else as well as give
the info, the info doesn't stand out as much as an infodump. Even the
characters sitting around and arguing about something can reveal a
lot about the something.

True. That's how much is done later.

My problem, at the start of the S&E, is just that what's normal for that
species _is_ nothing they need to talk about, but it's nothing any
hypothetical reader can be expected to know. Among the 'action' (things
going on, not fast action), one of the viewpoint characters keeps
thinking about these things (and he doesn't have any reason to talk with
anyone about it, either).

Hm, perhaps I should have some other character (confused and needing
assurances from the leader) start the subject. Don't know. That would be
too much of a AYKB. They all do know that stuff, after all.

Anyway, it starts with him getting a message about a raid, and then he
thinks about how it doesn't make sense; people killed in their home, and
others abducted, is something that simply doesn't happen. Besides the
shock at the deaths he tries to think practical, why would anyone take
Drones and Breeders away, and gives the reasons for why that couldn't
gain anyone anything. He goes outside to the drakes, and describes them
and the similarity to their own species (sharing a very distant ancestor
- a bit like we share a common ancestor with apes).

He plans to go to the farm it happened, and some actual discussion
occurs with the weaker lords and the one who would take over the tribe
if something happened to him, the weaker ones too shocked and basically
reduced to following orders (the whole thing is too much for them),
needing some reassurance and explanation on why he wants to inspect the
farm (showing some of the overall reaction of the people). He thinks a
bit more about their society, Priests and Lords, and the difference
between weaker and stronger Lords. There's a bit more 'action' (things
going on), showing that he, too is affected, with him wondering what he
might miss.

He briefly describes a main character entering the stage (history rather
than looks), there's a bit more going on, showing behaviour of the
drakes, and then they go to the farm.

At the farm they meet two more main characters, briefly described, one
from a different tribe. They learn that the other tribe had the same
thing happen for some time now, and how the tribes the other character
already went to (to warn them and see who else was affected) reacted,
showing a bit of the different natures. The viewpoint character thinks a
bit about their neighbours and tribes in general, and then they head to
investigate the farm. (Where the viewpoint ends and we get to see the
new arrival's viewpoint of the investigation.)

That's about 27kb (byte, not words) of text, the rambling frequently
breaking up the things going on.

The next two viewpoints (two of the described characters) go better, but
once it's back to this one, the rambling starts again. He wonders what
to do to protect his people, and while he explains his plan to the one
who would take over the tribe if something happened to him, he thinks
more about the different castes, their abilities and needs.

Once that's over, it continues smoother, with more things going on,
dialogue, and stuff. But these two chunks really stand out.

He is the one in charge, has to think about things, but I wish it
weren't so much rambling. <sigh>

Since I'm also dealing with an investigation, the investigators,
including the protag, get to discuss what's known so far and speculate
on more a lot.

They have the advantage that the information is also new to them. :)

Once they're travelling (looking for those responsible for the raid),
it's mostly new information (new to one or all), too.

I guess the question would be why don't they have a reason to discuss
it. And then, how could you generate a reason?

Indeed. One in character with them.

I remember an episode of Hill Street Blues that really annoyed me. For
those who don't know the show, it revolved around a squad of
detectives. In the episode, one of the cops asked another about
something he was working on and his answer was the explanation the
viewers needed, but that other cop should've known all that and it
rang false.

!!!!

(I remember the same from CSI, and it irritates me every time; how did
they get the job without knowing the first thing?)

[...]
So since then, I've had it in the back of my mind that characters who
ask questions should have reasons for asking them that fit, not just
to make conversation. And if they ask something they already know,
that should be for a reason, too.

Yep.

Working in the right characters to do this is the key. I wish I could
say I planned the whole student scene ahead of time, but I didn't. It
was a scene of opportunity. In the original version, the protag was a
teacher. When I changed him to a journalist, I kept the scene because
it served the purpose and I couldn't think of anything better, so I
made him a guest lecturer to give him a reason to be in that
classroom.

Very convenient. :)

I don't expect you to come up with an answer, I'm just thinking
aloud.

Understood. And if my rambling response helps trigger your own ideas,
all the better. :)

I would call it interesting rather than rambling. So far it
unfortunately didn't trigger the Grand Insight, though. Perhaps there is
no solution.

It's more a feeling of 'this is right here/has to be done before
that' rather than any knowledge about structure, for me, but I know
what you mean.

I know next to nothing about structure. One of my friends is a whiz
at structure and she can find patterns and structure in what I write.
I never see it.

I'd like to be able to spot it, at least after it's done. (Prior to it,
trying to do it would just get in the way, I'm sure.)

Since I write as I go, one thing just leads to another and then I need
to show what other pov characters are doing and I switch when it feels
right.

<nod>

In version 2 of the first draft, I had a new character show up
and she really worked, so I had to go back and add her into scenes
where she normally would also appear. But mostly, I work forward.

Yep.

I just always work on the one and only final version. The text itself is
supposed to be the finished version, couldn't work any other way. I just
wish I knew how to arrange the words better right from the start. (That
changing things later usually tends to having overdone it also shows
that that's not the way I 'work'.)

R.L. suggested that I insert a scene where all the information from
the rambling is shown, before '*** happens', but the more I think
about it, the more it seems unfitting in the same sense. The story
starts with X, I know that is the absolute start, and there's only
room before it for the sort-of-prologue that I added to have
something in the second book not come out of the blue (the survival
of certain characters that everyone thinks dead - they're in that
sort-of-prologue, without names but with enough to put everything
together in book one, leaving the reader with more information than
the main characters have). A rare case of not overdoing it, for me.

I tried to move the first scene of the WIR to earlier and I thought I
could build in more suspense because beta readers thought it started
too slow. And it sucked. Because the first scene was the first scene
and nothing else felt right. What I ended up changing was inserting
new scenes after the second scene to add suspense and I removed a lot
of the lecture/talkie scenes to compensate.

Will see what I can do about that. I am just worried that it'll be too
late by then. <sigh> (What's needed is a comprehensible image of the
species, after all.)

<jokingly> Maybe I should put that in an appendix. <eg>

Prologues are funny things. I love reading them when they're well done
(often set years before the story starts because the incident will
impact the plot or forms the plot, especially in a suspense type story
in any genre), but writing them is something I rarely do. I rarely
have a good enough reason to use them.

I would never have gotten the idea for a prologue, except writing as I
do - showing what happens - these characters suddenly turned up alife.

(Really, one of my main characters sits around, quite harmlessly, and
suddenly he's contacted - by a sort of mental communication that only
certain people can do.)

I had to do something to make that plausible, and the idea of the sort
of prologue set half a year before 'story start', being mysterious about
the characters themselves, seemed just right. It still looks just right.
Inside the story I just had to make up a reason for why they weren't
found earlier, which offered itself from what I had learned about their
tribe in the meantime, and gave me a reason to add more unexpected
survivors that make perfect sense in the whole picture. (One group of
which I inserted into the first book; a few added scenes that take place
elsewhere. That was easy.)

Another reason I tried to move the start to a few days earlier was to
show the protag before his life changed so readers had something to
compare him with,

<nod>
That was exactly the reason R.L. gave to insert a scene.

but then, aside from the suckage, I realized there was an incident a
few years before that that changed him and I couldn't start back that
far, so I had to trust the reader to like him from where the story
needed to start. I tightened up the original scene, dropped extraneous
crap, and built up the emotions of the moment, the descriptions, etc
and I think it works better now. A lot of his backstory comes out
later, in his thoughts, when he's faced with a similar incident to the
one in the past.

Hm. I wonder how to adjust that method to the rambling I want to remove.

Reminds me of something I've overdone while correcting an
impression, now I've got three characters thinking much the same, at
different points. <sigh>

Yes. The danger of fixing something by adding more of what isn't
needed. I do that a lot. ;)

My good twin! :)

They're far enough apart that I don't have all three in the utmost
active part of my mind while rereading, to compare and find which is
best to keep.

You might be able to make them just different enough that you can
keep all three, if they're far enough apart.

True. I'll have to concentrate on who it is that is doing the thinking.
They're three distinctly different characters, after all (it's only that
they think much the same about this subject).

<snip>

Here's the bit I warned about above. :)

[...]

Okay, just off the top of my head, this is too long to be done this
way.

Just as I worried. :)

It is a mini-scene and it's passive. Not knowing what you're
going for here or why it all has to be in here, my thoughts will
likely be off-base, but I'll risk it.

It just explains why Lanar is suddenly with Gorash's group, rather than
Wegyn's. I wrote it because when Tashen decided to <go somewhere, the
point of this scene>, the Winter Lord was suddenly there, saying what he
says. The flashback itself is fully in character with Lanar; he is a
silly sod, his mother's son more than his father's.

If I were to guess at why he's there, it's that the character who was
responsible for providing some harmless nonsense before (to lighten up
the atmosphere) is, right then, not available for that. But that's a
guess at what my backbrain might be doing, nothing intended.

I'd try two things and see which works better. Write the scene and
insert it where it would belong. This would require I come up with a
real reason for the scene, which could be as simple as the pov
character learning something about himself or the others that can be
used later.

That sounds simple, but for this it's a bit like reaching into a bowl
and finding it empty; nothing available. (They either already know, or
found out later.)

If I could add in a little problem that can be resolved within the
scene -- Look out, a bear! -- all the better.

If I were to add some poisonous creepy things overlooked (the wildlife
native to where they are), that would create its own problem; there's no
reason that would happen.

Problem. Hm. Problems turn up all the time in the story. :) They've just
got their place where they are. I'll see what I can come up with.

It could be a bonding thing.

?

Who knows? And maybe I can use it to do something a later scene did
and I can remove it from that later scene.

I've checked, and everything that follows, follows because of this.
Lanar, later in the same scene, does something that leads to
unexpectedly changing the unavailability of the other mischievious
character (perhaps my backbrain thought it a good idea for him to do
that - or just none of the straighter thinking characters would have the
idea - I hadn't noticed the immediate connection before, just wrote what
happened), solving a big problem that had been hanging around for some
time, and from then on most things come from that, with the rest
involving characters that only turned up afterwards or are staying by
themselves.

Up to the end of the book, anyway. In the next they're already moving.

The second thing would be to try to condense what's needed into half
the sentences. Sometimes, that's harder for me than writing another
scene.

Understandable. It would lose half of what went on. :)

A third thing, which might not work here at all, would be to break
that up and integrate it more into the actual scene.

Hm. I'll think about it. Perhaps I can integrate it into a prior scene.
Thanks. :)

--
Tina
WIP: Space: 6002 words
WISuspension: Seasons & Elements trilogy | Magic Earth series
Posted to Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.composition.

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