Thursday, May 13, 2010

Thursday Thoughts

Scenes where one character has to explain to another something the reader has just seen happen ... are annoying. Occasionally, there are places where it's worth having actual dialogue - when the reaction of the other character or the *way* the story is retold (and what's omitted or glossed over) is important. These are, to me, more difficult than the times when you can just provide a quick summary ("She told him about X") and move on. Even though there are new elements that advance the plot, there's all that old drek you have to wade through quickly (and hopefully make interesting in still other ways) to prevent a reader from skimming.

Which is, if you may have guessed it, the problem I'm having with Scylla and Charybdis right now. This current chapter hinges very heavily on the reinterpretation of previous events - on what the non-POV chars think happened versus what actually did. (I am trying to be vague! I am probably succeeding!) Trying to make the "recap" parts as brief as possible while playing out the action around them is a headache.

Head update: still not in a good place. Sigh.

3 comments:

Angie said...

That's so true. I just ran into something similar in my own WIP. Fortunately, it worked well to simply leave out the "She told them X" part all together and just jump right into the other character's reactions to it. Good luck with yours! (I'm sure it'll turn out great.)

Aubrie said...

I have the same problem! Although, sometimes I need the recap parts to straighten things out and make it clear to the reader.

Lindsey Duncan said...

Angie: I envy you. ;-)

Aubrie: I actually did have it in mind that, considering it's been the entire book and *two* rather complicated subplots since then, the recap might not be entirely a bad idea. ;-)