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I don't really know for the first one, but wouldn't you just do little snapshots for the second one? I.e. "three days later such and such happened, and after a short time this and this happened," etc.? See, I can be on topic if I really want to.
No because it wouldn't be written in summary, rather it would sort of be as if each event was actually happening right then, in detail, one after the other, only over a period of time. AKA, showing not telling only at a quicker pace :)
Nonsense. I once BS'd an eleven minute speech and got an A. ...What's everyone looking at me like that for?
Oh all right. *sigh* I am a horrible horrible non-academic barbarian currently enrolled in a sophisticated tech school that has no future and is in no way someone to look up to, let alone idolize. Please do not follow my example.
Oh all right. *sigh* I am a horrible horrible non-academic barbarian currently enrolled in a sophisticated tech school that has no future and is in no way someone to look up to, let alone idolize. Please do not follow my example.
I'm not entirely understanding what you mean here. Are you saying that Character A is the narrator, but Character A is listening to Character B telling them a story? Because in that case, it would be completely fine to do it conversationally -- as in, Character B simply relays the story verbally. You could have Character A envision what's happening as it's being told to do a sort of intertwine of the oral summary and a visual representation (both showing and telling at the exact same time).
If you mean that you want Character A's flashback, you're completely entitled to simply have Character A retell past events any way you want because the story's told from Character A's perspective (read: you are in Character A's mind in a sense) anyway.
If you mean you want Character B's thoughts, well, that leads into something I'm about to cover:
Would it be okay to break into 3rd person just for those times?
For short bursts like a single flashback, it really isn't for a number of reasons including:
1. It's fairly jarring. The rest of the story is told from a single character's perspective, so if you switch in the middle of the story to something that isn't even the same person (i.e., from first to third), especially if you either don't do it again or it happens after several chapters of first-person narrative, your reader will end up being confused as to what's going on because they can't tell whether or not that part is being narrated by a character in the story.
2. The point behind first person POV, if you don't mind me being blunt, is to tell a story from a limited perspective. As in, you have a set of events, but they're being told to the audience by a single character at a time. Even if you switch narrators, the entire purpose of limiting yourself to that perspective is to force the audience to see things from the character's eyes. Basically, it's actually a different style compared to third person. In third person, the audience can see most or all of the picture. In first, not so much. Simply put, it's like you've got a camera, and you keep zooming in and out at random without giving the audience time to adjust. Eventually, after awhile of that kind of camerawork, someone's going to get sick.
There are, of course, some artistic pieces that manage to pull off a blend of third and first person. The novel Mindscape by Andrea Hairston is really the only one that comes to mind at the moment. On the other hand, the switches are usually consistent throughout the novel, and the aforementioned is basically 450 pages of mind**** anyway. Great novel but it's difficult to really get into.
In other words, I'd say don't switch and try opting for Character B just relaying the story by mouth/Character A visualizing what's going on if that's what you mean. If you switch to third person for short bursts, you're really defeating the purpose of telling the story in first person.
Also, how would you write something like a montage to show the scenes from a certain passage of time? I don't want to dwell on what happens in this certain time period, but I don't want to skip over it as it shows many of the growing connections between the characters...
The only ways you can really do this is by either:
1. Short scenes. Either divided by scene breaks or with a nice chunk of narration to explain how much time is passing so that it's clear one happening is connected but not taking place at the exact same time as another.
2. Summary. As a note, the phrase "show, don't tell" is a misleading phrase. What it actually means is don't tell the reader the man is angry. Show them that his face grew red as his eyes bulged out of his sockets. It's for description, not the flow of plot.
For chronicling events, sometimes, it's actually a good idea to simply tell the reader that something happened last Tuesday if you have no intention of including the scene in detail because it would either drag the plot down if you included every little bit or because it's just not something you want to cover in detail. At the risk of being overly egotistical, I tend to do this a lot, so allow me to offer an excerpt from my one-shot, Bloom, a story that basically abuses this concept. In it, it's basically Bill's background, but this particular part comes directly before his induction into the Pokémon Symposium (the actual point to the particular scene). However, in order to get to that part, I had to summarize why he was being inducted, but this was a gradual process: the invention of the Storage System.
Spoiler:
The idea, like the initial inklings that mark the birth of something new and extraordinary, came from something incredibly simple. Namely, it was something he'd noticed in Celadon's pokémon center, during a time when he'd usually study in the back corner of the lobby (if only to watch trainers and their pokémon come in and out when he should have been working). Oftentimes, trainers would flock to Celadon for the department store and gym, and for that reason, many of them came with backpacks full of poké balls containing pokémon they had captured on the long trek to Celadon from its neighboring cities. It was hardly uncommon to hear a trainer complain of back pains or bulging backpacks, and judging by their loads, Bill knew immediately why.
Over the next months, Bill began to write volumes across napkins and through notebooks, often with pieces scratched out or rearranged or written suddenly, partway through a conversation. At first, everyone he encountered asked about it, but none of them received a straight reply aside from, "It's something I'm working on." They tried to understand the language and the diagrams written across every piece of paper he could keep, but none of them grasped the idea then. Not yet.
Eventually, Bill rewrote the language in a notebook, neat and organized and accompanied by a full description and pages of diagrams of what he wanted. That was when he began to enlist the help of friends and professors, particularly in the engineering department. When one asked, he showed them a page in the notebook and explained to them what he needed. Not long afterwards, he'd have it.
Slowly but surely, the idea came into being that way, piece by piece, with each fragment never made by the same person. He pieced the rest together, working with the computers and the parts he received or bought himself to slowly shape the creature in his mind.
Eventually, he graduated from that college, and as he moved to a secluded spot north of Cerulean – so chosen for the peace and security of isolation – the thing went with him. That was the last he'd asked anyone for help. He had everything he needed. All he had to do then was piece it together and give it a brain. For about a year, no one heard from him. Summer passed into autumn and autumn into winter, with green leaves turning gold and then brown beneath white. A world of color surrounded Bill, and he shut himself away in his cottage, not to be disturbed until he was finished.
When spring came, he finally opened his door and walked out of the cottage, towards Cerulean City.
Several months later, every pokémon center in Kanto ordered PCs to support his new system. It, what he simply called the Storage/Retrieval System, spread like a virus across the region, from one center to another. Trainers who started before it came jumped at the chance to register for their own accounts. Trainers who started after began receiving free subscriptions as if it had always been offered. By the following year, there were plans to bring the system to Johto, and both Bebe and the sister team of Lanette and Bridgette Rousseau (both of whom he'd met through online conversations) were already sending him requests for the system plans to implement and run their own versions in their home regions.
The scientific community had no choice but to notice Bill at that point, not only because he'd developed, nearly by himself, something widely considered to be revolutionary but also because he'd proven that modifications of the same technology that existed in poké balls anyway could be applied elsewhere. Before the system, pokémon were believed to have only the unique property to convert their bodies to energy – a fact that made the poké ball possible. The system, meanwhile, converted the energy (and the matter of the poké ball itself) into digital data. Within the system, millions of electrical pulses recorded themselves as different pokémon and filed themselves neatly into a complex network of computers.
While that alone wasn't enough to merit the attention of the Pokémon Symposium, the paper that came nearly two years later was. Previously, it was a mere assumption that a pokémon's DNA contained genes that coded for their unique ability to both deconstruct their bodies into pure energy and generate energy they needed for their techniques, but no one could actually pinpoint what the process entailed and what triggered it. The mechanisms of the poké ball itself had been a secret and therefore not much of a help; balls often were designed based on their ancient ancestors made from apricorns.
Bill, naturally, found the answer – or what he and the scientific community thought was the answer. Stemming from the research he had to do in order to figure out how to get his system to work, Bill worked out a theory, a complicated one that entailed an unstable chemical makeup, coded by unique expanses of DNA that all pokémon apparently shared – genes that also covered the possibility and methods of rapid evolution.
That was submitted as his final dissertation for his post-graduate program. A committee of professors at Celadon University read it, then handed it to members of the scientific community. Months after receiving his doctorate, Bill was invited to join the ranks of the Pokémon Symposium.
There was, of course, no way to turn down an invitation like that.
Massive excerpt. So sue me.
But you get the idea. The story would have been massive if I stopped to detail all of that when, really, the actual scene I wanted to show was the induction ceremony (which is not quoted above but is available here if you're really that curious). On the other hand, it was absolutely necessary to show the process of its development because, otherwise, the scene I wanted to get to wouldn't have made sense. As a result, the best way to handle that was simply to give the reader a detailed overview of what happened between Bill's entrance into college (the flashback before this point) and the induction ceremony, rather than to break things down into over 9000 scenes that show Bill writing down code, talking people into helping him, putting everything together -- you get the idea.
In other words, the key to writing a montage is to be detailed enough so that your audience can get an idea of what's going on but to remember that the reason why you're doing a montage is to inform them of events that happened between two scenes. Avoid slowing down the narration by stopping and trying to show them every little thing, but at the same time, make sure your events flow smoothly from one point to another by keeping a careful eye on how much time passes and making sure you make note of it for the reader.
I'll reply to the first part later, since I've decided to handle it a different way that keeps it first person without anyone having to even tell her :3
Summary. As a note, the phrase "show, don't tell" is a misleading phrase. What it actually means is don't tell the reader the man is angry. Show them that his face grew red as his eyes bulged out of his sockets. It's for description, not the flow of plot.
I think it is also for when your summary becomes too list like (I do think, to, the phrase has grown to have more meaning than it was first given now, in a good way) . When it becomes more about telling the reader that such and such happened, than actually showing it as it is happening and giving them more a feeling of being a part of it. I was not even talking about the flow of plot so much as a flow of action and happenings in the montage :).
In other words, the key to writing a montage is to be detailed enough so that your audience can get an idea of what's going on but to remember that the reason why you're doing a montage is to inform them of events that happened between two scenes.
Time is not my issue, I know very well how much time I want to cover, my main trouble is more making it flow from a storytelling pov, and making each hop feel natural in the characters pov. The time period and too much detail dumping is the least of my worries, trust me :P.
Other than this section my characters' pov is coming along just fine :).
I'm a better bs'er in college than I was in high school, if that makes any sense.
Perhaps I am just using the force my essay skills to prove something that otherwise wouldn't work. Like that as long as you connect evidence with the main idea and stuff like that, it will look good. Depending on how much you had to BS though, would determine your mark, the more BSing the worse the mark. That's why it's good to know some stuff. :P
*laughs* It also tends to depend on what discipline you're in and the sort of professor you have. It's a bit harder to BS your intro in a report on the relationship between mitochondrial activity and ultradian rhythms than, perhaps, symbolism in The Bluest Eye, simply because one is a bit more subjective than the other.
Additionally, there are some very serious profs out there who won't let BS fly, no matter what discipline you're in. It's risky to trust your obfuscation skills in college, unless you know for a fact that a particular professor grades lightly, or don't care about your grade in the class.
I think it is also for when your summary becomes too list like (I do think, to, the phrase has grown to have more meaning than it was first given now, in a good way) . When it becomes more about telling the reader that such and such happened, than actually showing it as it is happening and giving them more a feeling of being a part of it.
To be blunt and honest, I think you're defining things a bit too loosely, mostly because I feel as if you're basically saying that no amount of summary (even the example I offered earlier) is okay. The phrase applies to description because, yes, it's better for the reader to see how something is, rather than to be told it simply is. (The anger example I mentioned earlier, for one.) It doesn't apply so much to plot because plot is harder to define. In certain cases, as you've implied as well, it's okay to summarize so long as you don't give a dry-bones shopping list of what happens. (Something extreme, like: Jane went to the store. Jane went to the post office. Fifteen minutes later, Jane went home.) However, summarizing (the way I've mentioned before) is still summarizing, and in those cases, it's actually better if a writer goes with that method because otherwise, it'll be painful for the reader to trudge through pages and pages of build-up just to get to the main plot.
I was not even talking about the flow of plot so much as a flow of action and happenings in the montage :).
How the plot flows is generally important to what you're doing because it's the deciding factor as to what you're doing and why. As in, it decides what best fits.
Basically speaking, Edgar Allan Poe once said that every word in a story needs to lend to the overall effect. Choosing how you go about a single piece of your story lends to how the other parts around it flow as well. You can't really just consider the flow of one piece and ignore how it works for your story.
That said, the reason why I said you need to consider what would and wouldn't drag down your plot is because the plot decides the pacing for your montage. You could very well slow things down and show finer details if the rest of your story calls for it. For example, that massive montage I offered in my earlier post is done the way it was done (i.e., lots of detail and a slow pace) because it was building a bridge between the scene before and the scene after. I did another summary in AEM, but it was less than a paragraph long because a large chunk of events like the one in Bloom would have dragged down the story. No one wants to read through massive chunks, particularly if you go on and on about what happened in these earlier events, because it'll slow down the pace of the story itself.
On top of that, a montage serves as a bridge between two events, as I've said before. Of course you'd be considering the plot (i.e., the sequence of events of the story) because, well, the montage is serving as a bridge between pieces of it.
*sigh* I know that, that is not really why I was asking for help :P...
I'm not sure if you realize that, but this sounds a bit condescending. It's mostly the :P face and the sigh, as if you asked me for your help and, right after I gave it to you, just blew me off. =|
That said, judging by your question, you weren't clear as to what you wanted. According to your quote (which can still be seen in my other post), you were implying that you were looking for a way to weave a montage effectively in general -- namely, that you were having time issues. (I gathered this from the part where you say you didn't want to skip over it. Also, the part about showing a passage of time.) If you wanted to ask how this would be done from a character's perspective, it would help if you were absolutely clear about that; from the looks of things, the earlier question about flashbacks was a completely different subject.
Time is not my issue, I know very well how much time I want to cover,
Time (relative to the plot) was not what I was trying to get at. Time as in how the story flows is what I was trying to advise you about. Namely, not only making the passage of time absolutely clear to the reader without smacking them in the face but also making those milestones make sense (as in, don't have something that takes a week happen in a day) and make one event appear to flow smoothly into the next so as not to make transitions seem so abrupt.
my main trouble is more making it flow from a storytelling pov, and making each hop feel natural in the characters pov.
Because you're working with first person, this depends on the voice of your character. Characters highlight events according to what they think is important. For example, Fred might not think it was important that Sally said hello to George, so if he was retelling his day, he wouldn't mention that. However, if George, who has a serious crush on Sally, was retelling the events of the day, he of course would include that part.
Not only that, but it depends on the tone the character typically uses. If you've ever dealt with six-year-olds, you might get that list of events you were mentioning earlier under our debate about showing and not telling. A more eloquent speaker would find a way to weave the retelling of the story in a more natural, smoother tone.
In other words, it's hard to help you because it's hard to know what you're really going for here, mostly because a lot of your question depends on who's telling it.
Or even simpler put, before we can help you, please rephrase your question and give us a bit more detail as to what it is you're looking for. Right now, not only are your questions rather confusing, but I'm personally missing a few details here.
To be blunt and honest, I think you're defining things a bit too loosely, mostly because I feel as if you're basically saying that no amount of summary (even the example I offered earlier) is okay.
Maybe I am using it to mean many things, but I've found that even so, it has done me more good than harm in using it as such (basically, to make my writing more balanced in nature I have to be overzealous about certain things. It sounds like a crazy process, but it works for me in the end.) I actually do use summary and don't hate it at all, I just feel that certain scenes should be very in the moment, and that is the feeling I am trying to capture right now...
'm not sure if you realize that, but this sounds a bit condescending. It's mostly the :P face and the sigh, as if you asked me for your help and, right after I gave it to you, just blew me off. =|
It was condescending, I'm sorry. I get that way when I'm frustrated, more with myself than anything, it's nothing against you :) (Just a note: The button you put in your first reply doesn't work for me so I was never able to read it, I'm sorry). If anything I am more beating myself up right now for letting something like this get in the way of the story..
I was only saying that it is not a matter of plot because the plot is already set and I know what the series of scenes is suppose to do for the story. My troubles don't come from that, but rather the actual telling, wording actually, at each scenes beginning and ending, that is blocking me a bit...I know how the character will take it, what she sees as important, everything , but the wording still doesn't click in a neat series of scene stepping stones...
Anyway, it is actually a series of training scenes if you want details. Nothing that takes months to master is going to take only a day, not only because that would make things boring, but because in the long run, my story is about growth itself, and the very fact that it doesn't come easy :).
Or even simpler put, before we can help you, please rephrase your question and give us a bit more detail as to what it is you're looking for. Right now, not only are your questions rather confusing, but I'm personally missing a few details here.
In other words, it's hard to help you because it's hard to know what you're really going for here, mostly because a lot of your question depends on who's telling it.
Golly, only two people really have ever read my story on these forums to date after all haven't they? (not meant as condescending at all, just more of a fact) I guess it doesn't really matter but I was hoping I had one or two more readers that just never reviewed...The character is very..easy to remember IMHO:)
Edit: I just got an idea that might work from the words 'stepping stones' :). I guess brainstorming does help, thank you :)!
Me, too, it's jolly cold in England today. And wet, incidently.
I am the worlds worst procrastinator, so I do feel for you with this problem. Something I find is very helpful when you have writers block on anything (I have it on an essay about a black lad who was stabbed, and I've got a week to finish it) is to revisit the canon. Read through the book, read through what you've written or what your plan is (if it's original) or the source material (if it's fact based). You never know, inspiration may strike ;)
Were we on some sort of topic in this Lounge? I hope not to interrupt something.
Pokemon canon has driven me insane again. See, I have a Farfetch'd character who doesn't come with a leek (didn't pay full price or something :s), and so I double-checked the Pokedex to see what happens to a Farfetch'd when it loses its leek.
Now, the Silver Pokedex entry says that a Farfetch'd will eat the leek as a last resort if it's starving, and then runs off to find another leek. D/P/Pt Pokedex says that a Farfetch'd will die if it loses its leek, which contrasts in a way from the Silver entry. (Loses its leek by eating it, doesn't die.) D/P/Pt entry goes on to say that it defends its leek with its life.
So, I guess what I'm asking is: Is it possible for a Farfetch'd to live without its leek?
If it makes much difference to the answer, fic's time period is anime!universe, two years after Ash's first adventure through Kanto, takes place in Kanto.
Were we on some sort of topic in this Lounge? I hope not to interrupt something.
Pokemon canon has driven me insane again. See, I have a Farfetch'd character who doesn't come with a leek (didn't pay full price or something :s), and so I double-checked the Pokedex to see what happens to a Farfetch'd when it loses its leek.
Now, the Silver Pokedex entry says that a Farfetch'd will eat the leek as a last resort if it's starving, and then runs off to find another leek. D/P/Pt Pokedex says that a Farfetch'd will die if it loses its leek, which contrasts in a way from the Silver entry. (Loses its leek by eating it, doesn't die.) D/P/Pt entry goes on to say that it defends its leek with its life.
So, I guess what I'm asking is: Is it possible for a Farfetch'd to live without its leek?
If it makes much difference to the answer, fic's time period is anime!universe, two years after Ash's first adventure through Kanto, takes place in Kanto.
I don't see why not. I don't think that a Farfetch'd has a second heart in that leak and physically needs it to survive. It seems more like a hypothetical security thing to me.
Were we on some sort of topic in this Lounge? I hope not to interrupt something.
Pokemon canon has driven me insane again. See, I have a Farfetch'd character who doesn't come with a leek (didn't pay full price or something :s), and so I double-checked the Pokedex to see what happens to a Farfetch'd when it loses its leek.
Now, the Silver Pokedex entry says that a Farfetch'd will eat the leek as a last resort if it's starving, and then runs off to find another leek. D/P/Pt Pokedex says that a Farfetch'd will die if it loses its leek, which contrasts in a way from the Silver entry. (Loses its leek by eating it, doesn't die.) D/P/Pt entry goes on to say that it defends its leek with its life.
So, I guess what I'm asking is: Is it possible for a Farfetch'd to live without its leek?
If it makes much difference to the answer, fic's time period is anime!universe, two years after Ash's first adventure through Kanto, takes place in Kanto.
I don't know about everyone else, but with these things, I tend to follow the part of canon that makes the most sense to the fanon I'm creating. So if you need for the Farfetch'd to live without his/her leek, then slightly twist the canon and say he/she ate it and is now looking for one.
To be frank, it's probably because the last time you updated the thread here was almost a year ago. (Ten days shy of it, in fact.) And before that, the last update was in 2007. It's not so much the characters who are hard to remember so much as the story in general because the updates come so infrequently that either what happens fades out of our minds thereafter, or we just get turned off and don't keep up with it because there's something else that's updated more frequently. I don't say this out of meanness at all. I'm just saying that the reason why your fic may not be making much of an impression (at least, for me -- and I will say I only read the first chapter) is because the pace of updates makes it difficult to keep track of. It's basically like trying to download a full episode of a television show on dial-up. You may want to keep at it to know what happens in the next five minutes, but eventually, the loading time makes you want to go and do something else.
It's not only the fact that your reader is impatient as well. It's also the fact that one year gives the forums time to turn over to a new crop of people. I can recall the last time you were around PC, and I think less than half the people active in this forum were there long enough to know who you are. The others (including one of the two people who reviewed you) are no longer active in this particular area or on PC at all. In other words, the reason why no one currently knows your story is because your story got buried in a year's time, and the most of the current audience around here don't know it exists.
As a note, yes, I realize that not everyone can update frequently. Real life can suck warm sick through a short straw, and I have no doubt real-life worries have probably gotten to you as well. But still, one year between every update can really turn off an audience.
Point is, I'd hate to say it, but if no one remembers what Joy is like exactly, I wouldn't be surprised. Of course, if we could remember, it's not always a good thing either. (For example, I hadn't read Ace Sanchez's "Pokemon MASTER" for years before Thesis started MSTing the crap out of it for me, and all I could remember was that Ash was angsty as crap. That, of course, was not a good thing.)
Were we on some sort of topic in this Lounge? I hope not to interrupt something.
Pokemon canon has driven me insane again. See, I have a Farfetch'd character who doesn't come with a leek (didn't pay full price or something :s), and so I double-checked the Pokedex to see what happens to a Farfetch'd when it loses its leek.
Now, the Silver Pokedex entry says that a Farfetch'd will eat the leek as a last resort if it's starving, and then runs off to find another leek. D/P/Pt Pokedex says that a Farfetch'd will die if it loses its leek, which contrasts in a way from the Silver entry. (Loses its leek by eating it, doesn't die.) D/P/Pt entry goes on to say that it defends its leek with its life.
So, I guess what I'm asking is: Is it possible for a Farfetch'd to live without its leek?
If it makes much difference to the answer, fic's time period is anime!universe, two years after Ash's first adventure through Kanto, takes place in Kanto.
Oh, Pokémon canon. You are delightfully inconsistent, even in the source material.
That said, hmm. Maybe it could be interpreted that if a farfetch'd without a leek begins to starve, then it's good as dead? As in, the leek serves as both a defense and a last resort to save the farfetch'd, so without it, the farfetch'd doesn't have its sword or anything to stave off starvation (if no duck food is available).
I had a long reply typed out but PC ate it. I'm sorry that some people feel that way. If the date on each chapter means so much that it stops new people from reading even after the fact maybe it is just as well they don't read it after all. I am still writing the story and will keep writing it, and if people can't be troubled to read it (or have only read part and then quit, stereotyping the character because that's all they remember (which I'm not said you ever did)) so be it. But I'm still putting 100% into my work and will contunue to do so, period :).
I only brought up the topic because you said everyone would want to know the character. Well, it is only a banner click away :). If that is such a hard thing for members to do (because I am a slow writer that likes to think things out just so) I am very sorry. But just becuase it is slowly updated is not the same as it not still being always there to be read (and commented on), or it being as old and dusty as Pokemon Master. I do still get reviews on other forums and sites to this day so PC is more the exception than the rule :)...
*The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later.* pops up for half an hour before she is able to post*
