Comments on: Powerful Emotional Experiences in Fiction

By: Christophe Desmecht

Christophe Desmecht — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 07:10:13 +0000

Welcome back Randy, hope you enjoyed the time off

Somehow I always had it in my head that too much POV switching throughout your novel is bad. But I’ve been checking into my favorite novels and I came to the startling conclusion that even my favorite authors show more than 3 or 4 POV’s. For some reason, I was convinced that the best way to go was to stay in 1 POV, with the occasional slip into another to break the flow.

Is there a rule to this? Besides the fact that you don’t switch POV within a scene?

By: Karri

Karri — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:03:44 +0000

I’ve seen many a novel with 4 or 5 POV’s. The trick is to stay in your main 1 or 2 people’s heads for the longest percentage of the time. (I think so, anyway.) Then you see things from others’ perspectives but still engage with the main character the most.

By: Livinus Nosike

Livinus Nosike — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:51:00 +0000

On the rule issue, I think it is important to know your genre and what in your novel will catch and keep the reader’s interest. There are three conditions under which your reader will keep turning the page: the story, the suspense, or both.

In Literary novels, people read stories that may reveal some cultures, etc, and the emotional experience is created by the unveiling realities and not necessary sudden flow of adrenaline. In Adventure, you may not need to always show your reader the goal ahead of time (your reader’s guess is not limited). It is the surprises that keep the reader going. But showing the goal occasionally will make the surprises more surprising (disaster).

If what you are writing is a thriller, try to stick closely to the rules. To me, the main advantage of the Scene/Sequence rules is that they allow you space for the story and the suspense in such a way that there is no room for boredom. Move your story forward during the sequel and suspend your ready in midair in the scenes!

People read Literary novels for a year and don’t mind, but no want will want to be t(h)rilled that long!

By: Pam Halter

Pam Halter — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:06:38 +0000

I think the lesson here is that we need to keep our readers caring about our characters. If the reader cares, he/she will keep reading.

And that includes editors.

By: Camille

Camille — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:15:34 +0000

Looking for PEE (eeew, but it’s still faster to abbreviate) in my scenes helps me see the need to intensify some of the situations. I’m doing lots of revising now, but it’s fun. Not as much fun as “Putting precious pearls of perfect prose on paper”, Randy’s alliterative reminder that we ARE allowed some creativity in storytelling. I’m just glad you stopped me before I created 300+ pages of “pearls” before I looked at the structure.

I have a scene that I’m wondering if it works: Some of the G/C/D elements are shown in recollections of the POV char instead of in a forward flow of time.

The scene starts with POV char looking forward to a trip (goal), relieved that things have finally worked out. A brief mental recollection about a friend shows us his reason for wanting to make the trip, giving us sympathy for him (?) The Conflict and Disaster that may have prevented the trip are shown next in his recollections, along with how it was resolved. This portion of scene ends with his current, doubtful but humorous view of the solution.

Not an action packed scene, but one that gives a little more emotional connection with the character. And you don’t really see a sequel, although it’s all implied that there was a dilemma and decision. I wonder if it works to recap a scene & sequel like this?

By: Diane

Diane — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:51:00 +0000

In further speculation of the scene in which I feared the disaster was for the wrong character, I realized that I may actually have a full scene, plus abbreviated sequel in one POV scene. The POV character is not faced with a huge disaster, but a slight bump on the road to the goal that is immediately reacted to and a decision is made in relation to it. The greater disaster, which is impending for the antagonist is actually a major plot of the book, so while it is a main part of the scene it isn’t actually the scene’s disaster. I’m beginning to realize that these aspects of scene/sequel can actually be quite subtle. So is it OK to have all those elements in one scene rather than breaking them up?

By: Diane

Diane — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 02:01:49 +0000

Also, am I the only one that finds it difficult to discuss this scene/sequel business when the terminology gets mixed up when referring to a scene, meaning the on page (as opposed to “onstage”) portion of the POV narrative, versus the scene, as in the GCD storytelling aspect of the narrative? Maybe I should just say GCD/RDD instead of scene/sequel, then I can talk about scenes in their more generalized “POV parts of a chapter” meaning.

By: Vennessa

Vennessa — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:13:30 +0000

Diane Says: Maybe I should just say GCD/RDD instead of scene/sequel

In his fiction series, Randy capitalizes the words to avoid confusion. For example: A scene should be either a Scene, with a goal, conflict, and disaster, or a Sequel, with a reaction, dilemma, and decision.