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Frequency of switching storylines

 
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tijn
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: San Diego, CA

PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 1:35 pm    Post subject: Frequency of switching storylines Reply with quote

Dear writers, I hope you can shed some light on the following two 'problems'.

One: Often, a story has several characters following their own course and interacting from some point on. My question: are there guidelines as to how long the one or other storyline should be continued? How often must one switch to make sure that a reader will not lose interest.

Two: Another thing has to do with proverbs and sayings. Please note that I'm not a native speaker so I have limited access to US-centric usage of proverbs.
How much does one need to include sayings in a story to keep it linked to the reader's universe? Should one pursue this at all?
For example, I find that in the magnificent Wilderhom story the second book has a number of references to 'old earth sayings/stories' which are all centered on the US heritage.

Of course any story will have a writer's cultural background embedded in it! IMO this adds flavor to any story Smile
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Syrius
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For problem number one, I suggest you read your own work as far as you got. I like to think of it as a movie. Have those characters spent too much time on the "screen" already? Do you want to create a cliff hanger that the reader will want to go back to after being taken in a different direction? Do you think that as a writer, you could use a break from the current storyline?

Sorry to answer with more questions, but I believe that will point you in the right way.

About proverbs and sayings, making it centric to a certain area or Ethnicity is both a blessing and a curse. Writing Shadows in The Snow, I had a scene where two non-human characters engage in a conversation using regular, modern-day English. It just didn't feel right. I had to "zoom out" look at it from far away, and change the dialogue in such a way that still respected the rules of the English language, but didn't sound like something out of a sitcom or soap opera. But that's because it was two characters from a different culture and species. (Did you know that the word "Leisure" has fallen in great disuse around here in the USA?)

On the other hand, if you are using a society that mimics ours, using regular idioms may help the reader feel more familiar. Just try not to make the guys sound like surfer dudes or cowboys, and the women like beach girls or southern belles. Razz (It's all Disney Channel's fault.)

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tijn
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Location: San Diego, CA

PostPosted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Syrius wrote:
...Do you think that as a writer, you could use a break from the current storyline?

Thank you for your comments. They do help.

Syrius wrote:
(Did you know that the word "Leisure" has fallen in great disuse around here in the USA?)

No, that's typically one of the things I couldn't know at all. Day-to-day speech is not accessible to me. If it weren't for the Old Gray Raccoon to edit text for me (huge thanks!), it would probably not be readable. It would be English but you would be looking up words or phrasings often.

Syrius wrote:
On the other hand, if you are using a society that mimics ours, using regular idioms may help the reader feel more familiar. Just try not to make the guys sound like surfer dudes or cowboys, and the women like beach girls or southern belles. Razz (It's all Disney Channel's fault.)

That is, interestingly, both impossible and unavoidable and for me the most difficult.
Impossible because I am not very much aware of which phrasings are perceived cowboy/beachgirl/southern and at the same time unavoidable because any reference I do have will be from 'hollywood'.
Disney's probably not even the one to blame from my perspective. Their works are typically dubbed Dutch (#Silly) and even listening to the 'original version' I would miss out on manners of speech that are obvious references for you.
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Syrius
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 5:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, it also depends on the character you are writing about.

Think Final Fantasy X, for example, if you played that game.

Wakka could sound like a surfer dude (He sounds more like a polynesian diver, to me.), because it fits the character.

Yuna had to sound polite and proper. She is expected to have studied and trained a lot, and summoners are held in high regard all over Spira.

Auron said too litle, but he spoke with experience and resentment.

Wakka coming off as a trivia buff or soft-spoken like Yuna wouldn't have worked. Lulu also had to be dark. She wouldn't have worked as an airhead. (Maybe that's why I wanted to strangle Rikku. Razz )

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tijn
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 2:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well don't strangle me please, I'm a bit out of my depth here with gaming.
I'm not a gamy (pun intended) type anymore. My games-days seem to have retired to the attic along with my Amiga.

However I get the point you make when you refer to background and vocabulary. I tried to capture the differences between English and US-English in a story and found that that is way out of my league. Of course, many an accent can't be capture in words and sounds regularly don't make it into writing very well. Just try and write the accent of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wouldn't know how to capture his typical bending of words. Nor that of that of Hugh Grant.
If I would write the capping off of words that is found in the lands west of Oxford in England it would mean nothing to you.
Plus, the way an accent is perceived will change over time. What is considered educated today may not be found so in fifty years.
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TwylaFox
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, just my few cents on the subject...

Per the Mad Hatter, "Start the beginning and, when you get to the end, stop." However, there are always variations to a story's structure, and it is sometimes advantageous to do otherwise. Common examples include frame stories (Titanic, for example), recap stories (MegaMind), and even reverse (can't think of an example off-hand).

Anything longer than a short story will have more than one "dramatic throughline" strong enough to to qualify as a plot in addition to subplots two is most common, though it takes a serious grasp on writing to handle three or more plots without things becoming disjointed.

The trick in balancing two plots is to gauge how long a reader will remember one while experiencing the other. Because of this, the "best" place to switch storylines is either just before or just after a significant event. Using a B-Western as an example:

"The school marm could barely refrain from dancing. The bake sale had been so successful that she could not only buy new textbooks for the children, but there was enough left over to have the schoolhouse whitewashed. As she entered the bank, to deposit the money, she heard the unmistakable click of a large revolver being cocked beside her head."

Now, the reader is REALLY motivated - a significant plot turn AND they're gonna want to find out what's going to happen to the school marm and the school funds. Doing this too often will numb the readers to it but, used sparingly, you gain a captive audience.

And it's not a bad thing to do a spot of reverse-engineering. Think of a book you've read that you simply could not put down... Strip away all the details to look at the underlying structure and it won't take long to figure out WHY you kept turning the pages. These techniques are as old as storytelling itself - since Ugg and Ogg sat around the fire telling the rest of the clan about the one that got away - and they have no objections to you using them yourself.


Proverbs, sayings, and other colloquialisms need to be story-world-specific. If you're writing a contemporary story, use whatever feels appropriate. You could use a main character who is a second-generation American. Sure, they're in downtown Chicago, but the sayings they use will be based on the ones their parent(s) used (which are familiar to you). Not a thing wrong with this at all.


Though some consider it "cheap", don't write the first chapter at all until after you've written the rest. Your first chapter has several jobs to do:
~ Tell the reader "This is the kind of story I'm telling."
~ Tell the reader "These are the rules we're playing by."
~ Get the ball rolling and hook your reader
Once you have the rest of the story done, you'll know almost exactly how to pull these off in spades.

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Rabbit
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 1:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My .02 is that whatever works, works. It's impossible to imagine Twain without a near-constant flow of vernacular, for example. And the rate of character-appearance is largely a matter of style. IMO, the only hard and fast rule is that the appearances shouldn't be so far apart that the reader forgets the character entirely in-between times.

Writing is a game where there are definite guidelines, but few hard-and-fast rules. One of my favorite examples of deliberate, glorious rulebreaking appears in Bradbury's masterpiece "Something Wicked This Way Comes". One of the chapters, in its entirety, reads "Nothing much else happened that night." (I think it's Chapter 13, but I'm not certain.) Anyway... It _worked_, then and there, magnificently. Only a genius like Bradbury could've seen the possibility, and then gotten away with such an egregious violation of the "rules".

If it entertains the readers, then it's okay. If not, you're making some kind of mistake. That's my personal guideline.
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tijn
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 08, 2010 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanx for the comments!

TwylaFox, your comment about making use of one's heritage for proverbs helps me a lot!
Rabbit, I can only agree on your statement: if the reader isn't entertained you're doing it wrong.

Perhaps writing is fun in that there aren't all that many rules, only judges, and 'we' writers have the perverse pleasure of postrating our works to them. (if you'll forgive me the drama Wink
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