Moving characters around

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casnow
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Moving characters around

Post by casnow » January 19th, 2010, 11:09 am

How do you move your characters from scene to scene - I've noticed that I have the bad habit of doing step by step. My character wakes up, showers, talks on the phone, bikes to work, DOES SOMETHING IMPORTANT, comes home, has Revelation about what he did... then he wants to fix it, so he makes calls, bikes to work, finds coworker, DOES SOMETHING ELSE, comes home, etc...

So, I feel like I'm describing a day instead of telling a story. Does anyone else feel this way about their writing? Anyone got tips for fixing it?

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Bryan Russell/Ink
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Re: Moving characters around

Post by Bryan Russell/Ink » January 19th, 2010, 1:16 pm

Jump cuts. People are very used to movies and television now, and so are easily conditioned to accept jump cuts. Frame the scene. What's the conflict and action? Show that. Skip most of the rest. Show a conflict at home. End. Show next scene at work that reveals ramifications of the conflict at home. End. Begin new scene... etc., etc.

Trim out the fat. Keep transitions fast. Show what's important. The readers are smart. Trust them. They'll follow.

Best of luck,

Bryan
The Alchemy of Writing at www.alchemyofwriting.blogspot.com

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Seamus
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Re: Moving characters around

Post by Seamus » January 19th, 2010, 1:19 pm

Sometimes the sequential description of a chain of events creates an effect all its own that you don't need to fix it. My favorite device is flashbacks either through internal dialogue (character with himself) or in external dialogue. So, you just jump a couple of steps ahead (meaning anything from a couple of hours to a couple of decades) and start the action at that spot, all the while figuring out ways for what happened in-between to come out in the conversation. Another is just to jump back and forth between periods with decent transition statements, but I'm not as skilled as that.
J. Seamus Welsh
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a_r_williams
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Re: Moving characters around

Post by a_r_williams » January 19th, 2010, 1:40 pm

You can use page breaks or chapter breaks to speed forward in time the way Ink mentioned. Just have the character in a spot where something important happens then jump forward to the next important scene.

And you can also use transitions to juggle time. {example}

The drive home was long and perilous. When John pulled into the driveway...

And as simple as that you've skipped all the non-important things that happened when he left work.

LydiaSharp
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Re: Moving characters around

Post by LydiaSharp » January 21st, 2010, 1:45 pm

casnow wrote:
So, I feel like I'm describing a day instead of telling a story.
That's exactly what you're doing. Listen to your gut. It's telling you something is off. And your gut is usually right.

The best way to figure out how to fix it is to read, read, read, and analyze how successful authors pull this off. Focus on how a new scene starts. You'll notice a trend. It usually begins at the point of change.

For example, the scene shouldn't start with your character waking up unless something important happens RIGHT THEN. The "important" something doesn't always have to be a physical event, though. It can be a realization, a memory, analyzing a dream, etc. But whatever it is, it has to be relevant and significant enough to highlight it at that specific point in time.

Trust the reader to fill in the gaps if there is truly nothing in those gaps but the familiar and mundane. Otherwise, you risk losing them to sheer boredom.

Hope this helps. :)
Last edited by LydiaSharp on January 22nd, 2010, 4:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Lydia Sharp
Science Fiction * Fantasy * Women's Fiction
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AceTachyon
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Re: Moving characters around

Post by AceTachyon » January 21st, 2010, 2:37 pm

Here's a tip from writing screenplays: start late, end early.

Meaning get to the essential action of the scene, then stop and move to the next scene.
--Ace
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Kaitlyne
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Re: Moving characters around

Post by Kaitlyne » January 22nd, 2010, 2:56 am

a_r_williams wrote:You can use page breaks or chapter breaks to speed forward in time the way Ink mentioned. Just have the character in a spot where something important happens then jump forward to the next important scene.

And you can also use transitions to juggle time. {example}

The drive home was long and perilous. When John pulled into the driveway...

And as simple as that you've skipped all the non-important things that happened when he left work.
I agree with this. An awful lot can be accomplished by, "The next day..."

My rule is typically if I can't find a reason for a scene it doesn't need to be there. Sometimes those normal, everyday scenes provide some kind of information about the character and are worth keeping, but most of the time it's just unnecessary filler. If you can look at the scene from an objective viewpoint and see that it doesn't contribute anything to the book, it should be removed.

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marilyn peake
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Re: Moving characters around

Post by marilyn peake » January 22nd, 2010, 5:10 pm

I agree with Ink. I think that chapters can serve the same purpose in novels that jump cuts do in movies. The stuff of everyday life – such as eating, showering, etc. – can be used effectively to describe a character or enrich a story, but it should add to the overall story, not simply fill pages with detail. I wondered about the same thing a while back, so I read novels in different genres to specifically look at how different authors handled the details of everyday life.
Marilyn Peake

Novels: THE FISHERMAN’S SON TRILOGY and GODS IN THE MACHINE. Numerous short stories. Contributor to BOOK: THE SEQUEL. Editor of several additional books. Awards include Silver Award, 2007 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards.

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