now.... for the life of me, i can't figure out how to follow the actions of the character without constantly refering to it as "the figure", or "the shadowy figure".
any ideas?
quote:you already hit the nail on the head
who it is
just intersperse calling "it" shadowy figure and related stuff, and just simply, "it"
Movies do better at that kind of thing than books. There's no awkwardness of language to deal with when a movie does this.
It sounds like you intend to write the scene using cinematic POV -- not going inside the figure's head. (Even the name for this POV suggest that it's movie-like.)
Unless you're working on a screenplay, I suggest you at least consider not doing it that way. Take advantage of what written fiction can do with POV better than a movie. For example, tell it from the POV of a character in the town who sees the figure arrive. That makes it much more personal, because you can give us the emotions of the character while watching the mysterious figure fight people (perhaps satisfaction that a bully is beaten that turns to horror when the town's on fire.)
You don't have to do it that way, of course. I'm just suggesting that you consider alternatives.
A book inspires imagination. It coaxes you into sharing a moment of your life with the words on the page. It tantilizes through senses that are evoked rather than real. And the one thing it does much better than a movie: It crawls into people's heads and helps the reader find true emotions there.
I've seen cinematic stories -- from amateurs. They tend, especially, to come from young amateurs who grew up watching TV. z(I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be young or to have watched TV...it may just be a strong influence.) It never works for me. Here's the bottom line: If you are trying to write in a cinematic point of view what you have writen will only pale in comparison to the big screen, or even the smlal one. Words and descriptions can't compete with being there and seeig firsthand. That is part of why TV and movies are so popular.
So I strongly advise against the cinematic approach.
If you do cinematic, and it centers on the shadowy figure, and I don't know who he is till the end, I personally would not like this.
That said, realizing a dream is not impossible. Identify your POV character, the one who will be shocked to discover the identity of the hooded character. In the dream, it was you, or the dream you, I suppose. Find a way to let that POV character observe the action as you observed it in the dream. Perhaps the POV character is a secret agent/ninja trying to follow the hooded perpetrator back to some larger organization. Perhaps the POV character is running a high tech flying surveillance camera from a remote location. Whatever, figure out a way to have a POV character that will take your place in the dream. Then tell the story you saw in your dream.
Then at the end you have the reveal "And Bob was exposed as...Mr. Withers!" or what not.
As far as the clicheness of the scene... no comment.
Methinks it's a case of hindsight bias.
For example: in movies you don't have to call the figure something every time it does something (at least in the finished medium). But with books, the audience can't hear the figure talk and therefore can't recognize it at all.
So Strider was actually the rightful king of Gondor, Aragorn son of Arathorn. Do that.
quote:
I'm not clear on how to sex a metroid, or whether they even have sex at all.
Oh, they do Survivor, trust me. You haven't lived unless you've sexed a metroid. There was this one time on the beach in Venice...
sigh....
Survivor, Christine, and EJS hit the nail on the head. You can't "lie" to the reader like that. It's almost like turning on the light in the bathroom, looking at the mirror and expressing shock at what you see. "My God! It's ME!" Doesn't work.
I agree with the concept of having a different viewpoint character and see it through their eyes, just replace you with them and you're set. Now you're not hiding anything from the audience that isn't ALSO hidden from the POV character.
my 2 pennies....
Here's an option on the POV of the character watching the shadowy figure of Mr. Whithers. Make it a child, around ten. That would give the scene more of an ominous hint, as you see the actions of the character through the child's eyes. It also sets a disparity between the childish innocence of the POV's thoughts and the chilling darkness of the events.
Third person point of view is broad. It ranges from omniscient, with the all-seeing all-knowing narrator, to limited, with us only seeing and hearing through one character's eyes. When it is limited the viewpoint can penetrate deeply or shollowly.
Think about how you are telling the story. If you are using a deep penetration limited third person point of view then it is absolutely true that the POV character cannot know more than the reader. It's the style you chose. Either we're deep in his head or we're not. If we *think* we're deep in his head and find out that we were never allowed to see the most crutical bit of knowledge in there then we've been lied to, deceived, and believe me I feel cheated when that happens.
On the other hand, if you are using a shallow penetration (and this is difficult to do with current expectations and trends. You have to somehow show us that you're not telling us everything that character knows), then you can leave out some bits. Of course, if the bits you leave out are of supreme importance to the POV character I will still be left feeling a little cheated. Some things are just important, something come up, some things you have to say.
In fact, the best way to withold information from the reader if you want to still have us reside inside a character's head at all is to use omniscient viewpoint. Then you put us inside all the character's heads but we won't assume that we know all or any of what they know.
I am a big fan of Tom Clancy's books, but the last book I read by him was a big disappointment, mainly because it relied almost completely on "cheap" suspense.
***** SPOILER WARNING FOR "RED RABBIT" *****
The main plotline of the book is about the defection of a Soviet citizen with valuable information. The CIA agent comes up with a plan for extracting the spy, but the plan is completely hidden from the reader. For the remainder of the book, we watch the plan unfold and come off without a hitch. The characters are never really concerned about what is happening, because they know everything is going according to the plan. The only suspense is that the reader doesn't know what happens next in the plan.
The book would have been much more exciting if the reader had been told what the original plan was -- and then things started to go wrong. That would have required changes to the plot, of course, but the book would have been better as a result.
***** END SPOILER WARNING *****
In almost any case, if you are deliberately hiding from the reader information known to the POV character, you can improve the story by revealing the information up front and then complicating things.
An exception: With mystery stories, it is a long-accepted tradition that once the detective knows whodunit, that information can be withheld from the reader during the setup to the big reveal (such as a meeting with all the suspects.)
[This message has been edited by EricJamesStone (edited January 05, 2005).]
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An exception: With mystery stories, it is a long-accepted tradition that once the detective knows whodunit, that information can be withheld from the reader during the setup to the big reveal (such as a meeting with all the suspects.)
While this is done in some detective stories, the better ones avoid it. Some techniques involve never really getting inside anyone's head, esp. the one figuring it out (i.e. Perry Mason), or the story is told completely from a POV outside the main detective (i.e. Sherlock Holmes -- told from Watson's POV).
Anyway, how about the Sixth Sense. One of the best suprise endings in the history of storytelling. It wasn't cheap, and it really had depth and meaning to the story. But Cole knew the secret the whole time. We penetrated very deeply into both characters, and when Cole revealed the things he knew, it was done with no feeling of cheese or corn (although "I see dead people" would be unfairly turned into a joke).
Movies are great for doing that kind of surprise ending exactly because we are not inside the characters heads. Movies and written fiction have different strengths. The ability to show us what people think and know is a strength of writing. Use that strength.
The Sixth Sense was a good movie. I am afraid to say that I seem to be one of approximately five people on the planet who had it figured out and in my case, right away. Still, it was a good movie once I figured out that the main character didn't know what I knew. I watched him figure it out. But there wasn't an ounce of deep penetration in that movie. By definition, there cannot be. As Eric said, in a book I would have stuck entirely to Bruce Willis' character.
By the way, the reason I bring up knowing the end to the Sixth Snese is this: It did not cheat. For those who had an eye or the mind to notice, the answer was right there in front of your face to see it. I was impressed with the way it did not cheat, actually. Cheating, by the way, is deliberately hiding information for no better purpose than to try to maintain suspense. This technique fails hard. In fact, it creates annoyance rather than suspense.
NUMBER ON MISTAKE OF NEW AUTHORS: Keeping secrets from the reader. Not every story is a mystery. Most are not. A few are, but those need to be done well and you need to set up a circumstance such that it is not cheating to keep the mystery from the reader. Often, the POV character doesn't know the answer him/herself and so you solve the mystery together. But simply witholding information to attempt to create suspense through mystery is a false pretense. That crutial pice of information is usually the thing that would make me stop nodding off or asking "So what?" in annoyance.
There are many ways to structure a story. Mystery is one of them. But according to OSC's MICE formular there are three others:
millieu: Explores a new locale.
idea: your mystery
character: goes through a character's need for change and eventual resolution...often romance qualifies here. Will the character change? do what's right? Break away? Find love? These are the questions that keeps a reacher reading.
event: something is wrong with the world and needs to be right. Typical epic fantasy. Usually what we wonder about here is how will the hero do it and will he succeed? No hidden information, just nail-biting suspense if done well.
[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited January 06, 2005).]
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Why do you say that Cole knew about Bruce's character being what he was, Arch? I didn't get that impression, because there was no fear in his reaction to him, as there was when he dealt with the others.
Personal opinion, of course, but logically based.
He knew since the first time he saw him. That's why he ran away into the church. It's also why he looked so afraid of him when he was sitting on the couch in his house. It was the first time he had actually tried to communicate with a ghost, and that's why you always see fear in Cole until he gets to know him.
He even told him the right things that would let him realize what he really was. Telling him to talk to his wife when she was asleep was the last thing he had to say to him to make him realize the truth and pass on. That's one of the great things about that movie. It's the stuff you slowly realize after watching it a few times...
But saying that you can't do something like that in a book is riddiculous. You don't have to reveal every thought in the character's head. There are plenty of people who keep secrets from the reader, and they pull it off very well. As I stated before, Asimov does exactly what you are saying not to, and he does it in one of his most well known books after I, Robot.
The fact is that you should almost never try to put any sort of rules into your writing, unless they are rules you set for yourself.
The same can't really be said for film. For example you shouldn't show a child being sad. You can show them being afraid, but sad is something that no audience can really tolerate.
But saying that a POV character can't know more than the reader is just silly.
By the way, how do you guys do the quotes like that?
"I wanna be in a clique, Mommy!" - Little girl in Jawbreakers
[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited January 06, 2005).]
quote:
Oh
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But saying that you can't do something like that in a book is riddiculous. You don't have to reveal every thought in the character's head. There are plenty of people who keep secrets from the reader, and they pull it off very well. As I stated before, Asimov does exactly what you are saying not to, and he does it in one of his most well known books after I, Robot.
Of course an author can tell an effective story while breaking just about any "rule." However, what some of us are trying to explain is that in general, your story will be more effective if you don't intentionally conceal vital information that is known by the POV character. Doing so distances the reader from the POV character, merely for the sake of creating a cheap form of suspense. A more meaningful form of suspense is one in which the reader shares the character's suspense. If your story relies on cheap suspense, I'd say there about a 90% chance you can make it better if you rework it so you doesn't.
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The fact is that you should almost never try to put any sort of rules into your writing, unless they are rules you set for yourself.
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The same can't really be said for film. For example you shouldn't show a child being sad. You can show them being afraid, but sad is something that no audience can really tolerate.
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The fact is that you should almost never try to put any sort of rules into your writing, unless they are rules you set for yourself.
What? I could have sworn we've had many discussions on the so-called "rules" of writing. The concensus is that they are there for a reason -- because in general, they create emotional and dramatic impact that a reader can relate to. No one doubts that rules can be broken, but yo7u must *know* these rules and understand them. The reason being that a rule you understand you may then break, knowing full well what the results and consequences will be for your story. Educated and timely breaking of rules can work very well, but rampant throwing the rules out the window because they're not convenient never works unless you get lucky.
But mostly, I completely disagree with the above quote. You should never try to put any sort of rules into your writing? So we should ignore the trial and error of centuries because we're young and rash and know so must more than our elders? We should set rules for ourselves? How? With what foresight and knowledge and based on what? True wisdom comes from learning from other people's mistakes, not your own.
When you break the "rules," it's got to be important to the story and not simply because you can.
[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited January 06, 2005).]
The basic rule of any art, and most especially of art in a highly competitive market like writing, is that something must have staying power to have real value. It must satisfy the same audience again and again.
Also, while not necessarily in the mainstream (whatever that happens to be for spec-fic 
), Dr. Who has quite a cult following. I think I even noticed some Dr. Who novels at a bookstore about five years ago.
I am talking about the new Dr. Who series that should be starting up anytime now.
Here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/drwho/2003/09/26/7012.shtml
http://www.gallifreyone.com/newstv.php
Google is your friend.
Christopher Eccleston will be playing the new doctor. You will recognize him when you see him, he ahs done alot of character acting.
I am excited since one of the developers on the show is the same guy that was behind "Touching Evil" which ran on USA and was deliciously dark.
[This message has been edited by HuntGod (edited January 07, 2005).]
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What about Dr. Who?
I've noticed that just died right out in this generation.
Dr Who originally died because of a series of decisions made by the director of BBC programming, Michael Grade, who professed a profound dislike for the show. This included running it in a time slot against what was at the time the UK's most popular TV show, Coronation Street. By the time he left in '88, it was too late for it to recover.
He was recently appointed as the BBC's chairman. I wondered when I heard of his appointment on the same day I heard of the new Dr Who production if he's going to cause any more problems for it...
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I think I even noticed some Dr. Who novels at a bookstore about five years ago.
I believe there are somewhere in the region of two or three hundred Dr Who novels, many of which are still in print. Just do a search on amazon and you'll see hundreds of them.