Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Advice for a sticky situation

This is topic Advice for a sticky situation in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

Okay, this is a question about format. All opinions on this would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the situation. I have one character who is beginning to lose her mind. There is another character who she is close to. The first character, as a result of her budding insanity, has lapses where she grows confused about her identity, and thinks she is the other character, and the other character is her. Make sense? I didn't think so, so I'll just throw an example up, and you can tell me how you think it should be done format-wise.

The set-up: Janet (the one losing her mind) is driving with her clone (the other character) in the passenger seat.

***

As they pulled out of the garage onto the street, the clone fell silent. It looked out the window at the world they were driving through, it’s eyes wide.

“Geez, everything is big,” it said.

Janet felt herself grow scared. Everything around her was so huge and open, no walls anywhere. She could see all the way to the horizon in some directions. It felt like she might fall off the edge of the world at any moment. And the sky went on forever and never stopped. She looked over at Janet in the passenger’s seat. That was crazy. How could she be expected to drive already? She hit the brakes.

“Maybe you should drive,” she said.

“What?” the clone said. “I don’t know how to drive a car.”

Janet shook her head. What had that been? She was Janet, not the clone. She was the one who knew how to drive. She was the one who was used to being outside. She was Janet. The body in the passenger seat was the clone.

***

So the starting with the words, "Janet felt herself grow scared" until the words "Maybe you should drive", Janet is in this confused state where she thinks she is the clone and the clone is the real Janet. How would you handle this to make it clear. I was thinking of seperating the offending crazy paragraph from the rest of the text with line-spaces before and after, and setting it off in italics. Would that make it clear to you what was happening here? Any other suggestions?

As always, if anyone has anything to say about these paragraphs other than what I asked for, all comments are welcome.

Kathleen, I'm not sure how you count it, but that's 13 lines in my word processor.

Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :

Actually, it was surprisingly clear what was happening, I don't know how much of that was because of your intro. I think italics are probably your best bet, but I don't think they are necessary. In fact, letting the reader have a little bit of disorientation with Janet seems like a good thing, though I might be alone in thinking that. In the paragraphs before this, do you make it clear that Janet is the one in the driver's seat? That's the only thing that I would want to know for certain.

Posted by Magic Beans (Member # 2183) on :

I agree with MaryRobinette: I found it quite easy to follow (but you also set it up for us). I think that if carefully written, no special formatting would be necessary. It may even be more confusing, due to convention. When people see italics, they usually assume they're reading someone's thoughts or quoted written material that appears in the story, like a letter. When people talk to themselves, it often alternates between regular and italics, but that might delineate everything too much in this case. The tiniest bit of confusion (quickly resolved) for the reader may not be a bad thing at all, here. Just remember to let the reader know what's going on, that the narrator communicates the action to the reader with a greater understanding than that which the characters possess--but not too much of that, either, or you're over-explaining.

Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :

I agree, too. This way the reader is closer to the hallucinatory experience of the protagonist - differentiating the text through different formatting would feel awkward to me.

Also, if you're going to do this repeatedly in the piece, the reader will definitely catch on, so don't worry. I'd keep the first few small and set them up carefully, like you've done here.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Yup. Looked good to me, too. Sure you aren't the one getting confused?

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

Mary, I do indeed set it up clearly that Janet is the one driving before the hallucination starts.

Maybe I'm just not giving readers enough credit to be able to figure out what's happening. There goes my arrogance getting in the way again.

I hadn't even considered that confusing the reader a bit might be a good idea here. I like that idea. Definitely some food for thought.

Thanks all.

Anyone else with feedback, by all means, feel free.

Posted by Magic Beans (Member # 2183) on :

Always give the reader the benefit of the doubt and never dumb down your work, but give yourself credit, too. After all, it was written well.

Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :

How far into the story is this scene?

Like the others, I wasn't particularly confused, but you did set things up in your intro. If you use a simillar set-up in the story (i.e. you make it clear that Janet has started losing her mind), then there shouldn't be a problem.

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

This scene is well towards the end of the story--starting to wind up towards the end, actually. Janet has been having some minor mental problems up to this point.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

It's like changing lanes, you signal for three seconds, then go

quote:
She looked over at Janet in the passenger’s seat. That was crazy. How could Janet expect her to drive already?

Other than that, I think that the scene probably works the way it is written, given everyone's comments. Still, you want to be careful. When you are trying to achieve a special effect like this, don't tell use ahead of time what we are supposed to be seeing. By all means, tell us that this is near the end of the story, and that the POV character has displayed mental lapses previously, and that "the clone" refers to a person physically identical to Janet (maybe you could give her a name, too). But don't tell us that you're depicting a mental lapse where Janet confuses herself with her clone. By doing that, you positively insure that we read the passage already knowing what we're supposed to learn from that passage. In that situation, it is very easy to see the information.

For instance, in the following sentance I've encoded a word. "Thus whom I tail, Terri Eve rescues." Now, it is very easy to decode if you know what word I've encoded. If I say that the word is "twitter", then you see it right away. But what if I said the word were "smilies" or "tight"? See, which word you see depends greatly on which word I tell you to find. You can even find a word that I simply didn't encode, if you're looking for that word.

Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :

quote:
This scene is well towards the end of the story--starting to wind up towards the end, actually. Janet has been having some minor mental problems up to this point.

Since you have already set things up, I don't think you need to do any special formatting. Also, if this scene is close to the resolution of the story, I would assume that everything will be explained shortly.

If it isn't too long (or if you can wait a few days for feedback), send it my way when you're ready for readers.

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

Well, Robyn_Hood, it is actually rather long (pushing 15,000 words). And right now it's a VERY rough draft. It's going to take a LOT of cleaning up before I let it see the light of day. When I'm ready to let other eyes look at it, though, I'll remember your offer and hit you up to see if you're still willing.

Good call, Survivor. Everybody who read this frag and gave feedback on it, forget the setup I gave you and edit your feedback accordingly.

[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited October 19, 2004).]

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

You still willing Robyn_Hood?

Anyone else?

Posted by Keeley (Member # 2088) on :

I'll take a look.

Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :

I'm a little back-logged, but if you can wait a few days, send it over.