Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Story segment size

This is topic Story segment size in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Tangent (Member # 1191) on :

I'm working on finally writing my first for-publication novel and have been struggling through the prologue in an attempt to set up things that are to come. The problem has to do with point of view, and how long the story segments will be.

As an example, I'll bring up a published work from a fairly popular writer, "Arrows of the Queen" by Mercedes Lackey. It was (I believe) her first published novel and it's not bad (in a hot fudge sundae-style of writing - delicious but not entirely satisfying). But AotQ suffered one significant flaw in my eyes.

It made frequent shifts of the PoV, sometimes for as little time as for a mere paragraph.

Sometimes, if the story calls for it, you need to have frequent PoV shifts. It worked well for a short story I wrote, "Deus Ex Liber", in which I was shifting between several characters PoV including that of the narrator/writer. However, I consider it a flaw in more serious works.

I'm curious if other people consider frequent PoV shifts as not very professional. Again, mentioning Mercedes Lackey, her later works stopped the frequent PoV shifts; the Mage Wind trilogy in fact shifted PoV primarily with each new chapter.

If you do use PoV shifts, how long should each segment be? Is it suitable to write one or two (or more) pages on that character's perspective before shifting to another? How short can a segment be before a PoV shift seems unnecessary?

Robert A. Howard

Posted by Phanto (Member # 1619) on :

I feel weird typing this as I am a serious offendet, but I will anyway.

For a PoV shift, there has to be a justification in terms of story gain. I would not mind changing PoV if (sorry can't do italics, imagine them around the if) it is infrequent, and does not jar the reader too much.

If a certain passage annoys you, I would let good readers examine it and report any problems to me. If they don't notice it, then most likely it is subtle enough.

Posted by kwsni (Member # 970) on :

I struggle with this myself. I want to constantly be in and out of everyone's heads, and with most of my stories, that's just not worthwhile. I change POV when it adds to the story to do so. Sometimes I have to write a scene a few times from different points of view, and pick the most powerful one.

I don't let my point of view shifts be shorter than a page, they usually end up being longer.

Ni!

Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

The way I see it, no one person can be the only influence of any situation, nor is he/she the only one influenced. As such, I like to write from the PoV from all or most main characters. I don't shift every paragraph, or even every chapter, but I think it gets boring if you stay with only one character throughout the whole story. I like my reader to see, and I like to see the cause and effects of what happens.

Just my two,

Chris.

[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited March 31, 2003).]

Posted by Tangent (Member # 1191) on :

Actually, the segments in question are primarily for the Prologue. It starts with the narrative introduction (four paragraphs of introductory material, similar in style to the Star Wars opening credits that scroll across the screen - basically the essential material that explains enough so that people aren't wondering "what is going on?" while not being overly-long or boring) and then goes to introduce two of the main characters with the next two segments.

The fourth segment uses a minor character who actually won't be directly heard from again after the prologue, setting up some foreshadowing and also creating some more background for the main characters.

Segments Five to Seven cycle through the characters again, but moved weeks ahead in time. You could explain it as... rushing through several weeks of school because nothing truly important happens during that time, with the exception of little snippets that can be visited with flashbacks.

Basically, Segment four is one of those "justified for story gain" PoV changes. I'm unsure if segments three and two count as such, but seeing that they involve two characters that will be fairly central to the story, I figure they're probably fairly important.

Not sure if this helps at all. <grin> I can always e-mail you copies if you so desire, but it is just a rough draft currently, and needs a little polishing. (Due to the fact I wish to publish this, I am not going to post it on the web. I did put one or two segments on another web-page for peer review and suggestions, but that was primarily to decide if I wanted to start with the narrative exposition or with the more action-oriented beginning. The narrative exposition won out.)

Robert A. Howard

Posted by Rahl22 (Member # 1411) on :

It's just a different style of writing. Heinlen does it all the time. (eg. Stranger in a Strange Land)

Posted by Hildy9595 (Member # 1489) on :

I have to admit, I find it a little disconcerting when the POV shifts without warning from one paragraph to the next. However, a lot of "established" SF/F writers seem to use this style, including one of my favorites, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. So I suppose it is perfectly valid to use, just a matter of taste whether the reader likes it or not.

Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :

I must say rapidly shifting POV annoys the heck out of me. I believe it does seem unprofessional, at least most of the time. I feel it forces the reader to work harder while allowing the writer to be lazy.

But Tom Clancy shifts POV whenever he feels like it, sometimes three or four times in one paragraph, and he's one of the best paid writers in human history. So much for my concept of professionalism.

Posted by srhowen (Member # 462) on :

POV shifts or omni POV? There is a difference. In Omni you do see into each character's head and if it is done well it works. POV shifts annoy because the writer makes it seem the story is third limited and then all at once you are bounced out of that character's head just so the writer can show everyone's thoughts.

It is often the mistake of the beginning writer to do this ---they are bursting with the thoughts of all those characters and have to show them.

Stories are almost always better when using one person's POV. (yes you can site all sorts of great writers that do this and that--but I doubt they started out that way)

Shawn

Posted by Penboy_np (Member # 1615) on :

Just as a personal thing, I prefer to use italics to give a character's internal monologue although I avoid doing it with anyone but the 'main character at the time' and, unfortunately, leaves me with a problem of having to shift character's in chapters and important breaks. As a personal preference, when making a major point of view shift, I try to denote it with line break or a '***' or something like that. I find that that way, it's distinctly a separate part from the previous bit and it lets the reader... takea bit of a mental leap to the next section and leave the last one behind.

A couple of thoughts, if it fits the style, would you be able to write a character telling the background information as a prologue? What comes to mind is the archetypal mintrel or something like that.

If it's possible, why not write the whole prologue in entirely 3rd person? If it's completely separate from the story (or can be made as a short, before the storm type snippet of information) then maybe you could try just separating it entirely from the story and have it there solely for the readers benefit.

Also, in this case I think length would have a big impact. How long are the segments?

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

My personal preferance is for single POV stories. After all, when has anyone here actually experienced an event from more than one point of view? I'm sure that we all try to consider how others see things...until we become convinced that we objectively know how others think, at which point we are clearly no longer trying to see their points of view. The fact is that we experience all the stories we encounter in real life from a single point of view (this is true even for you married people--forget this and you won't be married for long

Two things are needed to justify a POV shift. First, there has to be a narrative reason for the different POV to be included in the story as a whole. Second, the POV depicted in the passage must be distinct and identifiable. For that reason, you usually shouldn't have a whole bunch of different POVs flying about, and POV passages should always be long enough for the individual point of view to be clear.

Tom Clancy has been mentioned, as has Omniscient POV. I'm not aware of any work by Tom Clancy that isn't in Omniscient POV, which he does very well. He often describes events that are not observed by any character in the story, and may not even be possible for human characters to observe, had any been present. I do not recommend Omniscient to any writer that doesn't have extensive technical acumen as well as access to experts on all the subjects the story addresses.

A prologue (like an epilogue) is free from the necessity of conforming to the narrative structure imposed on the rest of the work. For instance, you could have a prologue that is written in Omniscient or the POV of a character that doesn't appear in the story itself, or even written in a different person. It might not even take a narrative form at all, using a "quotation" from a work of "history" describing the world in which your story takes place is popular, and even an essay describing the key elements at the beginning of the story is acceptable.

Go ahead and send me what you have and I'll give you my opinion of it if you like.

Posted by JK (Member # 654) on :

Too much shifting POV annoys me too. I wouldn't have called it unprofessional before (just irritating *grin*), but I can see how a case can be made. It's my opinion that a shift should only be made if it's necessary (i.e. the writer doesn't want to show this cool or interesting thought of Bill's; if he's only one decent thought, who cares?).

As for a Star Wars-esque prologue, well, Star Wars films never seemed to need them. Most of the information in them is repeated shortly afterwards anyway, or can be deduced by the audience.

Posted by Tangent (Member # 1191) on :

To be honest, I've not yet thought out what form the POV will be. It seems to be flitting between Third Person Omniscient and Third Person Limited Omniscient, in that while I might include certain details that may not be readily accessible to the people in the story, I also focus in the head of various people.

I actually have done this in the past with other stories, but shifted POV more rapidly. I rarely shift POV into the same scene however; on the rare time that I do this (when two characters are together and we see things through each of their eyes) I split it into specific sections with a nice dividing line of asterisks to let it be known that this is a new section.

I have, in fact, written segments and then gone over the segment from a different character's POV (in my e-story, The Trip). But I also don't consider those serious stories as those were not-for-publication (they were fanstories written using characters from one of the better web-comics out there).

I suppose I should find some of Heinlen's works in my personal library and check through them (there goes another couple days of writing... <wry grin> seems as soon as I pick up a book, no matter how often I've read it, I have to read it again. <laughter> ) to see how he does PoV shifts.

Oh, as for Mercedes Lackey... her early works seemed to suffer a problem with PoV shifts happening in the same segment, but the longer she'd been writing, the less this happened.

As for the size of the segments... the introductory exposition is 208 words, segment 2 is 1,642 words, and the other segments average around 1,300 words. This is around 1.5 to 2 pages, single-spaced. One thing I am likely to be doing in the story is adding snippets of one of the character's journal, which is actually something of an outline (I wrote the entire story in log-format loooong ago, but figure that log-format stories aren't exactly saleable - at least, not the way I wrote it, there was minimal dialog and little action, or at least in my eyes).

I even had contemplated including the Journal in its entirety as part of the novel, but that would increase its size too much and also get repetitive in my eyes - it basically summarized some of what was going on - at least on the larger scale. Heck, it was almost novel-length. <wry grin>

Robert A. Howard

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

If you already have the journal written, I would suggest using it as source material for chapter headings. You know, like the way that OSC used emails in his Shadow books. You could also use that kind of material in the prologue and epilogue. I'm not sure that I would suggest including the journal entries in the main body of the narrative, unless the act of writing a journal is itself important to the story in some way. Even then, I would concentrate on how the act of writing in the journal is important to the story, not on the actual content of the journal (unless it was the content that was important, say if another character read the journal).

Since Mercedes Lackey keeps coming up, I just have to say that while her writing is interesting, I find her story-telling episodic and lacking in dramatic structure even in her better works. A her novels and even the longer short stories I've seen could easily be broken down into a series of short stories, because there isn't an overarching dramatic tension that unifies the entire work most of the time. She seems a fairly talented writer in some ways, but...and this is not an attempt to be offensive--really a girlish writer.

Posted by Tangent (Member # 1191) on :

Actually, I found that Mercedes Lackey had gotten into a bit of a rut during her series of trilogies. Then she wrote "Brightly Burning" and all her conventions were tossed out the window. The hero didn't get the girl. He didn't live happily ever after. He never did end up fitting in. Her next two novels, "Take a Thief" and "Exile's Honor" also have stepped away from some of her old conventions and been rather refreshing. Considering I found her soon after I found Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (a friend sent me all six of Lackey's first Valdemar novels in revenge for my hooking her on Robert Jordan)... I've found that I enjoy Lackey's works more than Jordan's.

I like the idea of using journal segments for chapter headings. It might suggest using shorter chapters (each chapter being the start of a new series of action, instead of using one long chapter for each part) as well, so I can use shorter segments. <chuckle>

Actually, my use of PoV in a future book will be perhaps more in line with such works as Card's "Children of the Mind" in that I will have two groups I'm writing about, but the two groups are operating independantly of each other. This would necessitate that these chapters concentrate soley on that group (which will also have a smaller "cast" than the first group). Of course, I have to finish the first book before I really think about the second... it's just that I decided that I'd be better off working on three or four detailed novels instead of one less-detailed "Jordanesque" novel.

This is not just for publication reasons (that a first novel that is shorter is possibly more likely to be picked up by a publishing company, at least in my personal opinion - not to mention that writing a novel that has sequel potential is more likely to be picked up in the hopes that people WILL enjoy the work and want the sequels), but for artistic reasons. If, with a journal-style format, I'm reaching the end of novella-length, and that's with a minimum of dialog and action, then I shudder to think of what combining everything into one book would do. I'd have to leave stuff out.

Now I just have to figure out how to write the last segment of the prologue and then I can get into the meat of the novel. I have a feeling it'll be smoother going as I'll have a clearer idea of what's going on.

Robert A. Howard

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Thanks for bringing up Jordon. He's a perfect example of a really "boyish" (if the term works here) writer, one that portrays every woman as prettier and more bosomy than the last, and has all men blowing things up or chopping each other to pieces.

I would actually suggest that you write the body of your novel before writing your prologue, just like you frame a picture after you finish painting it.

Posted by Tangent (Member # 1191) on :

Heh. Considering the prologue is 85% finished... I might as well finish it up. There are certain bits that happen that are dependant on the prologue, primarily the "psychic visions" (which are usually vague, so they can warn, but not give away too much). Especially considering the person involved has no formal training in this, and her commanding officer outright disbelieves in it (to the point he suspects a race of aliens "transmitting" information to her eventually rather than admit she's psychic - and considering she was on board the alien craft, that possibility has some merit to it).

Besides, the first part of a story is the most important. The first line has to catch the reader's attention, and the rest of it has to keep the reader's attention until he or she is pages into the book, at which point that person is probably hooked. I know Card claims (in his writing workshop) that the first paragraph is for "free information" but... you still have to grab and keep their attention as well.

Take this sentence, which is actually the first sentence in the prologue:

We always knew that we were strangers to this odd red desert planet.

It's actually part of the exposition beginning, which over four paragraphs gives out a lot of information which would be revealed elsewhere, but probably in snippets. It also is important in catching the attention of the reader. Within these four paragraphs, the reader learns all the pertinent facts needed to know what is going on. It sets the stage for the story to come.

I could start the story with the launch of the shuttle heading to orbit, and the launch of the ship seeking out the homeworld. But by working in the prologue now, I first have established the two primary characters; one as a risk taker who cares for her friends, and the other as a more conservative but young man who is being placed in a position of power that some feel he's not suited for.

I then return to these characters to reveal other little snippets of information: The girl is not liked because of jealousy on the side of some of her classmates. The guy is forced to choose between a fiancé and his dream in the stars; more precisely, she chooses for him, saying "when you return" even though she knows he won't (due to another segment setting up foreshadowing).

If I hadn't prepared these segments in advance, then I'd be tempted to write them in during the main text. The fact that one character was engaged and then had it broken off would be something brought up in thought processes, or maybe dialog. The girl's psychic great aunt would be through flashback. It would work... but it would not feel quite right. It would be extra padding that wasn't needed.

I understand about prologues and epilogues framing a story. I did something similar with my e-novella "The Trip" starting with two minor characters who are responsible for the events of the story but who are not heard from again until the end. In fact, I staged it further into two frames; the friends who brought the main characters to the mountain (they were going to a different camp) also do not directly enter the story, though they are talked about several times.

I decided against a frame-style beginning and ending. This isn't a tale being told after the fact. This is more a first-hand account of the journeys of these wanderers who seek their homeworld.

Robert "Xellos" Howard

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

quote:
This isn't a tale being told after the fact. This is more a first-hand account of the journeys of these wanderers who seek their homeworld.

Those words always set off my spidy sense.