Today at work was a bit of a soul sucker. So it was hard for me to get back into the world of the novel. But I pushed myself and met my word count for the day. I finished a chapter and started a new one. I'm playing around with POV in this novel. I usually stick to one character in most of my horror/thriller stories. But with so many characters in this fantasy story I'm actually jumping around quite a bit.I'm eight chapters in so far. The first three chapters were from one of the protagonists point of view. There are four protagonists. The next three chapters were from one of the antagonists point of view, and there are four primary antagonists. Chapter seven actually jumped between all four protagonists as they experienced a ritual in different ways. I felt it gives the reader insight into each of these women and how they are going to view the coming adventures. Chapter eight is starting with a different antagonist, but I'm not sure I'm going to switch away from him. I kind of like the perspective he gives everything.
Hopefully this experiment works. I try not to jump around too much, but I think I can pull it off in this story.
Stats for the evening:
Page Start: 76
Page End: 83
Word Count Start: 31672
Word Count End: 34574
Music:
- Copernicaus' Star - Able Korzeniowski
- Braveheart - James Horner
2 comments:
Impressive totals. Anyone who seriously has tried to write fiction knows how challenging it is to keep up that momentum.
The advice given in writing classes to stick to one perspective generally may be sound in short stories (though sometimes violated to good effect even there), but in anything longer a bounce-around of perspective can be a handy device. Shakespeare is modestly well regarded as a writer and nearly all his plays have multiple perspectives – sometimes multiple plots. In “Much Ado about Nothing,” for example, the adversarial love story between Benedick and Beatrice is the heart and core of the play yet it’s actually a subplot, not the main action; the main action is the evil Don John’s scheme (and its consequences) to bring unhappiness to his enemies by ruining Hero’s reputation.
Thats a good point. I think from the horror thriller perspective, sticking with one character helps keep the unknown (and therefore more frighting) aspects in play. Most of the time the main character doesn't have a clear idea of what is happening, and just adds to the tension.
I did realize that i may be bouncing around to all these character in a subconscious way to show off all the character work I did for them. But I'm honestly enjoying the interplay of these characters. The antagonists all have very different backgrounds and they are only aligned in a common goal as long as it suits them. Seeing events from their differing points of view is going to add tension (I hope) as one of them becomes more and more disenchanted with their goal and decides to take matters into his own hands.
And the protagonists are going to have some strife coming their way too. Fun stuff.
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