So I said to her and she said to me and then we said to him and her...

[rj_anderson]

So I'm having this thing happen in Book Two of Faery Rebels that was never a problem with Book One, and it's driving me crazy.

See, in Knife there's a fairly complex plot involving Shocking Discoveries and Revelations, but it's not too hard to keep track of because Knife does most of the sleuthing on her own, and the whole book is from her POV.

In Wayfarer, though, I've got two POV characters plus some secondary characters finding out Important Stuff in a variety of ways (experience, conversation, research), and they all have to relay that information to each other and then make joint decisions based on what they've learned.

But it's proving really, really difficult to have all these people react naturally to surprising news and events and then have plausible-sounding conversations about them without repeating the same details ad infinitum and slowing down the forward motion of the plot.

Has anyone else struggled with this? Any suggestions for taming the narrative tangle, or examples of books in which you think this kind of joint investigation and decision-making was handled particularly well?

Comments

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

Mostly I've dealt with this in "Alias" fic, where it was the bane of my existence, but there the format allowed for briefings, etc.

My basic pieces of advice would be: Whenever possible, have the characters be together when they find out important stuff.

Don't worry about showing any "telling the other character" scenes that aren't truly big -- you can take some after-reveal scenes and weave in the fact that the other character has been told fairly simply, and a couple of small comments may give all the reaction that's needed.

In the discussion scenes, perhaps take the emotional focus off the information being brought out -- the reader already knows, so it's not necessary to hit it hard again. So you might deal more heavily with the relationship between the characters there, with humor or animosity or whatever emotion is foremost, making the reveals more incidental.

Any more specific sorts of questions? Is this helpful at all?

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

No, that is helpful -- and yes, I can see how Alias fics would be a problem that way!

Agreed, it helps a lot to have the two POV characters find out stuff together. My complication at the moment is that they aren't old enough to be completely independent, so they both have adult characters to whom they have to give account of themselves. I can see why a lot of authors conveniently dispose of parents and guardians (or else establish that the parents and guardians are negligent/indifferent) as soon as they can! It's not just a matter of agency on the part of the young hero/ine, it's also a matter of keeping things simple.

I like your idea of hitting the emotional notes harder the second time around, if repetition is necessary. So far I've done my best to gloss over repetitions and cut straight to the chase, but the last time I tried to do that I got told that the conversation sounded weirdly abbreviated and unnatural, so what to do, what to do?

On the other hand, it occurs to me that this kind of problem might be better sorted out in the revision phase as opposed to the first draft phase. If I find that I have a redundant scene, I can pick the one I like best and summarize the other one, perhaps.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

I thought JK Rowling handled it rather well in GoF when Harry had to tell what happened in the graveyard more than once; after the initial go (and even frequently during that one, when Harry was telling Dumbledore) she simply wrote that Harry told the story again, but both times she indicated what the listeners' responses were to certain parts of his story (such as the "gleam of triumph" in Dumbledore's eye that caused so much debate for years!). It's "telling" rather than "showing" at that point, but given that she's already shown us everything that happened, from Harry's PoV, I don't see why she would have wanted to take the reader through all of that again. The highlighted reactions, which are highlighted for a reason, are in there, and that's quite sufficient.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I think one needs not to get hung up over telling v showing, because what looks like telling can actually be showing something else: first time through, what is shown can be the events, but the subsequent discussion can show reactions and perceptions and in itself give valuable information about the characters - including any misunderstandings of what actually went on.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Can you have people react off high points? In other words, if the reader already knows the facts, cut in medias res with a reaction?

" . . . so you've proof the Butler did it after all? But we were about to get married!"

The reader instantly remembers the Butler's perfidy as already discovered, and wants to know about the new twist.

Third Person

[(Anonymous)]

Why not introduce a third person as a minor character who knows both the major characters. That way, when necessary, it is assumed that the 3rd person has passed along details.

Regards,
Shawn
http://sabigail.blogspot.com

[mcamy.livejournal.com]

In soaps, which have a whole lot of saying the same exposition multiple times, I find that it is most interesting to me what each character chooses to tell each other, and how they choose to retell it. In other words, what do they leave out or downplay? What is the most important part of the story to them? What is their interpretation, and will other characters agree? How does that affect their retelling? Would two people tell the story the same way, or how would they differ and why?

So yeah, my only advice is to look at what character wants and needs from the retelling. Retelling as characterization. Soaps often get this more right than other shows, simply because they have to do it so very often.

[bluemoon02.livejournal.com]

Try "Resistance" by Owen Sheers. I've just finished it. It's an alternate reality WWII-era story about what would happen in the rural Welsh community if Britain had fallen to German invasions. There are ten main characters, six or seven of whom get a point of view chapter at some point, all relaying pretty similar information but with their own opinions. Of course, I don't know how you lay out the narrative of your story, but he manages it by overlapping one bit at a time. Say you have a conversation between the Nazi general and the farmer's wife, and the general thinks something's been agreed on. The next chapter's from the POV of the farmer's wife, and just overlaps the end of the previous conversation, but shows what she's actually thinking, and goes on to show that she's going to do something completely different than you'd assumed at the end of the previous chapter. It worked quite well to keep suspense, keep the reader guessing, gets a lot of complex information across and several perspectives without it seeming like exposition.

[penwiper26.livejournal.com]

I would point to Gaudy Night as a good example of multiple tellings in a decision-making process. Especially the punting sequence, where the conversation is largely focused on the dossier Harriet has amassed, but the dynamics of the scene are powerfully about her recognizing her attraction to and understanding with Peter. The two things have everything to do with one another, but as yahtzee63 notes, the focus of the scene is not really the information.

[kerravonsen]

I hope you don't have more than two POV characters, though.

The Lord of the Rings is an example of something with lots and lots of characters, but I don't recall that the plot was such that you had characters repeating information to each other; I mean, in the Council of Elrond, you had characters appearing for the first time, and relating their information. Though I guess there were some occasions when we got repetition of information (if one had read the Hobbit and already knew how Bilbo got the Ring), and on those occasions, what the characters said to each other highlighted their psychological state, the influences they were under.

I guess it's like when you have crossovers in fanfic: the author knows that the reader already knows the backstory of these characters, and some are tempted to therefore gloss over any "revelation" scenes, because they think it would be boring because the reader already knows these things. But me, I find them one of the best things about crossovers, because I want to see how the characters react to this information. Just like in Doctor Who, when a new companion enters the TARDIS for the first time, we all know that they're going to say "It's bigger on the inside", but we love that scene because the important thing is how they say it.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

No, just the two POV characters -- and I would have been happy to stick to the male/human one, only my editor thought it was important to include the female/faery perspective as well.

And I like seeing how characters react too, which is probably why I've had such a hard time with this book -- it feels wrong to NOT show certain people reacting to news that they are bound to find extremely shocking/exciting, or to circumstances and characters of a kind they've never encountered before. To just say in a few words, "Ingrid was startled by the dwarf showing up on her doorstep, but she soon got over it and asked him in for tea" seems kind of lame, you know?

[rose-in-shadow.livejournal.com]

Just to reiterate what others have said, I think showing reaction is important. I ran into this problem with my novel--revelations that needed conveyed without putting the reader to sleep. What I ended up doing was skipping the meat of the conversation with a convienent chapter ending and starting up the next with the end of the conversation where the New Guy's reactions were what was the focus rather than the stuff the reader already knows.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking that some of the duplication that's been happening can be eliminated in revisions by summing-up rather than depicting people's reactions. It's been especially bad in these last 2-3 chapters, I think, as I've been trying to get a handle on the best way to convey information. So we're seeing some redundancy now, but in the revision phase I'll probably just keep the scene/scenario/mix of characters I like best and summarize the other(s).

[megancrewe.livejournal.com]

I haven't done this with alternating POVs, but I have had it come up where one character has to tell more than one other character about the same thing... Usually I just summarize the information as quickly as possible and get straight to the reactions, e.g. (making this up on the spot),

A told B about that night, so intent on getting every detail right that he didn't notice her expression until he stumbled through the last sentence.

"How could that be true?" B said, her face pale.


Or, y'know, something like that. Assuming the reader will know what "that night" means, and having the main reaction be after all the info's been told.

With alternating POVs... you could also do things like start a scene right after character 1 has told character 2 whatever they discovered in the previous scene--start with the reaction (after indicating in some brief way what it's a reaction to).

[deva-fagan.livejournal.com]

You've already gotten plenty of good advice so I don't have much to add. But I agree with the folks who propose the technique of glossing over the re-telling of the info and cutting to the second character's reaction to the key points. That's how I've seen it work best (imo) in other books where characters have to relay chunks of info.

Good luck!

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with most of the advice given here as well, especially in re: using the follow-up scenes to highlight different aspects of the information given, via the tellee's specific emotional reactions or reasoning from it. Some reiteration is OK as long as it all clearly has a point.

To get a handle on the basic concept in action, you might want to try rereading some of the mystery novels that feature different detectives gathering evidence (Agatha Christie or Rex Stout are excellent classic choices), or suspects reporting their conversations with others.

(One of the best Christie novels, Five Little Pigs - not sure if you've read it - is in fact a Rashomon-like story in which each of five people recount the same moment in time from a different POV. The effects she gets with emotion and perspective are quite stunning.)

[infiniteviking]

I usually go with the stare, the mutual realization, and cut to the reaction or next action scene.

"You -- here? But you were going to -- and if you didn't -- then that means--" *GASP as the pieces fall into place*

or: "But I just learned -- what, nobody told you yet!?" "Told me -- but you can't mean--?" "QUICK, TO THE BATMOBILE, THERE'S NOT A MOMENT TO LOSE!"

Milage, of course, varies depending on how the characters themselves think, speak, and interact. I am reminded of how Agatha Christie left important bits of information out of the POV narrative in Roger Ackroyd by having him focus on different aspects of what was going on around him; otherwise the entire denouement would have been a boring recap.