Writers' Corner

[Asterales]

Thank you for the writer recommendations Róisín and Aierdome!
I'll make sure to have a look at their work when I have money or someone in my family who still insists on giving me birthday presents
I feel ashamed to say this, but at age 14 or something, I pretty much went from reading world literature to reading ffs only (cheaper, even if you have to suffer through a lot of awful stuff to find the few gems), after I had finished with my parents's book shelf. We didn't have that much money at the time, sooo...
At the moment, I buy tomes of expensive encyclopedias, rather than books with actual stories.
Really, my knowledge of recent (and not so recent) publications is very, very lacking 

Unwary, I have a world I've been working on for the last seven years. Its not as grand as Aierdome's.
I also didn't make a lot of effort to expand it, until a few months ago (had a writers block that lasted about 3,5 years) and am only just getting back into it.
I posted two maps in the OCS. They are supremely unfinished. The bigger map doesn't even have all the features I had thought up at the time I started drawing it. At the moment, it shows about one quarter of the total landmass. I won't need all of it though.
The part of the map that is better worked out is the country where the story takes place, but the ancestors of a lot of the main cast comes from the North (that isn't an the map at all).
For reference: an imaginary vertical line from the southern to the northern border of the more detailed country measures about 1000 km or 620 miles.
So this country is the southernmost point of this continent. I want to have a southern continent as well, but it's not necessary, so I try not to think about it.
I still need to figure out the air currents and detailed climate patterns and so on.
The northernmost part of the continent is covered in glaciers and ice and the planes in the east are supposed to have a climate a lot like Siberia, but even in TA (Acronym), that country in the south, they have snowfall in winter.
I might warm the continent up a little. I haven't decided yet.
But even what is on the map now needs a major reworking.

I like your ideas for your story!
The mind-swap-religion has so much potential for delicious confusion!

[Yuuago]

Soooo... question for you all!

How do you deal with writing more than two characters at once? Any specific strategies?

I've found that when I'm writing three or more characters in an extended scene together, it's difficult to make sure that nobody disappears into the background. Ensuring that everyone has an equal presence (in scenes where everybody is supposed to have an equal presence) is like pulling teeth.

Does anybody else find this challenging? It might be just one of those things that I need to chip away at until it becomes easier, but... ehh.

[LooNEY_DAC]

Soooo... question for you all!

How do you deal with writing more than two characters at once? Any specific strategies?

I've found that when I'm writing three or more characters in an extended scene together, it's difficult to make sure that nobody disappears into the background. Ensuring that everyone has an equal presence (in scenes where everybody is supposed to have an equal presence) is like pulling teeth.

Does anybody else find this challenging? It might be just one of those things that I need to chip away at until it becomes easier, but... ehh.

Well… I'd still say it comes down to the why of the scene. Why are they all there? Why is each one there, individually? That should determine who does what and when, more than anything. If a character stays in the background, maybe there's a reason. And even when a character doesn't speak, you can document their reaction.

Hopefully you can find something worthwhile in that blather.

[Róisín]

If I'm writing an ensemble scene I find it gets easier the better you know your characters. A technique I found useful is: before you start the scene, run through it in your head, visualising how each character, being themselves, would move/speak/react. Look at it as if you were writing stage directions. If you can play the scene over in your head like that the conversation and interaction of the characters becomes much easier to write, and looks more natural to the reader.

[Mélusine]

Soooo... question for you all!

How do you deal with writing more than two characters at once? Any specific strategies?

I've found that when I'm writing three or more characters in an extended scene together, it's difficult to make sure that nobody disappears into the background. Ensuring that everyone has an equal presence (in scenes where everybody is supposed to have an equal presence) is like pulling teeth.

Does anybody else find this challenging? It might be just one of those things that I need to chip away at until it becomes easier, but... ehh.

At long as you don't forgot the third character on your scene, all is fine ? ^^ (On my finished novel, at a moment, I have a animal. And a beta-reader who asked some pages later "And, where is it now ? Because I see no more mention of it." Oups ? ) As LooNEY_DAC said, even is someone isn't speaking, you can show her/his reactions to the reader, proving this character is listening. Or not listening maybe. Maybe this third character will interrupt the two others. Maybe they look at the third at a moment. You have a lot of possibilities to maintain a link with a character who doesn't speak yet and the reader And it's not because one or several characters are a little more in the background that they are less important. A character can also begin in the background and reveal how important she/he is later too.
Maybe don't focus too much on "equal presence" ? Equal is a little too much rigid to my mind.

[Jethan]

Man, I have writer's block so bad right now, somebody give me a prompt and help me get back into rhythm.

Since we're discussing how to keep keep extra characters from being forgotten in a scene, I think a prompt testing that dynamic would be good.

Select a set of characters:

-Tristan, Dhelran, and a female character they know (I chose whichever one makes the most sense for the prompt)
-Sheyla, Robert, and Robert's mother, Madam Darhurst
-Three new people you describe (a guy who bakes, or the Empress of Seven Havens who pensively muses on how she will defeat the demon lord who killed her family in the dark wars...how ever much you wish to describe them)

Make whatever prompt you feel like!  Throw my characters or new characters into a crazy scenario!  I'll try to do multiple short scenes if enough prompts get thrown around.  And I guess if anyone else wants to try a new character prompt they can put their own spin on it?  Could be fun to play around with this.

[Róisín]

Further to the extra characters: I agree with Melusine that 'equal time' doesn't work well - too stilted and artificial. But you can still keep a silent character in the reader's mind by describing their reactions, or their thoughts or feelings about what is being said, or even the other speaking characters' reaction to their silence: 'Joe noticed that as Meryl's rant got louder and shriller, Fred, who hadn't said a word,  had stepped back and was now sidling toward the fire exit. He wondered what was going on there.' sort of thing.

Or you could describe the scene from Fred's point of view, possibly as a place for exposition about why he dislikes Meryl, or that he is using the distraction as cover while he implements his Devious Plan, or slips off to steal the diamond necklace while all the other characters would swear he was there listening to Meryl the whole time. Or Joe noticing his silence may be an important plot point. Possibilities are limited only by imagination.

[Unwary]

I admit, I tend to let characters fall silent. But I do keep describing them. Even if they are utterly still, that is worth describing.
So, one can keep them in mind by mentioning that they are pacing, or not making anyone's eye contact. Often that can tell a story just as evocatively as dialog.

[Asterales]

Select a set of characters:
-Sheyla, Robert, and Robert's mother, Madam Darhurst

I'm not giving you a lot.
They have to find "The Golden Carrot of Lore" to get rid of a pesky ghost haunting their front door porch.
Try to make this one dark violet, if you'd like to.

Or

Over night the right shoe of the favourite pair of Robert's mother seems to have gone missing.
This one could be gold and pink.

On the topic of equal character presence...
I agree with the others. I think one of the characters has to be the point of view character, so the others will always have to be seen from their standpoint. Even if you use all of them as point of view characters throughout the story, you'll have to pick one for the scene.
You can try to pull off the omniscient storytelling style,  but I don't think it works very well. It's better to have one POV character per scene and not break that chosen POV.
That doesn't mean your other characters don't play an important part in this scene. They are just not the point of reference.

[Róisín]

It takes a really good storyteller to pull off the omniscient point of view. Dunsany could do it.

[Mélusine]

You can try to pull off the omniscient storytelling style,  but I don't think it works very well. It's better to have one POV character per scene and not break that chosen POV.

Ah ?

[Aierdome]

Ah ?

I'm sorry if I'm about to explain something you already know, but I think this is what the question is about, so... In writing, there are three basic types of narration.

First is the first-person point-of-view (POV). Narration belongs to a character in the story, complete with their random emotions and ramblings. A lot of romance novels, and stuff like Hunger Games and Twilight have first-person POV.

Second is the third-person POV, or limited third-person. In this case, the narrator describes the sights, emotions and events as they are seen and experienced by a single character within the story (though there can be several characters, with narrator switching the one followed), but using "her" or "she" rather than "I", and is a bit more on the "outside" than in first-person POV when it comes to "hearing" characters' thoughts. The important part is that the narration sees and knows only as much as the character do. Harry Potter is a good example of limited third-person.

Third, the one Asterales talks about, is the omniscient third person. That means that the narrator is an "outsider", omnipresent god looking from above at the characters and their motivations, knowing what's going on in the head of every single one of them. This is hard to pull off because it comes in the way of connecting with a character, distances the reader from the story and ruins the suspense ("little did she know that her efforts were meaningless..." kinda kills it), not to mention that showing thoughts of everyone in the room can lead to confusion.

Hope that helps.

[Mélusine]

No, I'm the one sorry, Aierdome My reaction wasn't precise enough. It's just... the omniscient kind had always been my way to write ? I don't pretend I'm talented at all with that, but... I don't know, it never seemed so difficult for me ?

[Aierdome]

No, I'm the one sorry, Aierdome My reaction wasn't precise enough. It's just... the omniscient kind had always been my way to write ? I don't pretend I'm talented at all with that, but... I don't know, it never seemed so difficult for me ?

Ah. Okay. (...she said sheepishly  ) I admit I've always preferred limited third-person, pretty much for the reasons I've outlined above. With all respect to your writing abilities, I've just never found omniescient narration as engaging as limited, and can't write it either without drifting into character's mind.

[princeofdoom]

Mélusine I think everyone has something that they find easy or natural that everyone else says is SO HARD. :J