McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Question on Plotting out epic scale book series
kingaling:
--- Quote from: meg_evonne on June 08, 2009, 05:38:05 PM ---Thank you Neurovore for chiming in. I always find your suggestions not only useful, but as I work through things, I realize how crucial they are. You helped me out with a really complicated POV once and sent me a long posting, which I printed (as I did this one!).
Interested in your First Person Third Person Omniscient and find it intriguing! So one of my favorite books that is sort of similar to this is from Konisburg's "From the Mixed Up Files..." only there the narrator turns out to be a pivotal character in the final growth of the young protagonist. I seriously want to takle a project that uses that approach so much, and considered it for the recent YA. The idea was exciting to members of my class, but I couldn't get it to work, because the narrator was simply not that important to the over all series story arc. So i kept mine to Intimate Third Person (Neurovore's suggestion). Her suggestion was for a different work, but I finally got to use it in the YA.
Question/Concern: So the reader is enjoying your books in the first person POV, then does 'something' happen to cause the switch? The impact of the plot must change right? I suspect you have that one already grounded.
But here's a thought that I as a reader might find unsatisfying.... Won't I want to know who this narrator is? You're going to have to give this reporting narrator a personality, won't you? Should I be guessing who the narrator really is and how that narrator character gets involved or eventually interacts with the plot? I think I might find that irritating-especially if the narrator isn't revealed ever or if it's in book 7 or something?
Maybe I mis-understood, maybe you just mean straight Omniscient who can slip into minds left and right without explaination? But your First Person Third Person Omniscient felt more like a character with unusual abilities that can get into those minds. I don't mean that the narrator is making comments on the other characters POV thoughts, but still First Person indicates to me some impact of some sort.
i don't think I'm explaining well at all what I'm asking. Or maybe I am. More please?
--- End quote ---
Hehehe, im not going to reveal who the character is until the 6th book, and it won't seem like it's first person until that point. We read and read and read about what the main characters are doing and don't find it odd at all that we can hear their thoughts (and occasionally their singular conscience that they develop) but then all of a sudden they enter a room, and we find out that the story has been told in a flowing first person who can enter other peoples minds, see all, and yadda yadda. ;)
I'd also note at this point that only an incredibly small part of the story takes place on earth, the rest takes place in what we've dubbed The Afterlands, where all religious mythology coexists across an enormous expanse.
Ah and THANK YOU Neurovore, that was an incredibly insightful piece of advice you gave me there.
The stories are driving me somewhat mad, as there are so many thoughts and themes that you literally cannot flow with ONE, so what you prescribed should fix that. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
BUT DON'T STOP THERE, any other advice would be awesome. but remember it has to be EPIC! :p
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: kingaling on June 08, 2009, 06:35:04 PM ---Ah and THANK YOU Neurovore, that was an incredibly insightful piece of advice you gave me there.
The stories are driving me somewhat mad, as there are so many thoughts and themes that you literally cannot flow with ONE, so what you prescribed should fix that. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
BUT DON'T STOP THERE, any other advice would be awesome. but remember it has to be EPIC! :p
--- End quote ---
All I can say is, structure. Structure Structure Structure. The more solid a structure you have, the more you get actual reasons for putting things in particular places, and the fewer decisions you have to make by yourself.
That said, my own experience with writing novels with a fair degree of structure is that something that's alive and working will pretty much always surprise you, at some point, by finding out something as you write it that you had not previously known; so trying to nail structure down too tightly and then finding it doesn't actually work when you get that far is to be avoided for me.
Useful advice from published authors here goes all sorts of ways. Steven Brust has talked about his process being very much "write and see what happens", and if the plot gets stuck, have the characters bitch about it, go out for dinner, and bitch about it some more, keep doing this until he gets the next bit of plot, and then cut all the bitching and proceed from there. Tim Powers, otoh, talks about planning entire books paragraph-by-paragraph on post-it notes on a big board on the wall to see how everything fits together before he starts writing anything. Both of these methods demonstrably produce publishably good and occasionally brilliant books; my own method is somewhere in between and has not, yet.
I have a not very condensed feeling that making plot on this scale work is as different a thing from novel-length plotting as novel-length is from short-stories; I think examples of plot on this sort of scale that actually really work are easier to find in other media - multi-season TV series, or comics with arcs on the scale of Sandman or Preacher - than in novels, although those media do also have the need for single-episode/issue-scale hooks more than a novel does, IMO. (I know there are people in the world who put a novel down in the middle if they don't like it; I do not understand that, and I read too damned fast for it anyway. Putting a novel down in the middle is like looking at half a painting and deciding the balance doesn't work.)
meg_evonne:
and I printed it again.
Will be looking forward to hearing the reply from king. It might be double or triple difficult if the reader is sailing along with three books of 1st with a sudden shift to this interesting POV. Of course, if the narrative did have a fun and exciting character voice--it would be less jarring and maybe a bit easier.
kingaling:
The first three books are in third person. And once we get to the other four books it isn't going to be jarring because it isn't going to read like first person, it will still read very much like third person, but the third person turns out to be a character in the story is all.
Example: this may or may not be in the actual 6th book
The trio rounded the corner and took the stairs lined on either side by intricate ebony pillars. Royiel tapped his double ended scythe at the top of the staircase and waited on Skot and Leikentin, who hurried past him, and burst through the door.
All of their weapons were now drawn, and their single energy and mind as one. They peered into the darkness of the room, Skot calling forth the primordial flame to his hands. And they looked upon someone they didn't expect to be there. Someone they hadn't thought they'd gotten to yet.
They looked upon Me.
I actually like how that was written, hehe. SPOILER. :p
Uilos:
I'm going through the same thing. My first Novel (which is three Novels in reality) is an epic. I've currently got it set up as a first person Narrative set in several different characters and with several papers and essays written by the characters to give a broader scope.
My way of writing this is that I want to overdo it. Write more than I need to, because I know I'm going/have to change or edit out stuff, so I lose nothing in the long run if I give myself some slack on the rope (which feels like it's around my neck most nights)
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