Forum: Author Hangout

In another thread, there's a discussion about the movie "House of Dynamite," in which a single nuclear missile of unknown origin is due to hit the U.S. in 18 minutes. One criticism of the movie was that one scene followed the missile early on, then another scene followed it during the same minutes. I face the same problem in a WIP - in which I'd like to portray was happening in more than one place at the same time. How can a would-be author accomplish that without seeming to be repeating the same thing and without boring the audience. Surely some authors must have tackled the same dilemma successfully. Can anybody point to examples?

Dead Tree but Terry Brooks in his Shannara series does this.

You will have a chapter where you read a set of paragraphs about one party then a division line of asterisks and now your read the view of a single person or another party of what they where doing at the same time as the other party. He was able to do this multiple parties in a way that I as a read was able to keep up and not get lost in the story.

"Meanwhile, back on the farm..."

From just a story telling perspective a simple descriptor of the time and place before the section will work.

To go a bit further you can easily tell the same events several times from different character's perspectives as they'll all see, notice, and emphasize different events. Event their memories of the event may be different as human memory is incredibly fallible and subject to influence both internal and external.

You set the scene in a party; Character A is annoyed by the whole thing, focused on the table with chips in the back and thinking about putting a hammer into the stereo playing terrible music.

Character B: Is Dancing through the party consumed by the beat and trying to find someone to bed for the night.

Character C: It's their birthday and they see the entire thing as a celebration of them and are focused on the two people who aren't dressed well enough.

Character D: Is more down to earth and focused. He sees the axe wielding maniac that the others didn't even notice.