Forum: Author Hangout

I presume the author means forced and artificial

Only if you make it so.

1, 3, 4, and 5 are, in my opinion, writing artifices - there's no way to fit them seamlessly into a story.

AJ

there's no way to fit them seamlessly into a story.

1, Interior monologue – In a situation where the narrative is expressing a character's thoughts all you have to do is let the monologue drift to the backstory you want to tell. Then do a 'Yeah, that is how this started type of statement.'

3 Dialogue – same as 1, but in a conversation between two characters and probably easier to do since you can control the two character's dialogue to support what you want to say and how it affect the current situation.

4, flashback – a flashback is nothing more than interior monologue, but happening suddenly without intentional recall. A little more challenging to do but not that big a deal.

5, nonlinear timeline – just a matter of determining how to transition between two events. It should be even easier for if the narrative/dialog is not linear along the timeline it would be similar to a flashback.

ETA: Corrected misstatement.

In my opinion, the four I listed above are things that don't happen in real life. They're always going to appear as intrusive but I concede that, done well, they can enhance a story.

Dialogue seems the most natural to me. I wouldn't have thought of research but on reflection I've seen it used quite a bit (eg crime stories) and it's a natural and fitting thing to do.

AJ

You'd destroy your dialogues trying to convey all needed informations through them.

That's a danger. Several authors sneak infodumps into dialogue. Transmitting information this way needs to be kept short and salient.

AJ

That's a danger. Several authors sneak info dumps into dialogue. Transmitting information this way needs to be kept short and salient.

I guess I do a combination myself. My characters are faced with a dilemma, revealing some sort of mystery (why is X happening when it doesn't make sense).

They seek out clues about the behavior, and each time they uncover something, they discuss it among themselves, offering various theories which are either shot down outright, but each insight causes them to focus in on the problem, changing their approach as they grow closer to the truth.

The 'narrator description' normally comes in when they discover each clue, and the narrator either explains its historical consequence, or how it relates to the character in question.

Dialogue seems the most natural to me. I wouldn't have thought of research but on reflection I've seen it used quite a bit (eg crime stories) and it's a natural and fitting thing to do.

In my science fiction stories (sci-fi is infamous for 30,000 word backstories), research fits in nicely. Since my stories feature 'average people' being swept up by unexplained events, the characters 'gather evidence' about the phenomenon they're facing, and then use the evidence to formulate what's happening.

The advantage to that approach, is the character's research is only revealed a little at a time, each instances focusing on a single element and changing the characters approach as the plot shifts noticeably following it's revelation. However, you can apply the same to most stories, as a character discovers some tidbit about his new girlfriend's past which sheds a new light on her behavior, and causes him to see her in an entirely new light. He can then ask her and her friends about it, with each revealing a 'little more' information that helps him figure out what's really going on.

Flashbacks and a nonlinear timeline can be used effectively as well, occasionally. Appointing 'seamlessly' as a demand seems a bit vague to me. A longer story usually consists of chapters and paragraphs, how 'seamlessly' does it have to be?

Basically, an entire chapter dedicated exclusively to 'back story' is overkill and is NOT 'seamless' (it leaks badly, and will drain your readers attention).

That's why I prefer dealing with a scene at a time. If you NEED backstory upfront, them keep it to a minimum, so readers are aware of it, and then, when it's required, have the character 'recall' a specific piece of their history that highlights something from the backstory.

It can be as simple as a conversation about the city's founders, or a momento creating a dramatic flashback to a specific thing a character's father told them as a child. If necessary, you can even use: "John stopped, remembering the time his father said "John, don't do that because ..."

There are countless ways to convey information, or back story if you prefer a more specific term. I dedicated an entire chapter to it, and as the term 'back story' suggests, I did it in form of a story inside the story. I think it went well.

Yep. Stories within stories are perfect for that, especially since it's a natural misdirection. Someone tells a story about something else, but reveals information that applies to what the characters are facing, making them recall events in their own history (or that they've researched) which allows them to just to other conclusions—none of which are anticipated by the reader—cause it's just some guy telling an unrelated story.

Hitting your readers with the character equivalent of a deus ex machina is probably a good way to lose a number of them, especially when they've built up a rapport with the character.

I only partially agree and wouldn't compare it to a 'deus ex machina', unless the reason for the unpredictable behavior would deserve the term. But I agree that generally characters should become familiar to the reader and too many unpredictable actions would prevent that. OTAH, a too predictable character will become boring.

This doesn't mean you change the character entirely, just that you reveal new aspects of them, so readers can better understand them, their motives and how they respond to certain things, midway through the story.

Just as we, as authors, love when our characters take over the story and begin directing the action, readers too appreciate this, as the character takes them in unexpected directions. But 'unexpected' hardly means 'unbelievable', 'unwarranted' or 'just plain stupid'.

Don't go putting words into the blog author's text.

Your reader thought she knew your character, thought she could predict what would happen next, and was delighted to learn she was wrong. That darned character zigged when he should have zagged. Why?

Hitting your readers with the character equivalent of a deus ex machina is probably a good way to lose a number of them, especially when they've built up a rapport with the character.

Not necessarily. My hero in "Sexual Awakening" starts off as a bad guy. When the novel was rejected, the romance publisher's editor said she hated the hero. Of course she hated him in the beginning. He was blackmailing the pastor's wife, forcing her to have sex. You were supposed to hate him.

But while he was forcing her, there were inklings of him not wanting to hurt her, but his need for revenge overshadowed that and he couldn't stop. Maybe that was foreshadowing, but he still seemed like a bad guy.

And then there was the lunch scene I mentioned previously when he explains his past to the woman he was blackmailing. Both the woman and the reader begin to see him in a different light. The story zagged when the reader was expecting a zig.

What's wrong with that? I love twists in stories. I love surprises.

ETA: By providing backstory during that lunch conversation (which was well into the novel), the woman learned about part of his past and assumed he was treating her the way he was because of what he relayed to her. But he hadn't told her the main part of his past that was driving his revenge. That wasn't revealed until the very end of the novel (which was a major zag).

Does that apply to fifty-three-word sentences too?

I've always used long sentences. If necessary, I cut them into smaller, digestible pieces during the revision and editing process. But you'll notice, even with the long compound sentence, the entire 53 words focus on a single topic, focusing on a single topic at a time.

Despite all the 'Author advice' to NEVER write anything more complex than a fifth grade sentence, I've never had a complaint about my sentences being too hard to read (though I've had a couple about certain sentences being hard to figure out). And (I assume) that's because I limit the sentences, no matter HOW complex, to a single thought at a time.

But for you, how about:

Don't write more than seven words per sentence!

Despite all the 'Author advice' to NEVER write anything more complex than a fifth grade sentence, I've never had a complaint about my sentences being too hard to read (though I've had a couple about certain sentences being hard to figure out).

Maybe that's why they're telling you to put commas where commas aren't needed.

Maybe that's why they're telling you to put commas where commas aren't needed.

Nope. That's my editors who reminding me what's 'proper English', rather than readers. Hopefully, the editors will alert me to anything that doesn't 'make sense at first glance'.

I trust you realise I was teasing. It seemed ironic that an admonition to others to avoid lengthy information dumps should be dumped on them in one very long sentence. :-)

I have noticed your tendency for long sentences, and when I've inspected them they've always passed my tests for readability. They consist of logical sequences of ideas presented in easily digestible pieces. I doubt many readers even notice they have just read a very long sentence.

In my case, I've learned to take advantage of my frequent 'info dumps'. Rather then 'dumping' them in the very first chapter, I save the biggest ones for the chapters AFTER my most exciting action scenes. Not only does it allow readers to decompress, but it addresses all the unanswered questions raised by the prior conflict (what provoked it, who was responsible, who won and who lost, and what are the future implications). Again, it's more about pacing. When you begin a story, you want to pull readers in. After a cliff-hanger concludes, you need to take the time to detail what happened.

As such, my 'info dump' chapters end up as some of my most popular. Especially if you present it as a dialogue where different characters with different agendas present competing ideas.

Looking over the shoulder of an archaeologist while he's on the job. Just as an example.

Oh. Just thought of one that may be it.

In the movie "Day After Tomorrow" Dennis Quaid is explaining climate change or maybe when Tom Hanks is giving his lecture on symbols in "The Da Vinci Code."

Dennis Quaid is explaining climate change or maybe when Tom Hanks is giving his lecture on symbols in "The Da Vinci Code."

That's more 'foreshadowing', as it relates to something which hasn't happened yet, but the idea is the same. Instead of lecturing your readers on the history of symbolism, you instead give them snippets over the course of the story, each illustrating something new about what the characters are facing.

Nice article.

#1 can seem forced to me. I'm not sure how I would use that.

#1 seems forced when you switch from 3rd to 1st. You're breaking how you tell the story, and that's jarring for a reader. That's why it's more 'natural' for stories told in 1st person (it's less of a break)

#3 can turn into an info dump

Again, the key word is 'dump'. If you reveal the information a small bit at a time, it's no longer a dump, it's merely a part of the plot which fits nicely into an unfolding scene.

#4 I used that a lot in "Sexual Awakening," maybe too much. One flashback scene shows the cop as a child in Italy finding his father murdered by the Mafia. It helps define why is is the way he is as an adult. But I have several flashbacks of the heroine when she was a child to define her character. Reading this makes me think I may have done that too soon.

That's what makes flashbacks so challenging, is know WHEN and WHERE to apply them, and if it doesn't work, switching to another technique.

#5 sounds like trouble to me. I hate movies where they keep jumping around in time. It's too easy for the reader to get lost.

It's easier to arrange if it's already a part of the story. If you have two characters in different time periods (say communicating via a magic mailbox, or more realistically, different chapters revealing what his ancestors did in earlier times), then it's easier to pull off.

The other alternative (incredibly difficult to pull off), is when you start off with a scene which throws the character into turmoil, and the story then flashes back, as he slowly begins to fit the pieces of his history which make sense of where he is at that moment, slowly building to the conclusion that forms the beginning of the book.

#6 don't know what this is.

That's where the characters do the research themselves into a mystery (think of Scoobie and Shagey in the old Scoobie-Doo cartoons). Rather than telling the entire backstory upfront, you only release the information, a bite at a time, as the characters unfold it. Each clue leads them closer to their destination, giving them a better idea of what they're facing.

#5 sounds like trouble to me. I hate movies where they keep jumping around in time. It's too easy for the reader to get lost.
It's easier to arrange if it's already a part of the story.

I don't know if "The Imitation Game" is a novel or, if it is if they do it the same way as the movie, but in the movie they kept jumping back and forth among three time periods: 1) when he was a child in school, 2) when the policeman was interrogating him, and 3) when he was working on building his computer. And the very end jumps ahead in time after the interrogation timeframe.

Loved the movie, but that was annoying.