Forum: Author Hangout

It won a stack of awards for the first season but was cancelled not long into the second season.

TV awards are like building architectural awards - the less people like it, and the less enjoyable and less functional it is, the more awards it gets from the experts trying to prove how much better they are to the general public.

As a reader, does that bother you? Do you like it?

Frankly no.

Based on your comments, I assume no to the 2nd question and yes to the 1st.

Based on your comments, I assume no to the 2nd question and yes to the 1st.

Thumbs up to that post!

AJ

Chapter - Tells about CIA man hunting down and killing terrorists.
next ch - Tells about the terrorists planning to kill CIA man.
next ch - CIA man kills target and hears a noise.
next ch - terrorists know CIA man is there and goes after him.
next ch - CIA man fights off terrorists.
next ch - the terrorists try to kill CIA man but he kills them and escapes.

It actually works when I write it down that way.
What caught my eye was in a chapter the CIA man fights off the terrorists. Then in the next chapter, the terrorists attack him (they were already killed in the previous chapter).

What caught my eye was in a chapter the CIA man fights off the terrorists. Then in the next chapter, the terrorists attack him (they were already killed in the previous chapter).

which is why it will lead to a lot of reader confusion.

which is why it will lead to a lot of reader confusion.

It made me stop as a reader. That's why I'm asking.

But it does work. Probably because the 2nd one doesn't go into all the detail the first chapter did and is from a different perspective.

But it does work. Probably because the 2nd one doesn't go into all the detail the first chapter did and is from a different perspective.

Not only have I seen it work with only a small time overlap, I've done that. The problem is the confusion when it's over a long period and it backtracks too far into the past.

What I've seen work is you also use it to change the character being followed, so you have a couple of minutes of event from inside the story matched up to align the timing as you go from character A to character B.

It seems to me it would require the author to work hard, using past-perfect tenses to establish a 'flashback', at the start of chapters retelling the same scenes from different characters' perspectives.

It's not a flashback (it's happening at the same time) so it's the same tense. It's back-to-back chapters from different POVs.

My point was only that an author needs to use some past-perfect tenses - to inform readers that the events being described here happened, or started happening, at some time before the point that the narrative had just reached.

An excellent point, Ross. Even though I'll avoid using past perfect tense verbs whenever possible on general principal, I'd still use them here precisely for the reason which Ross outlines. The events didn't occur in the distant past, but they happened before the current events in a present tense story. In that case, neither present nor past-tense fits. In other words, this is a 'special case' usage of the past-perfect tense.

The events didn't occur in the distant past, but they happened before the current events

No, they happened concurrently.

would create less confusion if the fight between the CIA man and the terrorists from the CIA man's POV was split into two as below.

It's a thriller. I don't think you'd want to stop right in the middle of a fight scene.

I'm interested because I started writing thrillers and want to learn the techniques for the genre. I already learned short chapters are good (expected?) even really short ones. I had several chapters in my WIP with multiple scenes in them and already broke them into separate chapters.

And I learned throwing in some omniscient in a 3rd-limited story is done by bestselling authors. So I'm doing that too.

So what I documented in this thread is another thriller technique I'm analyzing. In my first Lincoln Steele novel this switching didn't happen because I told the whole story from his POV (even though it wasn't 1st-person). But my current novel is told from multiple POVs, like the one I'm reading.

Terrorists implies a group. He kills some of them in one chapter, not necessarily all of them. Different members of the same group attack him in the next chapter.

No. It was the same fight from different perspectives. In the first, it's from the CIA's POV. In the second, it's from the leader of the terrorists. What's interesting is the leader is in the hall while his men are being killed. So in the 1st, you know a terrorist got a bullet in the throat. In the 2nd, the leader hears the gurgling from the hallway.

Chapter - Tells about CIA man hunting down and killing terrorists.
next ch - Tells about the terrorists planning to kill CIA man.
next ch - CIA man kills target and hears a noise.
next ch - terrorists know CIA man is there and goes after him.
next ch - CIA man fights off terrorists.
next ch - the terrorists try to kill CIA man but he kills them and escapes.

It actually works when I write it down that way.

If that's your intent, then do that, but I'd pick up the other character immediately prior to his attack, showing them 'overhearing' the attack and responding. Thus you'd be repeating NO details from the previous chapter (since the new character really doesn't know what happened). That way, both chapters are distinct, cover entirely different details, both are fast-paced action scenes and you aren't regurgitating previous stated details.

Good luck with it.

That way, both chapters are distinct, cover entirely different details, both are fast-paced action scenes and you aren't regurgitating previous stated details.

That's sort of what he did. What stopped me as a reader was I had to back up the time in my mind because both chapters were happening at the same time. As Ross pointed out, flashbacks are handled with tense. But this wasn't a flashback. Two chapters were occurring at the same time.

That worked to good effect, even if AJ might think it "arty-farty". :-)

Some of us prefer "arty-farty" stories. We may not want to read it continually, but they provide insights into different perspectives and offer newer, rarely used experimental techniques. I'd rather a creative original story over another 'more of the same' tripe we so often see repeated endlessly.

Often, those 'arty-farty' stories are all about technique, with the plot playing second fiddle to the more 'artsy' elements.

"arty-farty"

I thought it was "artsy-fartsy"

I thought it was "artsy-fartsy"

There's quite a herd of terms of the form a****-fa*****. Arty-farty, artsy-fartsy, airy-fairy etc. I picked one at random. Use the variant of your choice or, better still, make up your own.

AJ

I picked one at random. Use the variant of your choice or, better still, make up your own.

And please, let's try not to make it openly homophobic while we're at it. 'D

I thought it was "artsy-fartsy"

Sorry, stupid typo which I kept repeating. :( My bad.

I have a hard enough time keeping characters straight when a story is written in a single POV told in chronological order. I dislike continuity breaks. Although in Charles Stross's 'Rule 34' I finally got used to each chapter being told in a different first person's voice.

Again, the thing to avoid is telling the exact same story using a different character. Instead, you should write an entirely new scene, to reflect how the different character experienced things different, and how those differences caused them to view the events entirely differently.

If you're simply regurgitated details, and merely saying that someone responds differently, then it's NOT worth the effort. But if you toss out the detailed descriptions, and start the scene from scratch with a new character (i.e. not looking at the original scene for guidance), you'll probably be OK, even if you get several details wrong.

Again, the thing to avoid is telling the exact same story using a different character.

As usual, it depends.

Since the scene is told from the perspective of the POV character, it could be told differently each time. Think of the movies "Courage Under Fire" and "Vantage Point." The whole premise of the plot is you're told different stories about the same event.