Got a few questions

afif95 · Jan 25, 2009

Hello All. I've been having questions that I would like to ask here.

1)How would you go about switching MCs that have different plots?

I've been doing it like this

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story 1, MC 1
Chapter 1
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then, if I do the switching I'll head over to the next page, and do this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story 2, MC 2
Chapter 1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to make it so it won't irritate people.

2)How to make acceptable thoughts?

I mean, one of my WIP, the MC when in a surprise, will go on like this:

" Oh no! I’m slipping, like what the?! Argh! Whew! Luckily I grabbed the edge of the hole with my right hand"

I think that it's inappropriate, but, well, I'm not really sure.

That's it, for now.

sapphireeye · Jan 25, 2009

I think as long as you clearly define who's pov you're writing in at the beginning of the chapter and keep it to one pov per chapter then that should be ok. You'll need to make sure that your writing style differs between each person though, otherwise if it's too similar then the reader could get confused as to which chapter they're reading and who's pov it is.

I'm assuming that all your writing is in a first person narrative? With that thought sentence, some of it is their actual thought process and some of it is describing what they did, so it doesn't all need to be shown as thought. Plus, I believe the general consensus is that a character's thoughts should be shown in italics or maybe single quotations. If you use the quotation marks that you've used, it would look like the character is talking to themselves. Using your exact words, I would write it more like this:

Oh no! I’m slipping, like what the?! Argh! Whew! Luckily I grabbed the edge of the hole with my right hand.

Also, as an extra comment (I hope you don't mind!) I think that you need a bit more description in there to explain the situation a bit better, as it confused me a little bit! If someone was slipping down a hole then I'd imagine that they'd already have hold of something, otherwise they'd be falling not slipping. So for your character then to grab the edge of the hole, signifies that they didn't have hold of anything in the first place. If that makes sense? Unless they're slipping off a surface towards a hole in which case you could describe what they did to try to stop themselves from slipping and maybe a bit more of their feeling. I know if I was about to fall down a hole, I'd be trying to save myself, not just thinking about the fact that I was about to fall down a hole

I guess those comments are only appropriate if that's an actual line from your story!

I'm no expert, someone else might come along and give better suggestions, these are just my own thoughts!

afif95 · Jan 25, 2009

I'll try doing that, thanks. In the meantime, here's a question I forgot to ask:

The story that I am trying to write has multiple characters, with a few main plots, and a few mini-stories (One that is told on the spot and ends on the spot), the characters are all in connected together in a physical way (They are all university students under the same university). In the ending, I'm thinking about putting every main plot together.

So in the end, all of the plots actually have something to do in the ending

For an example:
The third plot's MC's car crashes onto the first (main) plot's MC. All of the second plot's MC are present.

So, my question is, how to present this in an understandable way? In a nutshell, my story has these:

1) One Main Plot
2) Two secondary plots (That in the end has a lot of connection to the main plot)
3) A few mini-stories (It starts as a scene, and ends as a scene)
4) First Person POV as what I explained in earlier post
5) Each plot has characters that the readers are going to go into. So, character-switching in the same plot is present

kct webber · Jan 27, 2009

Switching MCs within the same chapter is done like this:

Bob did some stuff, then did some other stuff, and then stubbed his toe. Then he cried.

#

Walter finished a thousand-piece puzzle and then hit his head. Then he cried.

But I would be very careful doing this in first person.

Dale Emery · Jan 27, 2009

afif95 said:
1)How would you go about switching MCs that have different plots?

Begin each scene by establishing the viewpoint quickly and clearly. Then, if the viewpoints and the stories are sufficiently distinct, you won't need headings to guide the reader.

Conversely, if you find that you want headings to distinguish the stories, that's a clue that either your stories or your viewpoints are not distinct enough or are not established clearly and early enough in each scene.

Dale

Matera the Mad · Jan 27, 2009

<2cents>Long, unbroken lines of ------------------- and such can irritate people. They mess up the post width for some of us, making it hard to read. </2cents>

Got a few questions

afif95

sapphireeye

afif95

kct webber

Squirrel, Sekrit type, 1 ea.

Dale Emery

is way off topic

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint