A problem with Repetition!!!!

Vaxil said:

For instance, my plot in simples terms is about a girl who is in a relationship with somebody. Just how often can I write about her visiting this guy? How many times can I talk about her walking up the stairs, go into the house, and whatever?

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One answer a lot of writers give in brainstorming sessions is "It depends." And I'm going to have to use "It depends" here.

If you prefer, you can show her go up the stairs, etc. every time -- but make each time unique by what she sees, feels, etc. How she views the world around her will vary based on her mood, things that have happened around her, and so forth. Or you can use transitions and start with the heroine at her house, and then cut to a scene where she is visiting the other person. (The best approach would probably be a combination of the two. )

But remember that while repetition can be dull, sometimes it can really add something to the story, even symbolism. Have you read "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson? I thought of this one because I just saw the movie based on it. Near the beginning of the story, the heroine runs into an unused janitorial closet to get away from someone, and it becomes her sanctuary throughout the story. She makes changes to it -- puts pictures up, etc. As she starts to recover, she relies less and less on it and eventually returns for a last time to take down her drawings and take them with her. Another important element in the story is the tree she is drawing.

Vaxil said:

How does a writer avoid repetition when the entire story revolves around a repetitious event and situation?

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I'd suggest studying what novelists you like use. It's fresh on my mind because I'm still finishing it, but take "To Kill a Mockingbird." Scout and her brother and Dill go past the Radley house a lot, but it's different every bloomin' time. It changes as the novel moves on, especially after Scout hears the laughter coming from the house (after the tire scene). How did Harper Lee do it?!

Repetition

Vaxil said:

Hello everyone, I hope I am not intruding or posting in the wrong forum.
I am a junior novelist, as I like to call myself, currently working on a novel and developing more ideas as I keep writing more chapters. But in my writing, I have come across a problem relating to the plot of my novel.

How do you avoid repetition?

For instance, my plot in simples terms is about a girl who is in a relationship with somebody. Just how often can I write about her visiting this guy? How many times can I talk about her walking up the stairs, go into the house, and whatever?

I guess their are ways to do it, introduce a new way of 'getting her their' each time, but not only am I nearly out of ideas, but I there's only so many ways to do it. The days between her visits, her going and leaving, eveything just repeats itself in sequence, maybe not events, because no two days are the same. But the pattern is there.

That's I mean, everything is repetitious. So, I now ask

How does a writer avoid repetition when the entire story revolves around a repetitious event and situation?

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Repetition is not necessarily a bad thing, Vaxil. What matters in my opinion is how you present the repetitious stuff. I mean, if it's just, "She walked in the door, walked up the stairs, went into the bedroom," etc., every single time, it could become an issue.

But if you were to maybe describe how the girl walked in the door, or perhaps the way she climbed the stairs, with slight differences each time she does these things, the repetition could become an asset to the story.

Take, for example, how she climbs the stairs. If in one scene she's happy, and the next scene she's sad, the way she walks up the stairs in each instance would be different. I would capitalize on those kinds of subtle differences, if I were you. Instead of saying, "She walked up the stairs" when she's happy, you could say, "She bounded up the stairs with a spring in her step."

Or when she's sad, you could say something to the effect of, "She crept up the stairs at a slow crawl, her head hung low and her heart heavy with grief."

Of course, this is only one example. But do you see what I'm saying? The repetition can be useful in this manner, to make your story more alive in the reader's eyes. If you as the writer can see it in your mind, then try to describe what you see using the words you know. Try to describe the emotions, the body language, etc. That kind of stuff can change boring repetition to a great, enjoyable read.


I hope this helps. Good luck with your work.

You got some good advice, so I won't say too much. But one way that I do it is that I'll place my character in the room (for example: sitting on the bed, etc.) and I don't have to start each time with her walking into the bedroom or up the stairs. After the first time or two, it's assumed she got there by the stairs - she didn't fly in through the window. Unless, of course, she did. LOL

Anyway, Welcome to the Boards. Glad you found us. There's always plenty to learn here.

Vaxil said:

For instance, my plot in simples terms is about a girl who is in a relationship with somebody. Just how often can I write about her visiting this guy? How many times can I talk about her walking up the stairs, go into the house, and whatever?

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If her trip to his location isn't important to the purpose of the scene, don't describe it. Don't describe anything that isn't important to the purpose of the scene. (A caution: not all kinds of importance are always obvious.) You wouldn't walk her through every act of getting dressed to go to his house, right? She went to the closet and opened the door, she looked at the white and blue pants and tried to decide, she noticed that the white pants needed washing, she took the blue ones off their wooden hanger and tossed them on the bed, she chose a black sweatshirt, she... As you've noticed, that kind of thing gets boring fast.

Studying how travel is handled in existing novels ought to help.

Well, a lot of excellent advice has been given here.

To put in my 2 cents, however, I think (IMHO) that a plot should never be repetitive. Maybe you need to spice things up a bit? Even for a book, routine can sometimes be a bad thing. If you're already getting bored and desperate with so much repetition in your novel, maybe there's something wrong.

Okay, I don't even have 2 cents to offer -mybe 1/2 a cent-

Don't tell about her doing these things- show it!

that in and of itself will move your plot along.

Don't show anything that isn’t interesting or significant in some way. Don't have your character climb the stairs, knock on the door. Don't have them exchange pleasantries. Just drop the reader in the middle of the scene. At a point that grabs the reader's attention. End the scene the same way.



Think of that Seinfeld episode where George proposes to Susan, and a couple of scenes later he's shown plodding up the stairs behind her. No dialogue, but Susan's enormous fur coat makes her look like a fat Russian matron, and George's expression of hopelessness speak volumes. The only other time they showed those stairs, George was doing something stupid on them. Stairs was not a device to get characters up and down, it was a setting to reveal character, and to further the plot.

I think it's easy to fall into the trap of *looking* for things to spice up the action, but it might be more constructive to look at your main character and ask yourself what she wants that she's not getting. What are her conflicts within herself, and in the wider world? That's the stuff to hang your excitement on. If you don't know this, you're likely to meander through the story without a clear goal. Understanding what the character wants, and how she's foiled in getting it, will help you decide what scenes/parts of scenes you can easily cut.

Vaxil said:

...as it might disrupt the sequal I've planned.

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Ah! There's problem. Not only do you know the ending, but you've already planned out the sequel! You've locked up things so nothing can happen. But life isn't like that; life unfolds. And so should a novel. Go forward with an open mind and anything can happen. Real things, not things you've added to spice it up.

Vaxil said:

The scenes, like I mention before how the story is repitious, she goes to the house, she sit's for a kid (Main plot deal is her baby-sitting a seven year old child) and the family comes home. It gets even more so with scenes.

I daydream quite often about twists and scenes I can do to make things seem more 'exciitng' add a deal to the story besides her just going there and watching over. But, while I have plenty of ideas for things to happen, It makes me wonder whether or not I might have to make this shorter then I expected, because the ending is not anything completely dramatic, like death, or a fire or something. Besides 'getting someplace', although I mentioned I think I'm getting good with that, it's also 'scenes' that keep the story flowing that I fear I might out of. Of course no author's creativity runs out, but, I can't do anything completely dramatic like death or fire occur, as it might disrupt the sequal I've planned.

Sorry if the above hasn't made to much sense, I'm typing this on a caffine crash.

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Vax,

First off - . I think you'll find the people on these boards to be wonderfully helpful.

I think ending a story with a completely dramatic scene like a fire or something isn't always necessary. For instance, in Tolkien's Return of the King, Tolkien ends the story quite simply, with Samwise returning home (after saying goodbye to someone in the scene before - don't want to completely spoil it in case you haven't read it!). Very simple scene, but it makes me cry every time I read it - because of everything that happened before the ending scene.

So I wouldn't get too hung up about something "earthshattering" or "overly dramatic" to end your story. If it ends simply and quietly but wraps up the story, as the above shows, then that's the way the story should end. Period.

Just one other thing to think about, not that you have to take this advice at all: have you thought about outlining your story? Now you might be the type of writer that does better using a freeform style, and if that's you and it works, then that's fine. But I used an outline for my current WIP, and I feel I got the story together a lot more quickly than writing a bit of this and a bit of that as my mind wandered (and boy can it wander!). I got the rough draft together in about a month (but have been through plenty of revisions, and am currently getting the chapters critiqued).

It helped me because it 1) Made me think about the big scenes in my story, 2) Made me think about the smaller scenes leading up to those big scenes, and 3) Gave me an idea of the direction the story was headed. I did deviate in certain instances, esp. near the end of the story, so think of the outline as merely a guide. And after all the chapters are critiqued, and may have to do more changes to the story. Whatever.

Just something to think about. Good luck with your story!

~Nancy

This may sound silly, but I'm absolutely serious. Watch the Director's Commentary from the DVD of "The Secret Window." They had exactly this same problem (a story built around a series of phone calls, and having to figure inventive ways to film each one so as not to "lose"the audience). I found this to be really fascinating, and there are ideas they used that can translate to prose as well. I often find movies to be just as great a teaching tool as books.

Vaxil, listen to slobbit. A novel isn't just a bunch of things that happen one after another, even if some of them are dramatic or unusual.

On your original question, about repetition: In real life, when Jenny tells her friend Gloria about her visit to her boyfriend that day, she doesn't describe details like climbing the stairs unless there's a good reason. Gloria would interrupt with "Get on with it!" Novel readers are the same way.