When main character leaves "the base"

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sadron

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I have this problem, when my MC leaves the main city for a quest, is it good write what happens mean while in the city, after a while? Or should I write and follow the MC all the time?

What do you suggest?
 

Fenika

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Ah, I have learned a great deal from my time here, and I will answer your question little grasshopper.

It depends.

No, seriously. You can do as I did, type it all up, then look back and see what you can sumarize/remove/burn. Does it develop the character? Reveal anything? Set the um, setting?. There's a part in my chapter 1 that is likely to get shredded in the near future b/c it kills the pace of my story with TMI...

Cheers,
Christina
 

Dave.C.Robinson

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I can only say what I did in my fantasy novel. After the protagonist left the city where the novel started I did go back to it a few times, in each case to the story of characters that were still in the city. Things occurred while he was away that affected what happened when he returned, but anything the reader learned they learned from following characters who remained behind.
 

Death Wizard

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My fantasy series has multiple POVs. But each comes from the perspective of developed characters the reader has already come to know. And I was extremely careful about how and when I mixed them up. It's certainly possible to write a standalone fantasy novel with a single, strictly constructed POV, but it would be difficult-to-impossible to do this with a long series, seems to me.
 

Eudaemonic

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It's third person I take it?

How far are you into the book? If it's only one or two chapters - could you pick up another character to describe city events who eventually meets up with your MC? If you are eg 15 chapters in then don't do it - it will sound like what it is - a plot device.

How does your MC learn about what's going on there later? It is very easy to trip yourself up this way - and to forget what MC 'knows' and doesn't 'know'. Be very careful and make lists or something otherwise your character may begin to display strangely accurate knowledge of events they never witnessed and haven't heard of. Even if you don't notice, you can be sure someone will.

Personally, I wouldn't do it unless I had intended on having more than one narrating character from the beginning.

Lastly - try it, and if it doesn't work, bin it. Hope that helps.

daemon
 

sadron

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Oh thank you guys. This have been a pain to me. Before I went back to city with side character who stays in the city. MC never knew what happened when he was away.
I' m still in chapter 1. I asked in forehand what to do, thanks.
 
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