city scenes

I'm finally trying to write the scenes for my novel that take place in my cities, scenes which i've been avoiding for a while. every time i try, i find i can't get the right mix of description, exposition, dialogue and action. how much of the city needs to be described? is there more danger of wasting time on lavish descriptions or of not making it clear where all this is going on? whe my angels return form their petrol to the Angel city, should i show them aproaching the city and describe it from there, or just cut to them in the city going about thier business?

is there arnywhere i can advice specifically on establishing place for city scenes? i feel it's very important because the tone and atmosphere of the city establish the culture of my angels.

Flawed -- I think you'll get a lot more input over in Writing Novels. I'll wait for you to respond to this, then with your okay, I'll move it over there.

I have a hunch Flawed suffered a wee brain cramp and thought he was posting in novels, or maybe SF/F.

Ah -- good point aka. Flawed? Writing Novels or SF/F? Or you can re-post in the forum of your choice and then I can delete this thread. Just let me know your preference.

Novel writing sounds good.

actually, i posted this here because i considered myself a newbie, and it seemed lie a newbie question. but you can move it to novel writing.

thank you.

Flawed, I think you got mixed up -- the "Newbies Forum" is for newbies to the board, not to writing in general...

Anyone with the title "Board Fanatic" under his name ain't a newbie anymore, even if this is his first novel. :grin

I'll be interested to hear what people have to say on this topic. I'm also dealing with city scenes in my novel. Most of it takes place in a small, run-down city, so I take some time to point out how this city is unique.

I point out the one tall building in town that dates to the 30's. It stands as evidence that the city was booming before the depression but has since failed. I point out old victorian mansions that have become the cut-up rental property of slum lords. I point out the boarded up shops and so-forth.

I have a few scenes that take place in Manhattan, and there, I don't bother to describe much at all, because it seems to me that everybody already has such a clear mental picture of that city.

Anyway... my big problem right now with city scenes is with the driving. I have a character that does a lot of driving around, and I find that it's getting confusing with all the lefts and rights and street names. I actually considered throwing in a map to help the reader, but that feels like big-time cheeting.

driving

mr. mistook- Is your main character a driver? Is the main action driving?

Re: driving

The driving scenes are all with a private detective, from her POV. She works alone so its only her thoughts and the radio going on in the car.

The city itself is a main character in the story. It's cursed, and that fact drives the whole plot. It's an unfamiliar city to the detective, so in early scenes I use her looking at maps and driving around to scope the terrain as a way to introduce the reader to the character of the city and the quirks of it's layout. I'm trying to introduce street names that will come up all through the book.

But there's also a few "tailing" scenes. Her subject is being tailed by another party in a Van, so she's constantly having to maneuver to keep tabs on both, and stay under the radar of both. The person in the van often takes alternate routes to get to places where the subject is going. The detective exploits this by switching from tailing one to the other and back all in one journey. So it gets fairly complicated.

The van breaks north on Lincoln while the subject continues west on Downer. The subject heads south on River and stops at the light on New York. The van, now heading west on New York cruises through the intersection. The detective breaks off from the subject and follows the van. Etc. etc.

Re: driving

Describe the settings (city landscape) when it's relevant to the story. Little things add up and soon your readers will have a good idea of what your city looks like, without being "yanked out" of the story. But I wouldn't go into a long exposition to describe the city, unless it's part of an important scene and it has a point.

Re: driving

Well, for what it's worth, I'd get lost with explicit directions in a book, and I have to say, I probably wouldn't care as much about left here, right there, if the internal thoughts of the protagonist were vivid and kept me focused. Example would be how upset your protag might get at being given the slip, only to find them again. Or, something like--I got their number. She wheeled to the left and fell in behind them past the next intersection...Like these grease-balls could give me the slip. Hope this makes some sense.

As to description, a phrase here, a line there, but please, don't bog down the action with exacting descriptions of the cracks on the sidewalk. I will skim pages of delightfully detailed description to get back to the story, no matter who the author might be. My beta-readers complain about that sort of thing, especially with the big names, telling me they liked their early stuff, but much less so now because of the pages of exposition they must wade through to find the story.

Mari

is there arnywhere i can advice specifically on establishing place for city scenes? i feel it's very important because the tone and atmosphere of the city establish the culture of my angels.

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What kind of narrator do you have, and what POV are you using?

Like everything else, there's a range. Are there books you find portray cities particularly vividly?

Here are some random examples off the top of my head:

The opening of _Swordspoint_, by Ellen Kushner.

_Winter's Tale_ by Mark Helprin, a long, vivid, fantastic love song to New York City.

_So You Want To Be A Wizard_, a short, vivid, fantasy-with-an-SF-feel love song to New York City.

I think one of the things you need to think about here is the pov character.

I describe the city in my novel from the point of view of the main character, who has never been in a city. She'd notice a lot of things that her love interest, who was raised in the city, wouldn't notice. On the other hand, her love interest would notice things (primarily things that were "out of sorts") that she wouldn't.

Settings are best when they integrate into the story -- little by little (use the five senses) and the readers will get a vivid picture of your settings. Don't stop the story cold and yank the readers out of your scene with long expositions of descriptions and settings. A short paragraph or two to set it up would be fine, but it has to be relevant to the scene.

Again, use the five senses. It will make your scene and settings come to life.

I have a few scenes that take place in Manhattan, and there, I don't bother to describe much at all, because it seems to me that everybody already has such a clear mental picture of that city.

Click to expand...

When you have a place everybody "knows" you can give a quick, new, vivid description by tossing in a fact that these people are not aware of. For instance most people's picture of NYC is of a bustling place when the weather is good.

The weather isn't always good and the city doesn't always bustle: Heat in the summer, cold, wind, and rain in the winter can be horrendous.

Just one small detail that adds to what everyone "knows" gives dimension to your work.

Nepveu-

originally i was writing in 3rd limited. i'm experimenting with omniscient now. sinc ethis is not only a first draft, but my first attempt at fiction i've been writing all different ways and will eventually decide what i like best and fix everything to go with it.

There are two cities in my book, but the one i am currently concerned with is the city of the Tenshi (angels).

there is a mixture of 3 styles of architecture in the city, and it's important to the plot- the angels themselves made buildings in two different styles, the new style being a mark of a new mindset, and the third type of bilding hints at the original owners of the city.

I have a number of details of the city worked out. for instance, it's round, divided into sectors like slices of a pizza, and these giants rocks called "Rim Stones" create a crisscrossing network of air currents. these serve as the roads the angels use.

the streets are not in fact paved with gold, but pyrite- fool's gold. i found this point very important to developing the theme and mood of the story, but can't find any convenient way to get it in. particularly when writing from the POV of any angel (and no humans enter the city), it feels very awkward, because they wouldn't notice or comment on the paving of their streets.

it's this kind of detail I have trouble integrating into my story.

the other city I need to write, eventually, is the capitol of the human principality most prominently featured in the story. there are only a few scenes there, but i want to use the city to show the overall fortunes of the nation, with the city growing propserous or poor, friendly or belligerent along with the country itself.

What goes into maintenance of the Angel city? Do these streets get pot-holes from time to time, or need to be re-paved? Are there a class of angels who do construction work?

I'm just thinking about times when I've noticed the streets and thought about pavement. It's usually when they're being worked on, or when they're in need of work. But I can see how in an angelic city, such might never be the case.

:shrug

I think it's great that you have detailed and thought about your cities so much that they so vivid. However, you have to ask the #1: Why would the readers care? If the fact that the city has no potholes has something to do with the angels or the plot of the story or something, it would be good to mention. If it's just trivial facts to make your city sounds more "out-of-worldly" then you need to figure out a way to include that information to enrich your story, but not the other way round.

well... it's mainly world-building. making it seem otherworldly IS necessary, because the readers need to understand three things: what the angels used to be like, what they're like now, and what they become through the events of the book.

the pyrite, for instance alludes to the theme of the book, that there's no real perfection, and that even angels make mistakes. only fools trust the angels to solve all their problems for them, and that's why it's paved not with gold as myth would have it but fool's gold.

I also haven't decided whether the basic description is best done through scenes in which the characters walk through the city or fly over it, in the airways.

the architectural differences should come out through short descriptions of the buildings individual scenes take place in, i hope. the characters are concerned about the architecture, so they can explain the difference. this is important because it allows them to realize the identity of the former owners, and the changing style of architecture is a visual reflection of the disagreement between the protagonist and the establishment.

as for the toads- I jadn't thought about it. my guess is that it would be mentioned to one of the archangels, who would repair it telekinetically.

Flawed...

Your story sounds very intriguing. I like the symbolism of the fools gold now that you've explained it a bit. I would agree that it has to come out somewhere that the gold is actually pyrite.

Streets of iron pyrite -- I love it.

mr mistook beat me to the maintenance suggestion.

Other thoughts: someone could trip, and land face-first onto the pyrite of the road. Someone could be momentarily dazzled by the shine off the pyrite. Someone could pass by their favorite building and think how much nicer it looks than the old-style one standing next to it. Etc.

Or, if you're experimenting with omniscient, you could try just having your omniscient narrator describe it, possibly with commentary on how the angels _are_ blind to what's around them. This is probably harder to do well, but might be an interesting experiment.

Description of the city landscape depends on your book's genre, and the level of verisimilitude you want to describe.

I'm writing a series of private detective novels based in Houston. As with most private eye novels, the landscape of the city is a definite factor in the narrative. Here is a brief excerpt from my 2nd novel:
_________

As I drove into the city center, I also entered an immense cloud of haze hanging between the skyscrapers like some malevolent translucent beast crouching amid a forest of steel and concrete. Once I got there I couldn’t really see it any more, but my watery eyes were witness to the crud I was breathing. These past couple of weeks the pollution had been exacerbated by the hot and stagnant weather pattern. We needed another good rain to wash the air clean.

The tavern is about five blocks from the cop shop, nestled between a bail bond agency and a shyster law office. I walked inside and the bartender had a Bud on the counter soon as he saw me. I guess that made me a regular.
________

Here I used the smog and pollution to set the dreary tone of the remainder of the chapter. To set the mood.

So in my novels, the city itself is a character of sorts.