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What the narrator knows; what the reader knows

skzb — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:19:22 +0000

I had a friend email me with a cool question: How do you let the reader in on something the first person protagonist doesn’t?

I know it’s tricky, and I know it can be done, and I know it’s a rush when you pull it off. My answer involved set-up: You establish the character as someone who is liable to miss drawing the correct conclusion when certain types of facts are in front of him, then you can have him report on things from which the reader will draw the correct conclusion, but the protagonist won’t. For example, he might reminisce about a time a certain woman was attracted to him, and talk about the way she communicated it, and then say that he didn’t realize that until much later. Now you can have his current lover drop clues that she is on the edge of breaking up with him, and the reader will believe that he doesn’t see it. If you do it well enough, that is: it’s all about walking the line between, on the one hand, making the clues so subtle the reader doesn’t catch on, and, on the other, making the clues so obvious the reader won’t believe the protagonist doesn’t get it.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting question, and worth throwing out to the Smart People who hang out here to see what other answers emerge.

What the narrator knows; what the reader knows

Help. I can’t remember my own work.

skzb — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 21:13:20 +0000

I”ve just written a scene for my current project in which my viewpoint character goes on a rant about being at peace with one’s self, expressing disdain for the concept. I finished it, looked at it, and said, “Wait. I’ve written this already.” Was that my imagination, or did I actually write that scene? If so, where? I should look it over to see if this one is different enough, or if I should just scrag it. If someone more familiar with my work than I am can tell me, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

Help. I can’t remember my own work.

Short-short sold

skzb — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:06:05 +0000

I’ve sold a short-short called “Mira” to Sword and Sorceress #25, scheduled to be out in November. Sword and Sorceress was Emma Bull’s first sale, and, as Emma is one of my heroes (no, I’m not kidding), I’ve always wanted to have a story in that anthology. I’m delighted. The story came out of a conversation with Reesa, so special thanks to her. Smooches, too.

Short-short sold

Progress report, and thank-you

skzb — Sun, 09 May 2010 03:23:46 +0000

I’m on the last chapter of Tiassa, and I want to take a moment to thank Alexx Kay for his timeline, Mark Mandel for Cracks and Shards, and everyone who has been maintaining the Dragaera Wiki; these resources have been especially useful over the last couple of days.

Progress report, and thank-you

Another Tiassa Update

skzb — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:59:37 +0000

After several conversations with Reesa, what I think is the last chunk of Tiassa has fallen into place well enough that I can see where I’m going. I think. Maybe. For the moment. So I believe I’m on track to finish it. I have noticed that, with each of the last several books, I have pissed off some percentage of Vlad fans, and this makes me sad. So, with this book, I’m hoping to piss off all of them. I hate half measures.

Another Tiassa Update

Characterization discussion: Internal Logic

Reesa — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:21:53 +0000

Among the many and ongoing interesting discussions at our home, we’ve been talking about the concept we’re calling “internal logic” for a character. Internal logic here means that, among other things: an action that to an outside observer appears irrational, wrong, or evil, from the internal viewpoint of the character will be a justified, logical, and right action to make. It’s a useful thing to examine for most characters, but especially helpful in creating believable antagonists in a story.

Tolkien got around the need to deeply explore this by creating a world where evil really did exist, and some creatures did things because they were bad evil things to do. In this sort of scenario, you don’t have to worry too much about internal consistency for a antagonist’s actions as long as you have the formula “evil is good”. Unfortunately, Tolkien’s many imitators have generally not done as well as he did, and these days most people who encounter the Evil Overlord stereotype are likely to assign a label of “campy” “trite” or “overdone” to whichever story has the latest iteration of the trope.

Another loophole to spending a lot of time with discovering a character’s internal logic is the “Rendezvous with Rama” effect. For those of you who haven’t read or don’t remember the original story *spoiler alert skip to the next paragraph* an alien ship passes through our solar system, refuels from our sun, and departs. We send a ship out from Earth to explore the large alien ship, see lots of really interesting things, and learn nothing much about the aliens who created the ship. It’s the ultimate story in creating aliens with very alien motives that have little to nothing to do with humans except in passing.*end of spoilers*

Similarly, in Steve’s book Issola, the Jenoine are massively powerful and very alien, doing things that from the view of both the reader and the characters are hard to understand. Since that’s rather the point, we don’t really need to understand further about the Jenoine’s internal viewpoint.

With both of these examples, the unfathomability is the point of both the alien ship and the Jenoine. With characters that come closer to human-like actions and understandings, internal logic considerations become more of a factor. The world from the outside-looking-in and the inside-looking-out are often far different for people, and even for non-POV characters you might need to know something about their internal motivations. So how do you depict this?

One of my own characters tends to organize their environment in ways that to my first impressions seem counter-intuitive. It’s not a way that I would organize things, and sometimes doesn’t seem to make logical sense from my perspective. However, when I ask myself “why would [said character] arrange their things in that way?” I nearly always have an answer that comes to mind that makes sense from the viewpoint and life experiences of the character. Even if the internal explanation for the room arrangement doesn’t make it directly onto the written page, the fact that I as the writer understand why the character does a certain thing means that it’s more likely to reflect that knowledge in little bits of characterization throughout the story that will bring that understanding to the reader.

-Reesa

What springs to mind is the skeptic’s mantra: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. As it applies to fiction, it seems to me that the more bizarre the thought processes of the character, the more you have to convince the reader that the character really does think that way. The fun part is: how do you do it?

I was remembering Will Shetterly’s first novel, Cats Have No Lord, in which the antagonist’s primary motivation was fear–he did all sorts of horrible things because they seemed to be the best way to keep himself safe–and Will sold it so thoroughly that I never questioned it. Will did it with a hint here, a comment there, which was enough to clue the reader in to what was going on. Generally, I like the “less is more” approach when practicable.

The most fun way to approach it, for me, is to fall completely into the head of that character, and then write it in first person from his POV (I did that in Agyar), but there have to be other ways. I’m wondering what other people have used, or noticed.

-Steve

Characterization discussion: Internal Logic

I have something important to tell you

skzb — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:58:53 +0000

To all writers, and especially TV writers, just thought you should know that the riff where someone says, “I have something important to tell you,” and then gets interrupted before being able to tell it, is now played out. In fact, it was played out the first time it was used. If your goal is to make me think, I guess it works; but what I think is, “Geez, what a lousy writer.”

Maybe you can come up with some clever twist on it, where that is what happens, but it doesn’t seem to be what happens, so that the audience doesn’t realize that you’re pulling that stunt until the reveal. If you can do that, fine. If not, I think you ought to take that gimmick and put it into the bag next to woman-who-kicks-ass-because-her-kid-is-threatened and drop it into Lake Michigan; with all the pollution already there it’ll hardly be noticed.

Thank you. That is all.

I have something important to tell you

Tiassa Update

skzb — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:47:02 +0000

It’s been pointed out to me that I’ve been slacking off on giving progress reports.

Tiassa is being difficult. Between conversations with Reesa and with Neil, I’ve been convinced to try something a bit challenging. I think it’s going to be really cool if it works, but at the moment I’m beating my head against it about halfway through. Judging by past experience, I imagine in a week or so things will fall into place and I’ll be moving forward.

Tiassa Update

Copy of email sent to Jonathon Frid

skzb — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:37:50 +0000

I just sent the following to JonathonFrid.com, and thought I may as well share it here as well:

Back in 1993, I published my 12th novel, AGYAR, my only vampire novel. I was one of those kids who raced home from school to catch Dark Shadows at 3:30. Until recently, when I’ve been watching DS again, I didn’t realized the degree to which Jack Agyar was influenced by Barnabas Collins. Now that I am aware of it, it seems only fair to acknowledge it, and to say thank you.

Warm regards,

Steven Brust

Copy of email sent to Jonathon Frid

A Poker Poem

skzb — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:22:53 +0000

I think that I shall never love
A play as much as the all-in shove.
When I just smile and hitch my belt
And take myself down to the felt,
Then lean back, say something funny,
Like, “Call this if you don’t like money.”
My opponent weighs my expression bland:
How much does he like his hand?
The mound of chips that I have risen
Puts him to a hard decision.
Unless he is very bold
Or has the nuts, he has to fold.
As the chips fall and scatter
I know position does not matter.
And shoving in those gravid stacks
From now on I can relax
(No one can do worse, you see,
Then what I have just done to me).
Luck is made by God above;
But it takes some balls to call a shove.

A Poker Poem