Challenge Fifty Titles in Search of a Story | We have a winner! Congrats to divapilot :)

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/things-fall-apart-50-titles-challenge-l-m-au.50039279/][/url] "Things Fall Apart"

First post is up!!!! It is a L/M AU (Shocker!) Word count so far is 2,946.


As to this week's question...I also am with Briannakin I didn't realize that's what all those were!! I guess I usually use third person omniscient in most of my postings. I've written a single one-shot that was in second person narrative, and it was one of my favorites (curse you, truncation!!!!! ) but I tend to stick with third person. I will also write in third person limited POV sometimes when I'm trying to show someone's inner thoughts (I dislike that in omniscient--though I've done it!). So yeah.

Let me just say....LOVE reading all these stories. Makes my heart happy.

 

Beginning to make progress on my story. Got an outline/plot summary written for the prologue and first three chapters. May or may not get more done tonight.

My goal is to complete the outline, and obviously write and post the prologue, by the end of March, then write the whole thing before the end of June. I can't stand posting the meat of a story before I've finished writing the whole thing, because sometimes during the final writing process, I'll decide to make a small tweak to a later portion of the story that necessitates changes in an early chapter to compensate for it, which is much harder if those early chapters have already been posted.



EDIT: Two hours later, I ended up calling it a night with the prologue and six chapters outlined. The prologue in this case does nothing but set up the premise of this particular AU, which isn't going to change, so it should be easy to write and post before the whole story is done.

Speaking of prologues, and relevant to the current discussion subject, what, if anything, do you do special with POVs in prologues? Though I can't recall off-hand, I know I've seen stories where a different narrative voice was used (such as first-person for the prologue and third-person for the rest of the story), and other similar techniques to help distinguish the prologue from the story itself.

In the case of my story for this challenge, the prologue will be from a specific character's POV which will never be used again (that is, the POV will never be used again, although the character himself will show up again near the end of the story). The rest of the story will rotate among the POVs of the OC main protagonists, but the prologue will be from the perspective of a canon character.

 

Prologue is up: Our Kind of Traitor

It's a Star Wars/Stargate SG1/Harry Potter crossover. Word count is 1103. I tried my hand at writing third person omniscient. For now, I'm planning to stick with it throughout the story. However, I have seen omniscient POV adopted in the first chapter so the author can set up the story without being restricted to what one person sees or hears. It switches from omniscient to third person limited.

 

Huh, that's actually pretty interesting. I've experimented a bit with a Second-Person narrative that flows into Third-Person (Limited). Kind of like how the book Mavjade suggested a while back - The Gun Seller - opens with Second-Person and leads into First-Person. I suspect that's because the two just naturally work very well together. The only times I've seen First-Person being followed by Third-Person is if the book has periodic journal entries or something like that.

 

One Thousand and One Nights

First chapter. I wanted to get to 3000 words in my first post but that didn't happen. First post is 1640 words.

Oh yeah, I'm gonna do the POV thing too.

Do you have a preference for one of the narrative POVs listed above?

Automatically I want to start writing in first person but I usually end up with third person omniscient as it gives more freedom.


Do you switch POVs during your stories, or do you limit yourself to a single character's perspective?

I like to switch it up. It is good to show different characters thoughts instead of just one.

If you're a first-person/third-person limited writer, did you ever try to experiment with an unreliable narrator in order to mislead the reader and end your story on a twist?

Never tried, though it seems like something interesting to try sometime.

Anything else you'd like to say about narrative voices and POVs?

Nope. I write in third person omniscient, simple as that.

 

Sorry for not updating the thread yesterday everyone, I'm up to my nostrils in awards planning. I promise I'll be back tomorrow with a new discussion topic, and I'll get to reading and reviewing all your fics as soon as possible

 

Progress update: I caught a cold Tuesday night, which has completely killed off my progress in plotting. On the bright side, I've installed the Google Drive client and placed my entire fanfic folder inside the Google Drive folder, so it will now be automatically backed up and I no longer have to remember to back it up manually (which I was really, really bad at doing before).

 

Progress report: 10K words. I should finish this probably this week, posting soon.

 

HOLY NUT BALLS.

How do you do that?!!?! I felt proud I had made it to 2k words!!! PLUS, I know it's going to be absolutely, mind-blowingly awesome...and also 100% gramatically-correct

 

I am almost at 10K and hope to be gramatically-correct.
I am Dutch you see

 

Just dropping a couple of quick comments on last week's topic before I post the wrap-up.

Prologue and POV issue

I believe that a prologue has to stand out from the rest of the story, because if it doesn't it's not really a prologue, it's a first chapter. IMO writing the prologue from a different POV is a great way to achieve that, and now that you've mentioned it, I'll probably do it myself Giving the terms of the problem that the story will resolve from the perspective of a narrator who will not be the one resolving it gives substance to the story, and it can also act as a framing device for the main narrative.

Unreliable narrator

I absolutely adore unreliable narrators and final twists when they're well-handled. Bri mentioned The Sixth Sense above, another film that I love for the same reason is The Usual Suspects. If the author can tease me with clues that the narrator is unreliable from page one, but never give it away until the end, it's even better

 

Wrap-up week 10

POV: ease of writing vs. demands of the narrative

We all have a preference for a specific type of POV, or combination of POVs, that makes the story flow more easily out of our pens (or keyboards). However, there are a number of constraints related to the narrative that sometimes force us to shift POVs or to write in a POV we don't normally favour:

• Using a POV that sticks to a single character's perspective forces you to leave out things that you want the reader to know. This can be solved by complementing the narrative with dialogue.
• Shifting POVs allows you to show the story from all angles, a rotating 3rd-person limited or omniscient POV also allows to show the various characters' feelings and thoughts.
• The length of the story is also an element to take into consideration. An omniscient POV gives more freedom and can be great for epics, but also makes it difficult to keep an element of mystery.
• Some types of POV can be more or less appropriate for specific types of scenes. For instance, writing action can be easier in 3rd person objective than in 1st person, but 3rd person objective also makes it difficult for the reader to connect with the characters.
• There's also an element of habit to all this. When you get used to writing in a certain type of POV, it influences your writing style.

Reader/writer involvement with the story/narrator

• When you write in 1st person, the reader may assume that your narrator is you, not a fictional character. This may cause misunderstandings.
• When writing 1st person, it's important to remember that the character is telling the story, not you. The narrative has to be in-character and it's important for that character to have biases as well.
• Still about 1st person, some of us feel the need to have an in-universe answer to the question "Why is this character talking to me in the first place?"
• Reading a story written in the 2nd person can be difficult, because as a reader you are expected to identify with the character.
• Sticking to one character's POV (whether 1st or 3rd person) makes the reader invested in the character's perspective and allows for more introspection.

When to shift POVs in a story

• We all seem to agree that shifting POVs requires clear section breaks, so as not to confuse the reader.
• On the other hand, when you write in a way that requires you to shift POVs, you also need to ensure that your story has a coherent flow.
• Sometimes, the length of the story doesn't really allow you to shift POVs, so you might have to go for 3rd person omniscient.
• For prologues in particular, writing them in a different POV than the rest of the story is a way to make the prologue stand out or act as a framing device for the main body of the narrative.

Unreliable narrator

Using an unreliable narrator involves more planning than a reliable one. It allows for "I see dead people" or "I am Keyser Söze" twists but you need to be careful to pepper your narrative with clues to indicate that maaaaaybe the reader shouldn't trust this narrator. And even then, sometimes the reader doesn't get it

----------------------------------

As usual, please let me know if I left out anything important from what was said.

 

Week 11: The POV exercise

The purpose of this exercise is to experiment with writing the same scene from different POVs. The scene I chose is roughly the 10th minute of TESB, it includes the following bits:

• The Rebel troops are in the trenches on Hoth, waiting to see what's coming for them.
• The first Rebel transport and its escort of X-wings manage to fly away after the Executor is hit by an ion cannon shot.
• The people in Echo Base cheer at the news.
• The Imperial walkers appear on the horizon.
• The ground starts shaking and the battle of Hoth begins.
• The Rebel snowspeeders fly out to meet the Imperial walkers.

You'll find below a list of proposed POVs. The exercise is to write a short piece (max 300 words) for one or more of them. We can then comment on each other's pieces and discuss the interest of each approach.

Proposed POVs

1. First-person for any of the characters listed below.
2. Second-person for any of the characters listed below.
3. Third-person omniscient.
4. Third person objective.
5. Third-person limited for one of the characters listed below.
6. Third-person rotating for more than one of the characters listed below.

Proposed characters (this includes characters that are off-screen in the film)

• Admiral Piett
• Artoo-Deetoo
• C-3PO
• Chewbacca
• Dak Ralter (Luke's gunner)
• Darth Vader
• General Veers
• Leia Organa
• A Rebel technician in the hangar bay of Echo Base
• A snowtrooper sitting in one of the AT-ATs
• Toryn Farr (the "stand by, ion control" woman)
• Trey Callum (the guy who first sees the Imperial walkers in his binoculars)
• The wampa
• Wedge Antilles
• The X-wing pilot escorting the Rebel transport

NOTE: Because I failed to update the thread on Friday, our weeks from now on will be Sunday to Saturday.

 

I kind of overextended from where the scene takes place. Just a little...

Spoiler

Ion Control isn't answering your hail over the comms.

You don't panic, don't even think the worst of it. You just let the time breathe, about ten seconds. They might be busy over another channel. They might be tuned into the wrong freq. It could be anything, you tell yourself.

Meanwhile, you check the rolling feed of traffic spikes on your TacDisplay to make those long seconds pass a little quicker. The Imps have broken through the First and Second Defense Barriers. Com-Control is a nightmare. Unit transponders keep lighting up the screen, flaring LOST in bright red. Makes it easier to sift through the panicked traffic from Ground Support and the Hangar Bays. You might feel bad about taking relief in how it frees up your transmission band so it isn't so clogged, causing a dozen voices to bleed over the same channel at once. At least you would if looking on the bright side wasn't the only way to keep the dead silence from crushing you.

"Ion Control, Com-Control, please respond. Over." You say. It wouldn't worry you so much if their last transmission hadn't been about Imperials entering the base. Not while you still have birds on the ground. They'll be knocking on your front door any minute now.

A blast shatters through the cold ceiling over you, sending light fixtures and chunks of ice crashing down. A power supply somewhere overloads, sending energy fluctuations pumping into the console on your left. The screen bursts, shards of glass cutting into your cheek. The proximity alarms blare and you hear the Lead Controller order ground forces to disengage.

You keep hailing Ion Control, tuning your transceiver to see if the problem's on your end. You know it's not.

“Ion Control, Ion Control, Com-Control, do you copy? Over.”

 

Glor - I love the sense of urgency and concentrated effort you have written in and the "You" POV just makes it more umphy.

 

Glor, I skimmed through your response to this challenge the other day and thought it was masterful. But this, this makes it even better. It takes a really, really good writer to dare to attempt second-person-anything, at any given point. Love it!

 

From Piett's POV.

Spoiler

Admiral Piett scowled as he looked out the Executor's forward viewpanel. The Rebels' X-wings were competent, he would give them that much. They had scored a decisive hit on the SSD's starboard side, temporarily puncturing the shields until the technician was able to compensate for the power gradient.

Piett scrambled another squad of TIEs and ordered the Imperial Walkers to go ground-side: "Fighters to your bays and make forays in grid overlays as follows."

Their screens displayed an overlapping firing pattern of synchronized wing-pairs, to increase potency of firepower and enhance the damage inflicted on the Base below.

Piett knew that failure was not an option, not even to be contemplated. An unmitigated success would be all that Vader would permit.

 

Nyota's Heart - There's something very precise and technical about the wording you use while sitting us in Piett's POV. Very fitting for an Admiral of his stature. That's probably one of the hardest things to do in Third Person: illustrating a character and their thought process just by sentence structure and word choice.

 

Am I right in thinking there's still numbers free for this challenge? If so, I'd like to sign up...

 

Until tomorrow, there is. Post your selection of an unused number from the list on the first page, and Chyntuck (or her sock) will be around to give you the title. Do be aware that your first chapter (or prologue) must be posted before the end of March to qualify for the competition.

 

Snokers What he said ^^^ You can see the available numbers here.

 

Challenge accepted I'll take number 45.

 

Oh, you picked the jackpot Your title is Z (borrowed from Vassilis Vassilikos). I'll PM you a few details about the challenge asap.

 

'Z' ...the possibilities are pretty much endless. Thanks, I'm really looking forward to this and challenging myself!

 

Z? What a strange title. The possibilities are indeed endless.