Discussion The Scribble Pad (Fanfic Writing Discussions)

Didn't know that some things needed to be pre-warned.

 

I want to ask the main difference between here and the "advice and discussion" thread.

But to get everything started.
I have been told my chapters are "confusing"
I have been putting in POV character name at the front of chapters a la GRR Martin like Chapter VIII Hamelie Mintensega.
The chapter is written in Grand Admiral Hamelie Mintensega's viewpoint.
Why might a reader get confused? Not enough backstory? I was counting on people to continue to read until they get the aha! moment and now I'm afraid I'm losing readers because everything wasn't in the first chapter.

 

Are you using different POVs each chapter, or staying consistent with one person throughout the story?

 

different POV each chapter.

 

That would be where it gets confusing.

The human brain will skim some details whilst reading, and I for one would probably skip over chapter titles as meaning something to the author, but not to me.

For instance, I find it more of a strain to read on screen, than a physical book, so I will take steps to confine myself to the 'meat and potatoes' of a thing, rather than absorbing all the ancilliary data as well, eg. I'll ignore most of Ewok Poet's additional Sacorran data, and just dive into one of her stories.

I suppose this means, that despite you putting POV etc at the start of each chapter, some readers might not understand the significance.

 

I think it depends on how many POVs you have going. I can usually follow 1 or 2, 3 maybe, especially if they all have different 'voices.' More than that can be hard to keep track of.

 

oh, so game of thrones and the expanse novels are generally not people here's cup of tea?

 

There is/was a GOT type roleplay game on the RPG forum, and I have a vague memory of that being to get around a ban on either GOT or G R R Martin fan works.

There is a Disallowed Works thread which lists where creators and copyright holders don't allow fan-created stuff; you may have to change names to protect the innocent.

EDIT: Okay, here ya go: Disallowed Works List.

If you find elsewhere that Mr Martin has changed his mind, and allows fanfiction now, that list will be updated, and you'll be good to go.

 

ARRGHJ!

I was talking about the fact that in GRR Martin and Janes SA Coreys works they change POV every chapter and every book have at least 7 POV characters.

confusion strikes again! <Dexter S02E01> I am cursed </Dexter S02E01>

 

Ah right. You are fine then.

I think Briannakin 's response with using / reading multiple narrators answered your query the best.

 

Certainly, every character tells their story from their own point of view. I don't think I've ever tried one. But it's a delicate line... are you having your narrator keep the truth from the reader deliberately so you can have a cool plot twist later, which can make the reader feel cheated and manipulated if you're not careful, or does the narrator genuinely believe the falsehood themself? I was thinking of Phillippa Gregory's Boleyn Inheritance, which has three narrators. One of them is Jane Rochford, sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn and widow of her brother George, who accused Anne of marital infidelity. Her testimony ensured that both Anne and her brother would be executed. In Gregory's book, she has convinced herself that she did it to 'save' her husband and his inheritance, and that once he confessed, he'd be pardoned and come back to her.

That would not make a bad future challenge at some point...write something with an unreliable narrator.

 

I believe one of Timothy Zahn's non-Star Wars stories, I think it is The Icarus Hunt, does this. Otherwise I thought it was a good read, but I definitely felt cheated when the truth was revealed. My reaction was something like, So the narrator's been misleading us this whole time? Why, exactly? I think it might have worked better if it was third person story. In this particular case, I didn't see any reason why the narrator would be hiding anything, except so the author could have a plot twist at the end.

I think an unreliable narrator can work if the narrator is genuinely confused or doesn't understand things themselves, or if they have a reason to lie to the reader.

 

I can give an example

In the fic I'm writing now, a character is written as a lightsaber specialist, very skilled in the blade work. In another chapter, Character B kills her. Describing their duel to the death as "the opponent's lightsaber skills are childish and amateurish and easy to defeat. Now which character is lying?

Read wikipedia's summary of Rashomon (the Japanese film).

 

There's also the idea behind the 'unreliable narrator' that narrator(s) are coloring their narration with their view and then we as the reader/viewer coloring the narration because of how we feel about the characters..

Spoiler

In The Force Awakens Han blames Ben's Fall on 'having too much Darkness in him' while Leia says it's Snoke's fault and that he took advantage of Ben's vulnerability and lured him to the Dark Side. Right here we have two different 'narrations' on why Ben went to the Dark Side. We then also get a snippet from an interview with Adam Driver and he says that just because Han and Leia were good people it doesn't mean that they were good parents (that's the gist of what he said). We also get from both Leia and Han that they argued a lot and, on more than one occasion, Han would leave for an undisclosed amount of time. So are we seeing things how they really are or are we seeing things the way we want to see them? No one wants to believe that Han and Leia were bad parents but what if they struggled like all parents and allowed things to become more important and their fears to rule them to the point they dropped the ball?

 

To me, an "unreliable narrator" states, or at least strongly implies, that objective facts are different than they are. It's not just "a certain point of view" or an opinion. The narrator is not just telling us their side of the story, they're telling us a story that (purposely or not) does not align with reality.

 

Personally, I cannot see anyone being happy, going from civilization, to the foresty, muddy, **** holes that EU Luke took his students to train them.

Han and Leia might have had the best intentions, letting Luke take Ben away...but did they ever ask Ben?

 

Maybe Yavin 4 because the NR doesn't give the Jedi budget for building a temple? So Yavin 4 had the dormitories already there?

 

I love Keyser Söze stories There was an element of the unreliable narrator in the epic I finished last year because the POV protagonist was willingly ignoring the darker sides of the second protagonist, but it wasn't full Keyser Söze either. I've been toying with the idea of a multi-POV story for a while ( like DARTH_MU described above -- you're not alone!) and what I'd really like to do is make it a story where *all* the narrators are unreliable. I started outlining it but I quickly lost track of who was telling which lie so it'll have to wait until I can dedicate my full attention to it.

 

We get the story from the narrator and their views and opinions are is what is presented to us. Imagine how we might think about the heroes of various stories if we were told the story from the point of view of the bad guys and it was that way from the beginning? The Rebels are terrorists, the United Federation of Planets would destroy our way of life if they were to cross our border, Batman puts innocent people in a mental hospital where they are tortured and so on. It happens in RL too: the victors write the history.

All narrators are biased in some way but because they are heroes, or the rare case villains, we don't doubt the righteousness, or villainy, of their cause.

We trust the writer to tell us who, what (where) and why and we then trust that we are being told the truth and not a lie.

However, I doubt that too often we are deceived by narrators; but we are driven by our preconceived notions about the characters.

 

I agree Lady Misty. Lost Stars have convinced me the Imperials are the good guys.