Timewaster's Guide Archive

He, she, and it are all out of the question. There are no he's or she's in my story, and I can't very well go around calling every and anyone an "it". My main question is can anyone think of something better then what I've been using?

It was his time. It was his time.

Quote from: Shaggy on February 14, 2009, 09:06:14 PM

I've always wondered this, but have never taken the energy to actually find out… is the holiday called 'Valentines Day' or 'Valentine's Day'??

It was originally called "Saint Valentine's Day", but now people just call it Valentine's day, with the ' i think.

It's still St. Valentine's Day, but corporations take the St. off because if people realize that it's a Catholic holiday they will lose a lot of business from non-Catholics.

Frog, I used Mistborn and tWoT as examples because most everyone on this board has read both. If I had to hold up the shining example in speculative fiction for each, I would say Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy for the italicized, and anything written by Gene Wolfe for narrative.

* There maybe spoilers for Mistborn and the Wheel of Time in this thread *

Authors Note: Because I haven’t seen a Writing Excuses episode on this, and because it is something that new writers can get confused on, I’m going to try and give information about how to use internal dialogue from what I’ve learnt.

Internal dialogue was my biggest weakness and something I still struggle with, thus I feel qualified to give advice.

You can feel free to disagree, discus, or jump in with your own thoughts on the subject, but the essay is from my own experiences as a writer.



Internal Dialogue, An Essay

Good internal dialogue doesn’t disrupt the flow of the story; great internal dialogue can’t be seen by the naked eye.

In Brandon Sanderson’s book Mistborn, he uses italicized internal dialogue. This is the first and most commonly used form of internal dialogue. What this does is let the reader know that the italicized sentences are thoughts, and making a clear distinction between the rest of the narrative and the character’s thought. The side affect is that the overuses of the italicized thoughts can distract from the rest of the story. So, while the reader knows for certain that these are character’s thoughts and not necessarily facts, the italicized sentences can be jarring and can throw the reader out of the story.

The second from of internal dialogue is interweaved into the narrative like in the Wheel of Time series—although typically used in first person point-of-view. This allows the author to use unreliable narrators, and doesn’t distract the reader with eye-popping italics. The down side to this kind of dialogue is that it becomes hard for the reader to understand when the narrator is being honest, and when they are lying. It also reads a lot like stream of conscious thought because the character’s minds are so interweaved into the story that the writer has to follow them, this can cause the story to get a bit off track and lose momentum.

Most writers use a combination of the two, so don’t think that you have to use one or the other. Either one of these are good, but misuses of either can ruin a story. Too many italicized sentences can put the story inside the character’s head and make the world and people around him or her dull and lifeless. Using narrative with an underdeveloped character can read like a movie script, or the character’s thoughts may be inconsistent.

When is too much? When the character’s thoughts are the highlight of the novel. One of the attractions of a story should be the characters interactions with one another, unless you are writing something experimental. When one character’s thoughts over shadow the rest of the story then it is obvious that that character is making the world around them feel less interactive despite how developed the author may have made it.

How to avoid too much? It’s as simple as basic human communication: body language and speech. Facial expressions, hand gestures, and body lean can tell the reader a lot about what a character is thinking if used correctly in a social situation. Using speech, you can outright let the reader know what the characters are thinking without breaking point-of-view.

(Or, even better, you can have your main character lie to another without giving an explanation to the reader. This is a good way to see if you are using internal dialogue correctly. Writing a story in which one character lies to another and having people read it to see how many understand why the character did without telling them is a good exercise.)

There are other ways such as having other lively characters around the narrator, or making the narrator very interactive with other people. Typically when you want to use internal dialogue there is a reason to let the reader know what the character is thinking, in those situations it is best to go ahead and use some form of internal dialogue, but I caution against creating your character as a channel through which your own thoughts flow (it can feel oppressive, and just plain annoying).

In terms of the errors, this looks like my first book. I believe that everyone has the same problems when they first starts, so take this with a grain of salt because it isn't meant to be insulting but constructive criticism.

The prologue is eerily similar to that of the Eye of the World. It also felt rushed. Being only one paragraph, I don’t think it constitutes as a prologue to begin with, but that’s just me—in my mind it would work better, if it is absolutely needed, as an omniscient opening paragraph rather than a prologue.

As for do you need it, I would say that depends if you are making a series or a standalone novel. In a standalone a prologue should probably be directly connected to the opening of the story—basically chapter one but with a different name.

Your paragraph structure needs a bit of work. The first paragraph of Chapter one should’ve been about three or four. When you change subject, you need to change paragraphs.

Either you are writing in third omniscient or breaking point of view by jumping onto the guards mind right before he gets attacked because in the paragraph before you were writing in “soul taker’s” point of view.

If Taker can cut a harness from a horse while flipping in the air, why wouldn’t he had just killed a man—or two considering he did all of this effortlessly—while in the air instead of sending the horses running. If they are trained horses—I don’t know enough about your world yet to decipher where they are and how trained the soldiers are—, they would return to their homes, thus warning that something had happened the riders.

Again another point of view, unless you’re writing in omniscient they need to be cleaned up because they are literary errors.

I take it that the man in the carriage wanted the guards to die because “his plan worked”, but if not, why would he let all the guards die before finally appearing?

You did a good job of giving a bit of world building info while not dumping at the end--which is the hardest thing to learn, so you're already getting there. But again, another point of view.

(sorry maxonennis, your example sounded like Yoda but not like any real language I've studied or heard of - please correct me if you actually did take your example from reality

I was just making something up off of the top of my head, not giving a "use this" exsample". As I've said, I don't create new languages and wouldn't know where to start.

I wouldn't call their emotions mild, but somewhat less than our own—I’m also not entirely finished world building, so I might just make their emotions human equivalent.

Also, memories don't pass on. Think of the lives as airline tickets. They over book every flight (because some people won’t show, but that’s another story), and if one person backs out, another gets in. They are entirely different people with no connection aside from one showed up and the other didn’t.

I'm beginning to think this idea would be best as a novella rather than a full novel. I can create enough plot and flowing conflict for a novella. I don’t want an epic (I don’t know if I can make relatablity--is that a word?-- of the characters maintain in a 100,000+ word novel without one human character), and I think it would distract for what I want to be the theme: love.

A 20,000 word novella sound about right for the story.