![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2cFBsYa:
I forgot sort of how fucking difficult it is to sort out the pacing in a really action-packed chapter. This is where multiple POVs comes to bite you in the ass. I have to have everything happen in a particular order, and i have to convey the impression of the correct interval of time between particular events even in POVs from which the events do not serve as narrative-function beats.
Like. In one room with Protagonist A, there’s an explosion, and it neatly punctuates the action in that room, but to get to the next bit, I have to tell the POV of the guy in the hallway, and for him that explosion comes out of literally nowhere– but it has to happen the right amount of time after he enters the hallway, because he entered the hallway the same time as Protagonist A entered the room where the explosion was, and it is an absolute bitch to get those timelines to seem to match up. How long would it really take this dialogue to happen? It might effectively be seconds long, but to the reader it’s going to seem longer, so you’ve got to make it clear how fast that’s going. Maybe you need to space out something in that first scene a little better, to give this dialogue more time to happen in the other scene. And then… how long would it take to get from the hallway back down to the ground floor where Protagonist B is? Is it feasible for Hallway Guy to get there right after the explosion? Probably not because he has to react to the explosion. Even if you’ve cut away from his POV, he’s going to react in some way even offscreen, so it’ll be super weird if he just shows up in Protagonist B’s scene instantly like nothing happened.
Fuuuuuuck.
Add in that you’re trying to have Really Important Emotional Exposition in there too, and it gets pretty stupid. (Poe, that semiconscious reunion with your father is all there’s time for, sorry, next time you see him there’s no time to react so this is just how you live now. What? Don’t give me that look. Kes, Finn is your son now, that’s all there’s time for. Skip the exposition.)
I set this up, so I really can’t complain. I can’t believe how anticlimactic the first draft was. There’s actually a scene that just says [Luke and Leia probably encounter Kylo in some way] and that was all I wrote.
*boggles* I thought this was a finished story.
Also there was a phenomenal tearful reunion with Poe and Kes, and there’s not going to be time for that, so, *flushing noise*
I forgot sort of how fucking difficult it is to sort out the pacing in a really action-packed chapter. This is where multiple POVs comes to bite you in the ass. I have to have everything happen in a particular order, and i have to convey the impression of the correct interval of time between particular events even in POVs from which the events do not serve as narrative-function beats.
Like. In one room with Protagonist A, there’s an explosion, and it neatly punctuates the action in that room, but to get to the next bit, I have to tell the POV of the guy in the hallway, and for him that explosion comes out of literally nowhere– but it has to happen the right amount of time after he enters the hallway, because he entered the hallway the same time as Protagonist A entered the room where the explosion was, and it is an absolute bitch to get those timelines to seem to match up. How long would it really take this dialogue to happen? It might effectively be seconds long, but to the reader it’s going to seem longer, so you’ve got to make it clear how fast that’s going. Maybe you need to space out something in that first scene a little better, to give this dialogue more time to happen in the other scene. And then… how long would it take to get from the hallway back down to the ground floor where Protagonist B is? Is it feasible for Hallway Guy to get there right after the explosion? Probably not because he has to react to the explosion. Even if you’ve cut away from his POV, he’s going to react in some way even offscreen, so it’ll be super weird if he just shows up in Protagonist B’s scene instantly like nothing happened.
Fuuuuuuck.
Add in that you’re trying to have Really Important Emotional Exposition in there too, and it gets pretty stupid. (Poe, that semiconscious reunion with your father is all there’s time for, sorry, next time you see him there’s no time to react so this is just how you live now. What? Don’t give me that look. Kes, Finn is your son now, that’s all there’s time for. Skip the exposition.)
I set this up, so I really can’t complain. I can’t believe how anticlimactic the first draft was. There’s actually a scene that just says [Luke and Leia probably encounter Kylo in some way] and that was all I wrote.
*boggles* I thought this was a finished story.
Also there was a phenomenal tearful reunion with Poe and Kes, and there’s not going to be time for that, so, *flushing noise*
