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I'm writing the first draft of my novel and it's about a guy who has to (at first) fend for himself in a foreign country with nothing. There is a point where he meets someone else who is in a similar situation, but until then I find that the pace is very slow, with very few dialogue. This guy has a lot of internal conflict; he is constantly at war with himself. This leads to a lot of inner battles that I find necessary but somewhat boring to write. Should I even care about this at this stage of my writing, or should I just try to solve this problem by figuring something out (maybe change the plot so that the protagonist meets the other guy earlier, or give him an "imaginary friend" to verbally fight against, or whatever, really)?
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Aug 5, 2012 21:11
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 05:53 |
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Stuporstar posted:It's always a good idea to give your characters someone to talk to, because external dialogue is generally more engaging than internal dialogue. "Imaginary friend" might give your readers the impression he's batshit, and can suck terribly if you treat it wrong, so think hard before you decide to go down that route. Bringing the second character in earlier sounds like a good way to revise, but before that, does your character really have no one to talk to? Does he not even attempt to communicate with shopkeepers or landladies, or try to bum money for a train ride, or anything? All of these little interactions are better ways to let your reader get to know your character than endless paragraphs having him sitting alone going, "Oh woe is me." You can use little social exchanges to help build your character until his proper foil shows up. Even if he can't speak the language, showing how he deals with that is a character building moment. That's a great idea, but I guess I'll have to change these long bouts of internal dialogue in the second draft, then. I'm still wrapping myself around the idea of writing something as quickly as possible without giving much regard to sense. I agonize over stuff like this, which in turn saps my motivation. After all, I tell myself, if the beginning is poo poo then what's the point of writing more?
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Aug 5, 2012 22:02
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sebmojo posted:It sounds tedious and it sounds like you find it tedious. This is bad. Can you put your guy in a lot more trouble? Really put him through poo poo? Steal his wallet, break his finger, give him dysentery. See if that gives you a more interesting way to deliver the payload of agonised self-interrogation? I agree; I'll definitely have to change a few things, stir the pot a little. I'm afraid of stopping and changing the plot because I have failed to get past 20k words in any of my attempts, and this is getting embarrassing. I've already spent 3 years' worth of free time on this project with nothing to show for it.
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Aug 8, 2012 23:10
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