Slow progress
19 February 2018 01:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeFinally finished the current chapter, which I spent so long in writing that on re-reading it I detected two continuity errors with its earlier scenes (although I'm still not certain where I'm going to put the boundary between this and the previous chapter, having decided to end the latter before the actual chaining-up because it was running so long and then having decided to end this one in real-time after the bath scene rather than attempting to carry it through into a summary of Christine's continued life with Erik). We're currently halfway through plot point six.
What I'm unsure about at this point is whether I now write a chapter from Raoul's point of view revealing that he is alive and well and shipwrecked, or whether I leave the reader (and Christine) in the belief that he is dead for several more chapters. If I want to keep it chronological then I'm going to have to do a flashback over several days as it is, but that was more or less what I intended from the beginning...
How is it going to come across if Christine keeps on dreaming (for example) about Raoul as being dead, while the reader knows perfectly well that he is alive -- poignant or pointless? Is the reader actually going to be taken in by Raoul's assumed 'death' in the first place, or is the gaping lack of evidence or foreshadowing for such an event going to rouse suspicions that a major PoV character isn't likely to be disposed of that casually? -- in which case it's better to do the 'reveal' fairly early on to flatter the reader into feeling clever, rather than to attempt to milk it as a big sob-story while everyone is impatiently aware that it's obviously fake.
So far we've had one chapter from Christine's point of view, then a long run from Raoul's point of view who is convinced that Christine doesn't love him, then a run from Christine's point of view revealing why she sent him away. Do I now go to alternating PoV chapters following their respective adventures, or take Christine up into the mountains before going back for another long run at Raoul?
I think I've more or less talked myself into thinking that I need to switch to Raoul at this point and deal with the events of the shipwreck before any more days elapse -- then Raoul can spend some time ashore in the Arctic camp while Christine ekes out the rest of her captivity with Erik, and then Raoul can set off on his small-boat trip in the chapter after Christine makes her escape. This does imply that d'Artois takes an unconscionably long time to decide to evacuate using Raoul's boats, though; even if they attempt to convert them for open-sea voyaging (like Shackleton's boats) I wouldn't have thought they'd take a couple of months over it. On the other hand, Raoul isn't going to be able to spend months in a lifeboat heading northwards by accident :-p
After three weeks and a week on intensive antibiotics the burn on my leg now has an ugly (and still oozing) hole in the centre; if it lasts another three weeks it will officially be an ulcer (discontinuity of the epidermis and dermis in the lower limb of more than 6 weeks duration). I suppose I shall have to go back to the doctor...
What I'm unsure about at this point is whether I now write a chapter from Raoul's point of view revealing that he is alive and well and shipwrecked, or whether I leave the reader (and Christine) in the belief that he is dead for several more chapters. If I want to keep it chronological then I'm going to have to do a flashback over several days as it is, but that was more or less what I intended from the beginning...
How is it going to come across if Christine keeps on dreaming (for example) about Raoul as being dead, while the reader knows perfectly well that he is alive -- poignant or pointless? Is the reader actually going to be taken in by Raoul's assumed 'death' in the first place, or is the gaping lack of evidence or foreshadowing for such an event going to rouse suspicions that a major PoV character isn't likely to be disposed of that casually? -- in which case it's better to do the 'reveal' fairly early on to flatter the reader into feeling clever, rather than to attempt to milk it as a big sob-story while everyone is impatiently aware that it's obviously fake.
So far we've had one chapter from Christine's point of view, then a long run from Raoul's point of view who is convinced that Christine doesn't love him, then a run from Christine's point of view revealing why she sent him away. Do I now go to alternating PoV chapters following their respective adventures, or take Christine up into the mountains before going back for another long run at Raoul?
I think I've more or less talked myself into thinking that I need to switch to Raoul at this point and deal with the events of the shipwreck before any more days elapse -- then Raoul can spend some time ashore in the Arctic camp while Christine ekes out the rest of her captivity with Erik, and then Raoul can set off on his small-boat trip in the chapter after Christine makes her escape. This does imply that d'Artois takes an unconscionably long time to decide to evacuate using Raoul's boats, though; even if they attempt to convert them for open-sea voyaging (like Shackleton's boats) I wouldn't have thought they'd take a couple of months over it. On the other hand, Raoul isn't going to be able to spend months in a lifeboat heading northwards by accident :-p
After three weeks and a week on intensive antibiotics the burn on my leg now has an ugly (and still oozing) hole in the centre; if it lasts another three weeks it will officially be an ulcer (discontinuity of the epidermis and dermis in the lower limb of more than 6 weeks duration). I suppose I shall have to go back to the doctor...
no subject
Date: 2018-02-19 04:57 pm (UTC)I hope your leg and your story stop causing you trouble soon.
no subject
Date: 2018-02-19 11:59 pm (UTC)I don't know that I can -- I don't know how to write it out of order. I can conjure up Raoul sitting there in his lifeboat at dawn thinking back over the events of the wreck that caused the current situation, but I can't picture myself writing a massive flashback that starts off with him safely ashore in the Arctic. Hmm. Or maybe I can... maybe he's spending an uncomfortable night in cramped accommodation, and that makes him think of uncomfortable nights in the boat, and that makes him think of how he ended up in the boat (which is what the readers are presumably going to be immediately puzzled by, if he has been presumed dead for six or seven chapters....)
I think you'd potentially run into the same problem that I had with In Regret, Always, where the flashback extends over multiple chapters beyond the scope of the framing device; how do you get neatly 'back to the present' and then continue on from where you started?
Or I try to do a Tolkien, and restart the story with a second set of characters back when the first set originally parted company with them. (I seem to recall that Tolkien actually starts off his Frodo-and-Sam segment with them meeting Gollum later on, set up by a bit of flashback/summary explaining that an intervening week or so has passed in trying to cross the hills!) The main trouble I can see with that approach is how you establish that the story has done a 'rewind', and how you make the jump back seem neat and credible -- short of actually writing 'Book IV", "Book V" etc.
The other thing that worries me about both scenarios is the idea of the story feeling like a 'cheat' rather than a big reveal -- coming across after such a long delay as if I've suddenly decided to change my plot and rewrite the past to make Raoul magically alive after all, having run out of ideas, rather than having genuinely intended for him to survive all along :-(
I really don't know. I'm flip-flopping all over the place at the moment.