wesleysgirl: (Default)
wesleysgirl ([personal profile] wesleysgirl) wrote2005-09-10 05:05 pm

Writing thoughts

So last night I was thinking and I realized why I have such a hard time writing scenes with more than two or three characters in them.

It's POV's fault.

Because I write in a fairly tight POV, I 'see' the scene from that character's POV. I'm so busy concentrating on how the POV character is interacting with each other character in the scene that that's all I can see. It's like each line of dialogue is playing off the one before it without acknowledging that there's this whole bigger picture.

I don't think I can stop writing from the tight POV I write in. Okay, I could, but I don't think I want to. I might consider experimenting, but I can't picture making a major switch in my style of writing other than temporarily.

But I think what I do need to do, when writing group scenes, is pull back a little bit. I can still be in the POV character's head, but sort of... hovering over him, like a camera shooting the scene from up above. I need to be able to imagine the bigger picture and watch it unfold without forcing it, letting all the characters interact as part of the entire conversation instead of in little pockets of individual space.

Anyway. It made sense last night.
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[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/ 2005-09-11 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
Well, in real life it *is* hard to pay attention to more than one or two people at once. A story written in a tight single POV isn't suddenly going to broaden that focus - but you could choreograph it so that what's happening comes to the main character sequentially, I should think.

Hmm. Interesting problem. I wonder if it's that in fic, too, so much writing is done not just from one character's perspective but from deep inside their head as well?

[identity profile] wesleysgirl.livejournal.com 2005-09-11 04:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I see what you're saying. Hm. *Thinks more*