Daisy wrote:I've read a few books recently where the story line needs scenarios painted in two different eras and I found it difficult to switch my mind from one to the other. I would skip chapters so I could get on with the story in one time, so to speak, and then go back and read the other!
Yes, that's a problem that has occurred to me, and I do wonder whether I am in danger of creating such a situation myself. I am aware of it, because I have occasionally read books with alternating narratives which later join, and sometimes the alternation continues for a hundred or more pages, and I do sometimes find myself involved in one of them, then, when the other arises, I find it difficult mentally to drop the first one and get into the second one - and, yes, I have been guilty of reading ahead in the first narrative, then coming back later to catch up on the second. But I do wonder if, because you are departing from what the author wanted, you are not getting the proper effect. (Robin Cook's medical thrillers, which I read, are rather prone to using alternating narratives.)
Yet, if you want to tell both narratives, I can't think of a better solution. Somehow it doesn't seem satisfactory to tell one narrative entirely, until the strands merge, then go way back in time and start the other one from scratch.
There's also the question of whether the strands should pause (to make way for each other) at "cliff-hanging" moments of suspense, or more-or-less natural resting points. In the earlier parts of a novel (which is probably where alternating narratives are most likely to occur), I would perhaps favour natural resting points, with exceptions only if I have important and well-prepared cliff-hangers. But if an alternating narrative occurs late, even at the climax (and I have found that in Dean Koontz, too), then cliff-hangers might be better, and even unavoidable.
Dean Koontz's "Night Chills" ends with dual narratives that alternate dozens of times, with the segments getting shorter and shorter - first chapter-length, then half or third a chapter, then a page or so, then right down to a paragraph and even a sentence at a time. I seem to recall it worked quite well.
Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", just a chapter or two in, has a single chapter which does the same, with pages of single sentences from alternating narratives. (Three of them, I think - and at times it was difficult to even determine *which* narrative a particular sentence-sized segment belonged to.) In that case, I find it extremely confusing, and rather pointless. The events themselves seemed (so far as I could figure them out) quite ordinary events for a second or third chapter.
Daisy wrote:I can't imagine how an author would manage to write alternating times in that order and suspect the two strands were written and then the chapters interspersed later, but of course I don't know!
Designing the overall story might be difficult, if it were complicated. But I don't think the idea of alternating would in itself add much additional complexity. Keeping notes about what was happening in each strand would assist in keeping things organized. A writer might well write the narratives separately (just as I might end up doing with my current story), but, in doing so, it might be wise to pay heed to the fact that they will alternate, and plan them to do so in a suitable manner.
Daisy wrote:I think if the story is all set in one era it would be considerably easier to follow and one's mind can quite easily switch from one set of characters to another with a "Meanwhile, back at the ranch...." sort of introduction.
I am not planning to use any linking words like "Meanwhile". I think my narratives will be very clear just standing by themselves.
I remember the very first story I wrote, way back in the Dark Ages (or at least around 1964). I had created a set of characters, and was trying to write a story modelled on the Famous Five. It featured one of the boys being kidnapped, while his siblings are setting about trying to find him. And after the missing boy's absence is noticed, I follow the others for a while. And I recall that, either in a new chapter, or at least new section (I forget which), I then narrated what was happening to the kidnapped boy. And I did start it with a linking word such as "Meanwhile", or possibly even a whole phrase like "While this was happening". (I would never dream of showing that story to anyone, as it is utterly hopeless. I started but never finished a longer version of it, and completed a third, shorter version - but I do still have the original.)
I don't think I can recall where Blyton has done something like that, so I am wondering where I picked up that technique. I really don't think I would have been original enough at that time to think of it myself; so I think I must have read an instance somewhere. I didn't read much other than Blyton in those days; but I must have read other things at least on occasion.
Daisy wrote:As for writing it in the first place.. I would tend to go where your mind takes you. You could always try interspersing the chapters once they are written and see what sort of effect that gives you. For continuity of thought I would lean towards having the first few chapters about your main character(s) before introducing another group who could immediately interact with him and who's background could be gradually revealed as the narrative progresses.
Well, this does sound a bit different to what I am doing. I may have mentioned it a year or so before, when I started this topic - I don't quite recall - but the overall plan is this: There will be a group of four or five children, perhaps aged around 13 or so, who will get involved in an adventure of some kind. Then there will be another boy, a rather introverted one sent to boarding school by his not-entirely-sympathetic parents, where he will have a hard time (and already has had!), which will escalate to the point that he runs away, with only his faithful dog for company (whom the school allows to live with him in the school, a bit like Timmy and George at Gaylands School). He will run into difficulties while on the run, and these difficulties will probably be tied up with the adventure the other group are having (it's holidays by now), and they will meet and make friends, and have the rest of the adventure together - as well as any future ones I might write. In other words, he will become a permanent member of the group, not just a one-off.
I suppose it's a bit like Barney in the "R" mysteries: he enters a bit of the way into the novel, as the others meet him for the first time, and make friends. Now, as I recall, Blyton did not ever directly narrate Barney's history before he met the others; this came out only in dribs and drabs as Barney told them things in the various novels. Unlike this, I want to tell my loner character's previous history as fully as the history of the larger group. (I must say that it is shaping up to be much longer than I thought. If this trend continues, it's going to be a very long novel: at least double the length, for instance, of an "... of Adventure" novel by Blyton.)
Why did I choose to start this way? Well, just because I thought it would be an interesting and intriguing, and slightly unusual, way of starting a story (and hopefully a series if things go well). Having had a hard time at school myself, I also suspect I wanted to write indirectly about that through the loner character - so that might have influenced me too. (I never went to boarding school, though; nor did I ever run away from either school or home.) I think there's always been something in me that wanted to write about the sensitive but not quite conventional loner rejected by mainstream society, who may even rebel against it, as, especially earlier in life, I felt I was in that position myself.
There is an additional complexity I am introducing, and hoping I have the ingenuity to justify: Luke (the loner character) discovers strange things going on in his school, and these turn out to be linked with the adventure the others start on before they meet Luke. And I am planning to have the end of the story take place in the school, where the characters will be brought to for some reason, where some very strange revelations are going to take place, as well as some suspenseful action. (At present, I have only a vague idea of what these will be.) And it will really stir the school up, and maybe it will become a nicer place after that. (Perhaps the beginning and end of "The Silver Chair" by C. S. Lewis have slightly influenced me here (in broad terms). The Narnia books in general have been a real influence on me.)
Regards, Michael.