I've been getting bogged down in the scene cards.

The plan was with the rewrite process for "The Vampire Hunter" to write down all the characters, scenes, and events so I could rearrange them in a more sensible way and keep track of what was going on.

The problem is that I tend to occupy myself with the mechanics, which given my job is not surprising but in the case of the scene cards I think I need to let go. They are just a means to an end, and that end is broadly achieved.

The end is the restructuring of the story. My concern with its current structure is that the first person POV makes it too hard to introduce events not directly witnessed by the main character, but there are also significant issues with things happening in the wrong places because that's when I thought of them. The exigencies of NaNo writing writ large.

Anyway, the end is currently being better served by my thinking in different ways than through scene cards. I have a more vibrant opening sequence involving Johnny Red Cloud, who will be getting more page time in the next version, but the idea is to alternate between third person and first person POV. Have a chapter of third person narrative, then a first person section. The rule will be that events involving the main character in the present will be first person, but anything else can be third person. My thinking is that this will cut down on conversation-as-exposition, and in particular on the amount of meetings I will need to describe. Most of them will still happen, but I need no longer go into such detail in describing them.

This kind of mixed POV is unusual but it is not unknown. I've read two books by Iain Banks which have mixed POV in the them: Complicity has its most unsettling scenes in second person, while Feersum Enjinn is notable because its first person narrator writes phonetically.

I'm excited to get writing again, though I may not do much more than be excited until after we get back from Britain.

Posted by Dunx at February 10, 2005 03:25 PM