These Certain Musings

In working with revisions for SAND, I've been dealing with adjustments to the world's history, particularly the passage of time between past events and current plot. When first written, I used the passage of centuries to explain the loss of critical knowledge because my younger self viewed knowledge—especially critical knowledge—as resilient and enduring. In revisions, the passage of time is less than three generations because I now know knowledge is fragile and our ability to hold it tenuous.

The loss of skills-based knowledge is easy to see. My grandmother, living in the backwoods of Kentucky Appalachia, knew how to preserve food and dress game. My mother, living in California's suburbs, had no need to preserve food, raise her own meats, or hunt and dress game. Thus I lived most of my life without that knowledge.  Most folks today can't imagine slaughtering, cleaning, and butchering their own chickens. Most folks can't successfully quarter a chicken.

Sure, it's easy to say those skills don't matter in modern life. We've so specialized labor that we no longer need to know how to raise chickens for food. Tyson does it for us. But imagine what those skills would be worth if food-supply specialization became prohibitively expensive for average folks. Imagine what our grandchildren would think of us, letting knowledge that enhances survival go by the wayside so quickly, so easily. But we, living in the middle of that loss, really don't see the problem. To us, it's more important to navigate social media than preserve vegetables. That's not a judgment; it's a fact.

T h ere was a deeper knowledge that drove past skills acquisition, and that knowledge is being lost as well. My grandmother didn't preserve food because she wanted to live a simpler life, or provide her family with healthy alternatives to processed foods, or because it was Next Cool Thing. She preserved food because she lived in a time when there were patterns of plenty and scarcity. If she didn't gather and preserve what was ripe, when it was ripe, her family wouldn't have it to eat the next month. It was simply a known fact that not everything could be had at any future time of want.

B u t the type of knowledge I've been musing about, the knowledge lost in SAND's backstory, is more historical and fact-based. Despite our modern means of storing and exchanging information, this knowledge too is fragile, changeable, and ephemeral. Small groups of people can still successfully hide information and divert attention. Large groups of people can decide which facts get repeated, and which facts get ignored, by deciding to "Like" and "retweet." We can see videos uploaded from folks in the midst of the Syrian uprising, but we don't know what decisions are being made by those holding power over Syria. We may never know. That knowledge will be lost.

I recently read an online discussion about bad clichés in fantasy. The lost sword/book of spells/heir to all things was singled out as particularly silly. One commenter asked how you could just misplace something so obviously important.

Well, we did lose Richard III for centuries. It's suspected the knowledge of his resting place was forgotten within a mere hundred years or so or his death.

If but half a dozen people know where The Secret Thing is hidden, it takes a couple bullets, a pair of fatal accidents, a bad case of pneumonia and one suicide to ensure The Secret Thing is lost forever. If Bob is the only one in the family who knows his sister's kid is actually the result of a one-night-stand with Big Politician, Bob can ensure the knowledge dies with him. If my character's grandfather didn't want his granddaughter to learn the Secret Handshake, the girl isn't going to learn it. She may grow up knowing a Secret Handshake once existed, but she won't know what it is.

Truth is, it's easy-peasy to lose things and the knowledge of things—particularly important things, because we don't necessarily use them on a day-to-day basis—and almost as easy to deliberately hide knowledge, at least for a time.

So the relevant backstory for SAND is far more compressed than the previous version. Everything is more immediate, which makes the interactions and conflicts far more personal as well. And I find myself thinking about how our own histories will be remembered based upon what knowledge we choose to pass on to our children, about the impact time has on what gets retold or withheld, and about the ways we determine what will be important to the future based upon what we know of the present.

I've mentioned before my current considerations (struggles? issues?) with changing story viewpoint from the omni used in Sword and Chant to the multiple third used in Sand and Bone.  It's akin to shifting from sparring to self-defense.  Both use many of the same tools, but in different ways directed by a different mindset.

I'm working with seven viewpoints in Sand.  There are very good reasons for this, even though it presents a pile of challenges.  But if there is one thing I've taken away from a ton of workshop hours, critique sessions and conversations with successful writers and editors, it is this: a writer can get away with anything she wishes as long as it serves the reader.

I can choose to reduce the number of Sand's viewpoint characters—narrowing the story's scope, cutting out subplots, and changing points of tension—or I can find a way to make multiple viewpoints serve the reader.  And I am nothing if not (selectively) stubborn.  So if I've already established answers to the basic "which character has the most at stake" piece of writing advice, and I'm clear on the standards of changing viewpoints at chapter breaks and the like, what then?

Here are the first three tools I've used to make it work:

The no-brainer is first: each viewpoint must be distinct.  The character must have his own voice and her own motives, his own reasons and her own needs.  These are separate and distinct from the protagonist's/antagonist's plots and needs and motives.  The protagonist wants to win the war; her servant wants to get laid.  The antagonist wants to slay his enemies; his guard wants to get home to her farm.  Then, those distinct character motives impact the main plot.  The servant performs acts of valor for the protagonist in the hope of impressing potential bedmates.  The guard feeds information to the opposition so she can see the war's end come quickly.

Certainly those points could be achieved without establishing the servant or the guard as a viewpoint character, if that's the sole reason for the character to exist.  But there also lies the risk of convenience.  A guard-turned-spy showing up with the right information at just the right moment can tilt toward deus ex machina in an instant.

Second, all viewpoint characters must have a distinct view of the same thing early on, preferably when the reader first meets them.  Think of the blind men describing the elephant.  Or people of different ages watching Sesame Street.  Or people of different cultures describing the experience of eating at a Chinese buffet in Oklahoma.  What will be noticed, enjoyed, ignored, mocked?  What will be pointed out as missing?  (One of those most telling character details, in my opinion.)  It's this integrated experience that not only distinguishes each viewpoint, but grounds the reader more deeply in the story.  Continuity exists even though the viewpoint changes.

Here's an example:

A sees Purgatory as a horrid place certain to make B repent.

B, in Purgatory, sees it the safe place where A can't assert power.

C, with A, sees Purgatory as the place she'd go if she could because D is there.

D, in Purgatory, focuses on how to maintain order and discipline there.

E, who is D's friend, knows where to get the best damned moonshine in Purgatory.

Third, the reader's mind must be able to flow from one viewpoint to the other.  Because I'm working with so many viewpoints introduced in very short order, the chop-chop method—titling chapters with distinct character names or locations—of changing viewpoints didn't work for me.  I didn't want to tell the reader, "And now for something completely different!" five times in a row.  So, in a variation of the integrated experience, each viewpoint has a thought/action/interaction that introduces an upcoming viewpoint character.  It's all about the transitions.

Example:

A focuses on B, interacts with C, and mentions D.

B focuses on A, and interacts with D.

C interacts with A, mentions B, longs for D.

D interacts with B, C, and E.

E interacts with D, mentions A, B, and C.

Lastly, I'll know I have a major problem if a beta reader returns comments of skimming one viewpoint character in order to get to the next.  Uneven tension is a surefire way to lose the reader's attention at best and piss her off at worst.  More than once I've read a multiple third novel that makes me groan when I realize an awesome tension and buildup is being interrupted by a suspense-deflating scene in a different viewpoint.

Well.  Hopefully I haven't bored anyone to this point. :)

Anyone else have tricks and tools for multiple third?