Timeline for Is the strategy described here an effective one, to distinguish character voice?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Nov 15, 2017 at 15:21 | comment | added | user16226 | So rather than saturating the scene with constant detail, a novelist must carefully select and convey just the key telling details. Recording every hand gesture and facial tick, every pause, sniffle, and snort, every nuance of accent and diction, all of which would matter greatly to an actor, just takes attention away from the key details the really matter in the moment. | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 15:20 | comment | added | B Altmann | @Mark Baker This makes a lot of sense and I feel like I'm guilty of this. Can you possibly point me into some direction to read up on this and better avoid this pitfall? I'm unsure about how to be selective the right way. Not select the wrong stuff, you know. | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 15:17 | comment | added | user16226 | @BAltmann In a movie, every actor has to be acting all the time even when they are not speaking. There is always action going on in the background. The screen is as crowded with movement, light, and sound as the real world (if not more), and the viewer selectively attends to the part of this that attracts their attention, just as they do in real life. It is tempting for the novelist to try to keep up a similar level of movement in their description of a scene. But this does not work because the reader has to pay attention to each word in turn. Where movies are immersive, novels are selective. | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 15:09 | comment | added | SFWriter | This is a useful consideration. Early on I did spend time with each character's motivation. I recall wrestling with why a character would want to do the thing I needed them to do, and how it fit into their prime driving force. As the novel progressed and everyone's personal agenda was underway, (and some minor's concluded and were no longer part of the story), less time was spent on that. I should definitely make certain that the lack of attention to motivation at the end was due to knowing those being second nature to me by that point, and not due to laziness. | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 14:23 | comment | added | B Altmann | Could you expand on the "writer as actor syndrome"? I'm not entirely sure I get what you mean and how that could show in my writing. | |
| Nov 15, 2017 at 13:17 | history | answered | user16226 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |