Interwoven Narratives

[reiver33]

As you may be aware I've been plugging away at a three-part SF storyline with the working titles of 'Out Of The Dark', 'Dust Til Dawn' and 'The Bright And Hollow Sky'. I don't intend this as a trilogy, more three pieces of about 25k words each which then come together in a fourth section of about the same size. These are all written in first person and the personas of the three principle characters become 'fused' as it were in the last segment (see the 'Potating POV' thread).

However, rather than set out the three storylines chronologically (they are separated by gaps of 10-20 years), I'm considering an interwoven narrative - the first three chapters would be the three first chapters of each thread.

Obviously this causes problems in terms of 'spoilers' and reader confusion, but I thought it would be a way of keeping each main character 'fresh' until the combined version takes centre stage.

 

[Xelah]

Hmmm, I'm not sure chopping it up like that is a good idea. If done properly, a single character can last an entire novel without getting stale. If you're only writing 25k word bits, there's no reason to confuse your reader with breaking it up. That's only 100-125 pages for each segment.

 

[The Judge]

I have to confess, I hadn't cottoned on that your three pieces were all part of the same work. I think a difficulty you might find with interweaving them is in making the tone of each chapter so very different from the others, to make it clear these are three separate people, not the same person in three different situations, especially since each is written in the first person. I haven't read your work with quite the attention I perhaps should have done, but it seemed to me it was the same voice throughout, the slightly world-weary, hoping for something better but prepared to be disappointed, voice. You could certainly have success with that in three separate books albeit about different people. You could probably get away with it in three separate segments of the same novel when your readers would become immersed in that particular character's story for a bit. I do question whether it would work with jump-cutting between them.

Having said that, the only way to find out is to try! You'd need a reader who didn't know anything about any of the characters, though, in order that he/she carried no preconceptions forward.

Good luck

 

[HareBrain]

I'm with Xelah on this, for the same reasons, but once you've got your three sections completed it won't do you any harm to try interweaving them and see.

 

[ctg]

First of all, I think this topic should be in the aspiring writers, than in the workshop, because this is a more philosophical then a practical topic.

Secondly the thing with weaving story-lines together is a speciality that one can only learn by going to through the longer passages with the characters. Easiest way to do is by venturing with your characters to as far as your story goes. In there the characters create a group that has multiple perspectives to the story.

What you, Reaver, is talking about is that you have three stories that should culminate to one story at some point. A example of this kind of story is M. John Harrish - Light[SIZE=+1]. In in the story, like yours goes through different perspectives, even different time-lines to a singular moment where everything comes together.

So what you should do in the order for not making your book sound as it's a collection of story stories is start to weave them together. The reader should find points where they go "Ahh..." and connect the dots together. Therefore we are talking about sort of foreshadowing/back-flashing images that should lead the reader to the singularity (in loose sense of it being not a black hole). But in a grand-scale you should try to achieve something that happens in Vernor Vinge's - A fire upon the deep

[/SIZE]

 

[reiver33]

Well, the first segment is based on Earth during opposition to the Alliance policy of further colonisation by the Heimat movement, and the second starts with a visit to Earth as a lifeless husk some 20 years after that - so I figured the reader would be able to connect the two. In the third segment you have the Heimat Unity struggling against a seemingly alien psychotic foe bent on exterminating humanity, although as the middle narrative is currently undergoing 'off-line' development its difficult for a critique to pick up on past and 'future' references.

The interwoven narrative idea wasn't part of my original plan, insofar as I have any kind of full-blown story arc, it was just I'd be reintroducing characters from the first and second parts with a gap of maybe 50k words inbetween.

In terms of the main characters having a similar feel - that's an on-going problem in all my work which I'm not sure how to tackle. I write in first person and my characters are, to a greater or lesser extent, always 'me'. I'm not a good enough writer to convincingly divorce myself as narrator from the perspective which comes most naturally to me, so I'm beginning to think that the three 'separate' pieces will be too similar in tone when presented as part of a single work.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Multiple narratives are useful if you want to intrigue the reader with mysterious events - and in particular if you want to hint at something that you don't directly want to say.

 

[reiver33]

I've been going over this (and thanks for the input, people), and I don't think my original idea will work. Even given that I could adequately differentiate between personas, in re-reading my work I find the main characters too similar in 'tone'; I can't divorce the first person POV from myself as writer create a credible trinity.

So, back to the drawing board!

 

[Ursa major]

Whether you choose to give up on this or not, today's emphasis on close 3rd person narratives would suggest that writers should have the ability to create different narrative personas in their armoury. That your narrators inhabit the same body is a matter of plot, not one of having to develop a unique skill. (Skull, maybe.... )

 

[reiver33]

I've been trying to come at my problem from another angle, having remembered the 1998 film 'Phantoms', which is based on the idea of genetic memory transfer as evidenced by a type of lugworm? (you can train this worm to navigate a maze, grind it up and feed it to other words who then know how to get through straight away).

One plot device I have is a 'genetic escape system' - if all else fails you try and find a suitable host animal/humanoid/whatever if you crash in an inhospitable environment. Thus the character traits of the narrator from the first storyline are overlaid onto the person in the second, but the associated memories remain repressed. More a personality transfer rather than persona...

 

[HareBrain]

I've been trying to come at my problem from another angle, having remembered the 1998 film 'Phantoms', which is based on the idea of genetic memory transfer as evidenced by a type of lugworm? (you can train this worm to navigate a maze, grind it up and feed it to other words who then know how to get through straight away).

Is that true, or something invented for that film?

There was a TV programme on a while back about heart transplant patients who seemed to have some of the previous owner's memories implanted along with the organ.

 

[reiver33]

This is just a cut-and-paste off the web, but it gives you enough information should you want to check further...


In 1953, Dr. James McConell began performing labyrinthine experiments with planarian worms (Dugesia dorotocephala) at the University of Michigan, training them, using the punishment operand of classical conditioning, to learn over a period of months to consistently follow the most effective route through a maze.

This is all old hat. Planarian worms are cheaper to buy and keep alive than lab rats. Nothing new. But it was what he did next which raised a few eyebrows.

Keeping track of how long it had taken the entire first group of worms to successfully learn how to run the maze, he killed them all and fed the remains to a second group of hitherto untrained worms. Keeping this second group and a third control group of planarians (on a normal, non-cannibalistic diet) isolated, they were all trained to run the same maze using the same method as with the first group of worms.

The control group of worms took roughly the same amount of time to learn to run the maze as the first batch had, but the group which had eaten the first, educated bunch learned to run the maze considerably faster than both the control group and the original group on which they had dined. It was as though by eating the first group of learned worms, they had in some small way attained a not insignificant glimmer of the knowledge which had been previously imparted unto their dinners.

 

[Ursa major]

At the risk of quoting something from Wiki which is citation-free:

The experiment seemed to show such an effect, but it was later determined that the original planaria had left chemical tracks inside the maze itself that were not properly cleaned away before the next set of planaria were run.

How this affected the control group, who knows? (From Memory RNA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)



The major problem with this theory is that, as Wiki notes (in James V. McConnell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):

Although well publicized, his findings were not completely reproducible by other scientists and were therefore completely discredited.

My bolding.

 

[HareBrain]

So much for the worms.

This might prove interesting though, Riever.

 

[The Judge]

Hmmm. I can't comment on the science, but frankly any article which includes the phrase

that police soon apprehended, arrested, and convicted the killer

strikes me as being a bit cavalier with facts.

Anyway, Reiver, not sure if I'm understanding it correctly, but this 'genetic escape system' - this explains how these other two personalities are inside the last man, but does that actually address the problem of tone and voice? Ditching the interweaving aspect will make it easier, certainly, but I think it would help if you could introduce a different feel to them if they are all appearing in the same novel. And will this affect the second narrative, if MC2 has MC1 inside him at this stage, which presumably wasn't the case before? (Or am I misreading things?)

 

[reiver33]

The original idea was for MC1 and MC2 to be introduced (inserted?) into MC3 at the end of MC3's seperate storyline, with the composite/multiple personality then being confronted with the resolution of elements from all three.

However, as I'm not a good enough writer to make each seperate MC destinctive enough, I thought of carrying the character traits forward between MC1 and MC2, and then again to MC3 (but not the specific memories). Thus I could explain the same tone between different parts and all the character would be aware of was a change in his personality as reflected in the people around him. In effect MC1 wakes up one day with a different set of memories, these being those of the original MC2 (whose personality gets erased), although that begs the question how much memory determines character and future behaviour.

I'm kind of thinking on my feet with this one so any suggestions, etc, etc...

 

[The Judge]

I'm being particularly thick, tonight, I'm afraid. When you say MC1 wakes up, do you mean MC2? Hasn't MC1 - at least his body - died? (I'm not sure when, as there is a 20 year gap between the first and second sections, but I'm sure you've got that covered.)

As I'm understanding it, MC1 has an interesting life, is fatally wounded and thanks to his genetic survival stuff, momemts before actual death manages to infiltrate his personality, but not his memory, into MC2 who happens to be on the scene. MC2's own personality is overwhelmed, so that in some sense he becomes MC1 albeit in MC2's body and with no knowledge of MC1. MC2 then leads his own exciting life. In due course he is fatally wounded and the same thing happens, this time MC3 being the victim who is taken over. That how you see it?

Writing wise, I can see a few issues.
1. Unless you start section 2 at the very point of or just after the personality transfer, you will have to show some of MC2's original voice/character. Ditto at the beginning of section 3. If you can do this for a page or two, why can't you continue it?
2. How will you show the transfer? Since MC1's memories have gone, and (presumably) MC2 never knew what MC1 was planning, neither of them is aware of what has happened.
3. If you have a later deduction eg "it must have been the Genetic Escape System in operation" you'll have to repeat it in section 3 as MC3 won't remember anything either.
4. If MC2's personality is taken over by MC1, presumably the same happens for MC3. So how are you proposing to have the backchat between the three of them, with one becoming dominant etc - or has this idea now been shelved?
5. If at the end of this, we have the same personality albeit having travelled through 3 different bodies, what is the story? Sorry, not explaining this very well. It's just I thought the 3 strands of the narrative came together in section 4, but what is the point of your writing about the GES if MC1 can't remember anything of his previous lives and he can't interact with MC2 and 3? You might as well have 3 discrete characters for all the importance the mind-merging has in that situation.
6. If you decide memory can be transferred, and/or that MC2&3 retain personality, so you have a point to section 4, then you will still need to differentiate between the 3 men in some way.

I realise I may well have got the wrong end of the stick, so just ignore my ramblings if they don't make sense. Anyway, I can't help you with the sciencey stuff I'm afraid, but I've got some questions which might help direct your thinking (or might just confuse you!):
* why 'genetic escape system' - what genes are transferred?
* what advantage is there for MC1 for this technique to have evolved/been developed?
* since there is a distinct disadvantage for the 'victim' of the GES, why has the technique been permitted?
* why not transfer of memory as well as personality?
* if MC1's memory is not transferred, does he think of himself as MC2?
* if MC2's memory is intact, surely he would realise his character had changed as he would know how he used to behave?
* does MC2's body have the GES mechanism, or is this part of MC1's personality in some way?
* when MC2 uses the GES, he is in effect doing it on behalf of MC1 since MC2's own personality has been lost, and his memories will not be carried over. If it's his own GES, how is this an advantage to MC2? (I appreciate he doesn't know he is 'really' MC1, but I still find it odd.)
* if MC3 is taken over, presumably it is by MC1, who now has no memory of being MC1 or MC2?

Hope some of this helps.

 

[reiver33]

Right then, this is how I now see it panning out...

MC1's storyline ends with him (and others) trapped aboard a freighter apparently moving at sub-light speed out of the solar system, having been unable to gain control of the ship from its enhanced auto-pilot. They put themselves into stasis/hypersleep/whatever you want to call it to await rescue.

15 years later (5 years prior to the start of narrative two) he is recovered but his body isn't in a viable state for full revival. Note that this isn't an official rescue but one being carried out by an interested party with its own agenda. Given that they want to know what took place during the MC1 storyline there is an attempt to transpose his personality and memories (using engram mapping, not GES) onto a new host body they have obtained at short notice (the original MC2). However, only the 'self awareness' (for want of a better term) from MC1 is transferred, and he wakes up with MC2's memories. In the hope that earlier (real MC1) memories may return he is returned to society, with a minder to watch over him, where the abrupt change in his personality causes ructions in both his personal and professional life.

The second narrative kicks off 5 years later where the 'embedded' MC1 has become MC2. It ends with his badly wounded body being placed in a medical trauma pod, which is subsequently ejected from the ship. As this pod has only a limited full life support capability it invokes the GES and effectively places him 'on hold'.

The GES is considered unethical technology and was only used by the military in an attempt to salvage 'high value' personnel (Captains and above). Knowledge of the GES being present was restricted and the regime which authorised it is now defunct.

10 years later the ship commanded by MC3 retrieves the pod and he is 'infected' by the GES, having no knowledge of it or the danger it represents. The 'installation' process is compromised and restores the full MC1 memories (prior to him inhabiting the original MC2), plus the new MC2 memories, and fails to erase MC3 into the bargain. This composite character suddenly has to deal with 3 full sets of memories plus a persona which is apparently fragmenting under the strain.

Phew!

I coined the phrase ‘genetic escape system’ to represent a way of imparting knowledge and/or personality through the re-coding of appropriate genes which then propagate this information throughout the target brain. Without delving into metaphysics it comes down on the side of ‘nature’ rather than ‘nurture’ for the determining factors on personality.

I hope some of this clarifies matters!

 

[The Judge]

For a person who was - quote - 'thinking on [his] feet' you seem to have worked it out pretty well completely! No quibbles from me - I'm just sorry my waffles weren't of more help.

Good luck with it.

 

[reiver33]

I don't usually sit down before hand and map out a storyline to that degree, its just that having to construct a 'plausible' link between narratives brought out the old systems analyst in me (20 years in IT).

Bits of is are still troublesome though; MC3 finds the capule containing MC2 adrift in the Great Nebula and takes it on board - I mean, have these people never seen a horror movie???

Just have to see how it looks on the page...

Thanks to all for your comments and assistance!