Most of what you say are things that I know, intellectually, but find difficult to implement while I'm in the act of writing:
- events need to matter to the story, and change something - protagonists need to act (even if they make mistakes or later change their minds) and work towards something, not just react to events
And it seems to me, more than ever, that at *some* point the writer needs to understand the story as a whole. That's not necessarily during first draft, but if a writer gets hung up in the details because everything a character says or does matters to them... well, I think this book is an extreme example, but it illustrates a more general problem.
I'd also like to pick up on your use of the prologue - I mostly dislike them, and see very few uses for them (Kristen Britain's Green Rider has one that works: we see the antagonist setting something ominious into motion that we won't fully understand until much much later in the story - suspense creation at its finest.). 'Bring the reader up to speed in a quickfire way about where everybody is at the start of the novel' is also something you cannot do in the text of the novel itself.
Last but not least, on the balance of description/action/dialogue: I am currently reading Kari Sperring's _Living with Ghosts_ It matches your description of little dialogue, lots of description and internalisation... with one fundamental difference - it has plenty of momentum; I don't think that dialogue and action would have saved this book.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yati
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 12:27 pm (UTC)- events need to matter to the story, and change something
- protagonists need to act (even if they make mistakes or later change their minds) and work towards something, not just react to events
And it seems to me, more than ever, that at *some* point the writer needs to understand the story as a whole. That's not necessarily during first draft, but if a writer gets hung up in the details because everything a character says or does matters to them... well, I think this book is an extreme example, but it illustrates a more general problem.
I'd also like to pick up on your use of the prologue - I mostly dislike them, and see very few uses for them (Kristen Britain's Green Rider has one that works: we see the antagonist setting something ominious into motion that we won't fully understand until much much later in the story - suspense creation at its finest.). 'Bring the reader up to speed in a quickfire way about where everybody is at the start of the novel' is also something you cannot do in the text of the novel itself.
Last but not least, on the balance of description/action/dialogue: I am currently reading Kari Sperring's _Living with Ghosts_ It matches your description of little dialogue, lots of description and internalisation... with one fundamental difference - it has plenty of momentum; I don't think that dialogue and action would have saved this book.