Pacing of information in a fictional world

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

ah geez!  With all your writing experience and you still feel your style varies. That sucks.  I hoped that tendency faded w time.

Well, sometimes variation of style is what I am aiming for; i have written a fair bit in deliberate Dumas pastiche, for example.  (Which you know is cooking when your average sentence length for a chapter hits fifty words.)

[svb1972]

Well, sometimes variation of style is what I am aiming for; i have written a fair bit in deliberate Dumas pastiche, for example.  (Which you know is cooking when your average sentence length for a chapter hits fifty words.)

Wait, you mean not everyone writes sentences that are fifty words long? I seem to do that on a regular basis, especially when I'm trying to explain something to someone, the words just keep coming and coming.

[meh]

Too much fiber in your sentences.

[Enjorous]

Wait, you mean not everyone writes sentences that are fifty words long? I seem to do that on a regular basis, especially when I'm trying to explain something to someone, the words just keep coming and coming.

Sentence length is associated with education; the more education you have the longer your average sentence. That just means you're edumacted svb.

[meg_evonne]

"With all your writing experience and you still feel your style varies? That sucks.  I hoped that tendency faded w time." 

The thing is--although style is different from author's voice, ultimately the writer is seeking a style and theme that represents what is in the writer's soul, which is the writer's voice.  Once you find the style and theme that best expresses that voice, I don't see it changing or being swayed to match others.  In other words, once you've found your unique writer's voice, which is made up from style, theme, techniques, writer craft tools, it may age like a fine wine, but won't change that much.  Maybe a more audible image rather than fine wine in needed.  Think of your writing as the quest for the perfect bell that will resonate in the reader's mind.  Most, perhaps for the vast majority, that bell is slightly off key and the work fails to reach its full potential. Thus the quest is to find that perfect pitch in our writer's voice that is at last--right.  I am perfectly willing to listen to other viewpoints on this, but inside it rings true for me (to keep up the metaphor LOL).

Brett Anthony Johnston from Harvard says that in a life time an author may have only one true theme or voice.  (Like God only gives you one voice or maybe more correct would be to say S/He gives you lots, but its up to you to find the absolutely right perfect voice from those S/He gave you.)  Brett bases that on well discussed writing advice that stems from F Scott Fitzgerald, ie that a writer has one underlying voice that s/he is compelled to tell--the writer may change the presentation, but ultimately there is only one. 

So my comments were to author's voice and its style, which with a mature author, I see as steady and reliable and once found it won't desert or be swayed.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Brett Anthony Johnston from Harvard says that in a life time an author may have only one true theme or voice.  (Like God only gives you one voice or maybe more correct would be to say S/He gives you lots, but its up to you to find the absolutely right perfect voice from those S/He gave you.)  Brett bases that on well discussed writing advice that stems from F Scott Fitzgerald, ie that a writer has one underlying voice that s/he is compelled to tell--the writer may change the presentation, but ultimately there is only one. 

I think I will beg to differ.  I would, for example, consider Steven Brust a mature author - in that he has been publishing very good books for more than 25 years - during which he has had two ongoing, though related, long series in drastically different voices (plus a number of other books in voices different again). Either that or we are using "voice" to mean subtly different things, which is entirely possible.  I find the notion that one only has one True Voice and any other voice one does less True a bit pessimistic, tbh.  (The thought "But that would be like only eating one cuisine, or monogamy... " kind of expresses the scale of  my immediate reaction, if I can say that without risking a touchy digression; there may well be peopl for whom it's the case, but it does not feel like I am one of them.)

[meg_evonne]

I am using a differentiation between character voice and author voice.  A character's voice has to be different and unique and thus the style of a work will vary to be true to the character, but the underlying author's voice comes from one well of, okay for better term, spirituality in my mind.  I've had an editor tell me that she can read the author's voice beneath the surface and can recognize the author's name as a result.  I've blogged on editors and agents who are looking for something beneath the surface in the queries they receive, something elusive, something MORE that flows beneath the words on the page.  I still think that it applies.  We've all read something and gone, "Wow, look at that.  The page is MORE than the words on it."

When this came up in Brett's workshop, I was shocked and frankly thought how young he was, but on retrospect, I believe that I have come around to his point of view on this matter.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I am using a differentiation between character voice and author voice.  A character's voice has to be different and unique and thus the style of a work will vary to be true to the character, but the underlying author's voice comes from one well of, okay for better term, spirituality in my mind.  I've had an editor tell me that she can read the author's voice beneath the surface and can recognize the author's name as a result.  I've blogged on editors and agents who are looking for something beneath the surface in the queries they receive, something elusive, something MORE that flows beneath the words on the page.  I still think that it applies.  We've all read something and gone, "Wow, look at that.  The page is MORE than the words on it."

I think you are talking about something that I half-don't see and half-don't believe in (to my mind the words are all there is, and anything additional they invoke or evoke is purely because of being the right words) so I do not see anything I can really say to engage with this.

[meh]

Does the halves make a whole or is there considerable overlap between them? 

[trboturtle]

I think the first thing to do is sit down and plan out this Civilzation -- its technology, history, and social order, which seems to be the main areas of question. Once it's solid, take look at the story and look when references can be dropped in. Most of the time, additions that add to the reader's understanding of the world can be droped in with a few words, or a sentence or two at most. Info dumps, I think, should only be used for main plot points ("Why is the world going to blow up, Doctor Brain?" "Because they vill be reversing the polarity of ze Neutron flow, and the de planet don't like zhat!")

Most of the BG can be dole out, building up the picture of this world and the people who live on it. And if done right, even the main plot point can be boiled down to a few sentacnes, IF most of the info has already been dealt out earlier in the book, as part of the BG. Say a major polical figure was going to be assasinate (Major plot point), have said politician on the news, or the main character listen to their speech, or discuss the politican between two or more characters, or best yet, use all three ways to give the reader a picture of this person. sprikle a fw referecnes about the character though the first book. So, by the time the Assasination attempt is revealed, there's no need to explain who Politician is or why their important.

Of course, most of my writing has been in an estabished universe that already has all those details hashed out, which leaves me to only worry about plot points and Characters. I don't have to explain what a Battlemech is, or go into great detail about the major interstellar states of the Inner Sphere. So, a lot depends on how much the background influnces the story. I have less freedom with an established universe than I would have with my own, fully created universe.

As I have said, pick your spots to show a little more of the setting, and make sure the background being dropped in is relavent to the scene and story -- mentioning a sport called Quiddich and explaining the rules when it has nothing to do with the main plot is a waste of paper and time. Of course, there's nothing wrong with having a character complain about last night's Quiddich, then have them described enough of the action so the reader knows it involves broomsticks and more than one ball, that's fine. It's color.

Hope that helps -- I'm off to bed!! 

Craig

[vultur]

This is bugging me too, in a story I'm working on at the moment. It's not the technology -- they're lower tech than us, except for a few mysterious 'ancient artifacts' (that don't need explanation, as they're complete mysteries to the characters as well) -- it's the society. The politics and society of this far-future world are both very different from ours (or familiar historical examples) and important to the plot, so it's becoming an issue.