Character/Narrator POV and Interlaced Descriptions

Coming out of another dark spot of self doubt I've been reading much and wide - recently finished Scar Night by Alan Campbell (who worked on Grand Theft Auto). Brilliant book, had me gripped all the way.


After my last slap down I got angry with myself, my inability to write something pacy, coherent and interesting - then I reworked my opening chapter... again. But I'm still not happy, despite Solvejg giving his thumbs up (with caveats). I was worried that there was still no pace to it (though, I'm probably too close to it at the mo' to realise - a kind of word blindness). I felt that the reader just floated along with the description. And it just has no place right up there at the front. So... I needed a breather. I'm kind of wrong, despite needing to do some more work (always more work), but what could help?...

What's great about Scar Night is that it's begun to yield some secrets about the construct of chapters - and, at times, I've begun to make use of them in my writing (mostly subconsciously). Let's look at the opening:

Chains snarled the courtyard behind the derelict cannon foundry in Applecross: spears of chain radiating at every angle, secured into walls with rusted hooks and pins, and knitted together like a madwoman's puzzle. In the centre, Barraby's watchtower stood ensnared. Smoke unfurled from its ruined summit and blew west across the city under a million winter stars.

Huffing and gasping, Presbyter Scrimlock climbed through the chains. His lantern swung, knocked against links and welds and God knows what, threw shadows like lattices of cracks across the gleaming cobbles. When he looked up, he saw squares and triangles full of stars. His sandals slipped as though on melted glass. The chains, where he touched them, were wet. And when he finally reached the Spine Adept waiting by the watchtower door he saw why.

'Blood,' the Presbyter whispered, horrified. He rubbed feverishly at his cassock, but the gore would not shift.

The Spine Adept, skin stretched so tight over his muscles he seemed cadaverous, turned lifeless eyes on the priest. 'From the dead,' he explained. 'She ejects them from the tower. Will not suffer them there inside with her.' He tilted his head to one side.

Below the chains numerous Spine bodies lay in a shapeless mound, their leather armour glistening like venom.

'Ulcis have mercy,' Scrmlock said. 'How many has she killed?'

'Eleven.'

Scrimlock drew a breath. The night tasted dank and rusty, like the air in a dungeon. 'You're making it worse,' he complained. 'Can't you see that? You're feeding her fury.'

'We have injured her,' the Adept said. His expression remained unreadable, but he pressed a pale hand against the watchtower door brace, as if to reinforce it.

'What?' The Presbyter's heart leapt. 'You've injured her? That's... How could you possibly...'

'She heals quickly.' The Adept looked up. 'Now we must hurry.'

Scrimlock followed the man's gaze, and for a moment wondered what he was looking at. Then he spotted them: silhouettes against the glittering night, lean figures scaling the chains, moving quickly and silently to the watchtower's single window. More Spine than Scrimlock had ever seen together. There had to be fifty, sixty. How was it possible he'd failed to notice them before?

So begins the Deepgate Codex. A brilliant entry point into a series that is well founded on equal part description and action, with a pace that never lets up. It's not often that I finish a 500+ page book in a week, and when I (a slow-slow reader) do, the book must be good - Shirley?

Here we have the prologue entry, a 7 page section that precedes the main events by 2000 years (hmm... let's not get into a discussion on the finer points of prologues and whether they should be used or not - here it's employed specifically to introduce 2 main characters: the Angel Carnival, and the city of Deepgate. Being 2000 years before the main narrative, it sits better as a prologue).

Anyhoo, let's look at what we get...

• Paragraph 1 - The character of the city of chains is evoked in one punchy paragraph. Description to set the scene and locale.
• Paragraph 2 - A "real" character walks onto the scene and as they arrive, we have them interacting with the scenery, showing clothing but always making it act or react to the location. It never tells us what he's wearing. Instead we know he had a lantern because the lantern's swing knocks against the chains and throws light about, illuminating the scenery. He wears sandals, we learn, because the floor is slippery. And finally we arrive at a specific place (The watchtower door) and another character.
  
• Paragraph 3 - Brief dialogue and character reaction to... blood! We learn he's wearing a cassock because he rubs the blood onto it. Emotionally, we get "horrified" and the "gore would not shift"
  
• Para 4 - We meet the 2nd character, and have a quick bit description with dialogue - and here came a big epiphany...

The narrator, in Scar Night, is third person limited, but... the narrator, having chosen the first character to align with (Scrimlock), describes things from the chosen character's pov. So, when the narrator writes: "The Spine Adept, skin stretched so tight over his muscles he seemed cadaverous, turned lifeless eyes on the priest", it's not so much the narrator's observation but Scrimlock's.

And this is what I've not noticed prior to this book. That 3rd person pov is not an excuse to separate ourselves from what is going on; the emotion, the feeling of being there. Why didn't I see this before?

This explains why later in the book we get recaps of certain things we have already covered - because we've entered a new character and now they're observing it.

Scar Night - Official Website
Chapter 1 Extract - Pan Macmillan

Reaction Before Explanation

Just a quickie... I was popping my nostrils through Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (as you do), looking for a description of the Mirror of Erised, and the room in which it is sitting, because I am trying to make sure that if (and when) I finally get back to writing my children's story, I must keep my writing less flowery (if you must know).

Anyhoo, I came across how JK Rowling presents a surprise to the reader when it affects her characters - she does so by dealing with the most immediate element, and in the case of Harry looking into the mirror - his reaction. This keeps the reader slightly distanced, as if pushing them away so that they can't see what Harry sees, making them want to know more:

His panic fading now that there was no sound of Filch and Snape, Harry moved nearer to the mirror, wanting to look at himself but see no reflection again. He stepped in front of it.

He had to clap his hands to his mouth to stop himself screaming. He whirled around. His heart was pounding far more furiously than when the book had screamed - for he had seen not only himself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind him.

The lady can write. As for the screaming book, that's another example of sudden surprise, but this time rather than dealing with the character reaction, we have the most pertinent element of the shock, that being the scream that breaks the quiet:

He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on his knee, let it fall open.

A piercing, blood-curdling shrief split the silence - the book was screaming! Harry snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, unbroken, ear-splitting note. He stumbled backwards and knocked over his lamp, which went out at once.

So, surprise or reaction first... works both ways but it's dependent upon the specifics. There's no point in her writing about Harry's reaction to the screaming book before we've read that it's screaming. Similarly, we lose any suspense and / or terror if we see the people in the mirror and not Harry's reaction.

Oh, and as for the mirror itself:

- but propped against the wall facing him was something that didn't look as if it belonged there, something that looked as if someone had just put it here to keep it out of the way.

It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on whosi.

Functional description linked in with character action (it was facing him - relates back to character position so that it doesn't feel as if we've stopped to describe it).

Pertinent Descriptions

... at least that's the point I've been ignoring all this time. In Barker's short story In The Hills, The Cities, we have a great example of this. Prior to this excerpt we've had no description of the characters bar their psyche, arguments, and pov:

'I asked you a question,' Judd said again.

Mick looked round. Judd was standing the far side of the car, his brows a knitted line of burgeoning anger. But handsome; oh yes; a face that made women weep with frustration that he was gay. A heavy black moustache (perfectly trimmed) and eyes you could watch forever, and never see the same light in them twice. Why in God's name, thought Mick, does a man as fine as that have to be such an insensitive little shit?

So, opening the paragraph we have where Judd is standing and a brief description of what part of his body is showing us his anger. Next, we have Mick's pov description that Judd is handsome (this begins as a tell - but is qualified). Then we have a straight forward description, but again it's brought back to Mick's pov. We learn what Mick sees in Judd's features. And then we have Mick's thoughts, his weighing up of the situation, of Judd. Which brings us back to character, giving the reader some concrete emotion to link in with, with Mick

Overwriting

I've come up against my usual stumping misnomer - of overwriting my work. I'm back into the YA novel - now entitled The Library Book (at least my proposed series is called that) - and I've been employing those wonderous new tools I think I've about mastered. It's all aimed at presenting a focused narrative that doesn't idle in description, but brings along plot (the only problem is my overwriting - I've employed certain words that go beyond the reach of common language in my quest to find the most succinct words to keep that flow). Here's where I get it right:

The command slithered through the humid air like a python through underbrush, carving a trail towards its intended victim. The words hissed hypnotically across the counter, eased into sleepy ears by the heat rising to the vaulted ceiling.

Here's where it goes slightly above and beyond the needs:

The rotunda with the revolving door, the DVD and CD stacks: all were empty. Only dust motes sifted through the selections. They flitted in and out of the sunlight streaming through the large clerestory windows on either side of the entrance. Rodan gripped Mrs Bailey’s last two books like daggers as his stomach twisted into a knot.

But, what I'm trying to do is bring together non-cliched metaphors that also share a common theme. I've got to be wary of mixing my metaphors and not overdoing it, but I think I'm succeeding there also. Looking at my lead antagonist, Penthera Discordia. I've already used similies to liken her spoken words - a cast spell - to a snake. So, we have that sinister aspect already. When we see her, our point-of-view takes in her full decrepid splendour, but moves away from the animal analogies, shifting for sight into a grander set of descriptions:

Penthera Discordia... towered above the counter like a birch tree in a black and violet dress... her willowy figure planted between the desks...

Penthera’s violaceous dress began at her tall throat and swept downwards in tight curves that arced out from her feet and spilled from her arms... the tails hanging from her three-quarter length sleeves billowed like the boughs of an ancient tree playing in the first winds of a storm... her long fingers were outstretched upon the branch of her left arm, grey and rotten as if the bark had been stripped back to the trunk.

My immediate worry is that this too is beyond the call of a young adult novel... perhaps even more unnecessary description than an adult needs. Could I just say, she stood before him like a great oak, dark and sinister, just beyond the reach of the sunlight?

I don't know! I like the idea of developing major characters into these styles of menace. Certainly I do it again when we meet Penthera's raven Raork. But what do I lost by skipping it? My worry is that we lose everything that distinguishes my work from the others on the market. I want to flit these moments of - dare I say it - descriptive brilliance, not to remind the reader that it is I the author making these 'overtly' wonderous descriptions, but because I want to give them something powerful to hold in their minds.

This, I believe, is the skillset and tools I've built up for use. This is how I wish to write, but at what price? Do I lose sight of the narrative? Is the reader bored by my self-indulgence? Can I have tension in these long descriptive passages? I try these days to describe as something happens, but I can't be sure at the moment. I'm too close to it. Too blind.

... and what's happened to Spoiling Virtue, the other book I was working so diligently to solve? Erm... fallen by the way side! Perhaps I'll pick it up again in a month or so. What's the rush?