I feel ya. My old man was a mean fucker (pardon my language) for a decade in my life. So I understand why you would use it as an element in shaping your characters. I am 7 years your senior, so don't sweat it, I have a character in his late 50's (yay for being able to play on midlife crisis). Best advice that I can give you is forgiveness (it is hard, but worth it in the long run). I wish you all the best, in luck and writing. Look forward to reading some of your work. Take it easy and have fun.
@GuardianWynn Of course, go ahead I think if I use the description I wrote for this thread I might take out the sentence about how Brennen expected Hale to be changed by battle, but not this much. That's telling something I need to show. And I could replace "we were both just twenty-seven" with "we were both young men" and not lose anything.
Yeah it is hard to comment without context. If it is the first page of the book I think telling is fine. If not, than you would have had loads of chances to show that and thus not need to tell it.
@Cave Troll Your language is fine, I use worse in my day to day life! And I've always been told that writing from experience often offers a more meaningful, impactful tale, so I suppose in the end it's not such a bad thing that my characters often have bad blood with their fathers, because at least I know how to make it feel authentic. I want to forgive my dad but his absence is ongoing and I still feel it keenly. I guess one day I'll learn to accept it. @GuardianWynn I'm halfway through my second chapter, but when Bren and Hale are reunited, it'll be the first time Hale's seen through someone else's perspective, and he's not the sort to notice things about himself. So I don't have a lot of opportunities to show how he looks, but I can definitely show he's haunted by the war. I just feel like it's a natural thing for someone to notice, if a person they know well and expect to be cheerful and smiling is visibly dead inside.
Yeah I agree but in that sense I am saying telling sounds fine. Remember the way I use the term telling and showing. Not sure if yours is different. Showing: Give clues and allow the reader to figure it out. Telling: Directly say the conclusion. In this case we don't know him. So it is unfair to show us the change. It would be hard for us to figure it out. So to directly say the conclusion that the war changed him, is not only fair but a better story telling approach in my opinion. At this junction. You will have chances later to show the results of these differences or reference how he was and how that is different and why.
But is it not better storytelling to have Brennen compare the Hale he knows to the Hale before him now, and by doing this, show the change? Outright stating "war had changed him" might be in line with Bren's thoughts but it's not a very interesting statement.
I disagree. "War had changed him" I think is a very interesting statement. A very useful one too. Unless of course we already know that. See, lets say the book opens on them as teens. Hale is them established. Then Hale leaves and then he returns. You don't need that line in this case. Because we saw him before. You showed us the change. The problem with trying to show something page one. Is we don't have context. So our minds will make guesses. Such as he has pale blank expressionless eyes. Okay. So I assume he went through a tragedy of some sorts. War? Rape? His Mom died? All of these and MANY more can produce pale blank eyes. The last thing you want is for me page one to be thinking this book is about some guy who loved his wife when in fact he never had a wife. As example. Okay, your case doesn't lead to one that astray but it is a steep slope. See in your case you mention war which is good. Because you are than telling me he has changed. Again which I think is good. War changed him, isn't boring to me. Because it makes me think; Why? How? And I assume you answer these questions at some point. The point again being. Sometimes it is better to be direct and tell the reader something directly. Imagine how old a coversation would be if no one was ever direct? If someone danced around every question. Imagine how boring it would be the opposite, if people only used the smallest number of words needed such as a blank yes or no. Mixing it up is what makes it interesting. Well one thing that makes it interesting. Telling I think can be good in the case of; - Something you don't want your reader to misunderstand - Something you don't want your reader pausing uneededly on. Which in this case I think page one is something that qualifies. You don't want a reader re-reading page one to ensure they got it right. You want them moving to page two.
@Simpson17866 that so many of them have similar pasts? Often, and with frustrating regularity. They argue about who's dealt with his past in a healthier manner, which invariably ends in me reminding them that none of them have a particularly healthy attitude towards their pasts. @GuardianWynn the book opens with Hale returning from war, so the whole war thing is already very well established by the time Hale and Brennen are reunited (probably in the second chapter, because I want it to be from Bren's perspective). But how different he is, mentally and physically, from 3 years into the war when Bren had to go back home to Buckhaven (the kingdom's capital city), isn't really looked at until Bren sees him and realises he doesn't know his best friend at all anymore.
See this kind of says a lot about what I mean again. I still think the line "the war had changed him" is perfectly fine and the kind of simplisticness you want in the beginning but if the war is so well established. You can just state. "Wow, he is so different than I remembered him," this would be more showing as the reader has to draw the conclusion that this is due to the war. I still say you don't want to be too complicated in the beginning though. Me as a reader(a poor reader at that) nothing is quite the turn off as "I don't know what is going on!" lol. Food for thought.
I open with this, from Hale's perspective: So I feel like I've done an alright job, in relatively few words, of establishing setting and showing the reader a little backstory without outright shoving it in their face like "LOOK there was a WAR but now there's a new problem, look at it, isn't it terrifying?" Chapter 1 is nearly 4000 words at this point and needs some serious refining to get it all to the quality of the opener, which is the most polished part so far by default of having been read and re-read so many times.
Nope, I dislike prologues. They're too often used as a means of shoving backstory in the reader's face. It's the beginning of the first chapter. I feel like it establishes character, setting, a little backstory, and narrative, all in under 300 words.
I thought you were starting on him not in war though? This feels like war. Which means I assume you are going to scene jump. lol Right?
It should feel like war, because Hale's damaged enough by his years on the battlefield to think like everything is war. But it's not war.
You missed a step or didn't say everything. This feels like he is in war at that very moment. Or remembering an event from war. This is the kind of bad concept I am warning you about. In my opinion. If I pick up the book and read page one and picture this hellish warzone and turn the page and now he is in an apartment alone out of war. I am going to go "huh?" then I am going to turn the page back and go "Did I miss something?" And if I don't find a clear transition I am going to go "What the heck is going on!" and at that point likely going to put the book down to never again pick it up.
I don't think I have, but maybe that's because, as the author, I know exactly what's going on. But I thought "Years had passed, all of them away from Wightmouth, most of them spent on the battlefield" was enough to show the reader that the battlefield is away from Wightmouth.
Context though "There was once a time I would have answered immediately, with the reckless certainty of youth and inexperience - but no more" This to me gives the impression he is saying that he has no longer in-experienced and the line you are saying is he is on the battle field like at this moment. So is he on the battlefield or not? If not is he remembering these events? This is not clear. Yes. You know your story. I don't so you can lose me easily by ommiting a piece of detail or not establishing it correctly.
Yes, he is saying he's no longer inexperienced (he's now got a full decade of experience under his belt). The following line is supposed to show the fact that time (which makes him no longer inexperienced) has passed far from Wightmouth, on the foreign front. Hale is willing to let me omit that sentence, but I'm not sure if it would feel right. There was once a time I would have answered immediately, with the reckless certainty of youth and inexperience - but no more. Years had passed, all of them away from Wightmouth, most of them spent on the battlefield. I had become a man, a Lord and a General since my last visit to Wight’s grandest city. Consequently, I allowed silence to stretch almost two minutes before at last answering, “We have a duty to the people of Wightmouth. Let us take the corpses on the gallows as a warning and proceed. If death awaits, we shall greet it with honour.” vs There was once a time I would have answered immediately, with the reckless certainty of youth and inexperience - but no more. I had become a man, a Lord and a General since my last visit to Wight’s grandest city. Consequently, I allowed silence to stretch almost two minutes before at last answering, “We have a duty to the people of Wightmouth. Let us take the corpses on the gallows as a warning and proceed. If death awaits, we shall greet it with honour.” vs There was once a time I would have answered immediately, with the reckless certainty of youth and inexperience - but no more. I had become a man, a Lord and a General during my ten years on the (foreign country) front. Consequently, I allowed silence to stretch almost two minutes before at last answering, “We have a duty to the people of Wightmouth. Let us take the corpses on the gallows as a warning and proceed. If death awaits, we shall greet it with honour.” Hale says the second version is dead wrong but refuses to choose between the first and third. Edit; and we both just realised I used "answered" and "answering" within the same paragraph. I will revise "answered".
The point I am still unsure on. This still sounds like he is IN war. As in in war right this second. I thought you said he was out of war. Like recently got out and is now adjjusting to civilian life. Have I misunderstood something?
He's leading his men into what he believes to be a potentially life-threatening situation so to him, it's war. In reality (if one can apply the word to fiction) it isn't war.
Are you familiar with the concept of an unreliable narrator? Hale is that. He's a highly intelligent, well-educated man, but he's also very damaged. He's suffering PTSD in a setting in which PTSD is not at all understood - psychologists don't exist, there is no understanding of the ailments of the human psyche. As I write from his perspective, it should feel a lot like war, because that's how it feels to him. I am telling the story as he tells it to me, though I know when, where, and how he's wrong. Trust me when I say you won't turn the page and have him suddenly relaxing in an apartment (which don't exist in this setting anyway). At the end of the chapter he's still outside the Wightmouth gates.
You have to be careful with that. There is a big difference between showing the world through his twisted eyes and just not showing the world with very much consistancy. Though to me, in either case. If I can't gain a feel of what is happening. Then I wouldn't finish the book. Just me. So the entire book is in his twisted perception? Or just the opening?
I'm alternating between his perspective and Brennen's perspective. Bren's only spent three years on the battlefield, and has had seven years to recover from it (though has been managing the war from Buckhaven since he was forced to leave the front) - Hale's fresh from the war so his recovery has only just begun. You'll understand the story (and the world) properly if you read more than the first 273 words, but I don't want to share much of it because that might harm my chances of getting it published. You know. First rights, all that.
