So I am writing a story, where the first part - the introduction - takes place in the near end of the novel. Here, my two protagonists are fighting the 'bad-guys' and one of the brothers are shot. Have you ever watched Narnia? When Edmund gets speared by the witch's sword/wand and every sound just disappear? I am trying to get that down on paper/keyboard, but every time I try, it just doesn't sound right. How would YOU describe such a scene?
I think such scenes will be effective only when done from the viewpoint of the brother who is being shot. Sounds become distant (because of the physical trauma he suffered) and then muted just before he lost consciousness. It will be difficult to do a written muted scene as compared to doing it in a visual medium like movies.
write this scene. Chapter break, then start from the beginning. people will understand. If they see joe get shot and die. and in the next chapter he's well they'll get it, to be even more obvious have him read the journal of the day so they'll be certain of the time transition.
You aren't creating a movie, so you won't have many of the audio and visual effects a movie can have. However, you can achieve this "feeling" by carefully choosing what you want to include in the scene. One aspect of the scene you seem to want will be time moving by slower than normal (as with Edmund's scene, if I remember correctly, they slowed down time). You can either spend longer on the individual, carefully-selected events to make each event seem to come "ages" after the previous one, or you can freeze the story and focus on one (or a few) significant things, such as the expression on the person's face before the shot, and take a while on that. Another aspect seems to be the sounds fading away in the scene. One way you can achieve that would be to emphasize the lack of sounds as the brother is shot, such as by immersing the reader with all five senses before the gunshot, and then taking away sound all of a sudden, or gradually, when he is hit.
It is not a hard task to describe it but it really depends on your style of writing and if it sounds right to you. I can give you one now but maybe only i think it sounds right. The world seemed to stop. Stop revolving, time seemed to slow down.*some sort of sound in the background (gunshot for instance)* seemed to die out, everything was bland, muted, taken away. To me that sounded incredible (obviously boasting) but in your eyes it might seem complete daft so only you can decide how it all ends.
Thank you so much for your replies - means a lot to me. I shall try to use all of your advise and put it into my writing, to make this scene work (hopefully) ! #roguemaster1224 - that was really good, not daft at all!
