Getting lost.

[Guido123]

So what does one do when one gets completely lost in one's story? I've written quite a lot of the story so far, but I feel now that I've been slightly too ambitious. I've been following three different characters (3rd POV), and It's become hard to combine them, and allow their stories to intertwine.

I can either get rid of them and follow the main character, or must I change to an omniscient POV? (Both options seem like quite a change from the original).

I've tried to put it away for later, but it seems like a wall I need to conquer.

Have any of you had similar experiences? If so, how did you beat this demon?

Cheers x

 

[Terry Greer]

Would concentrating on one or just two work?

 

[Incanus]

Without knowing the specifics of your story, its hard to say, but there shouldn't be anything inherently wrong with using multiple limited third person POV. Try not to go omniscient if you can help it (while not dismissing it out of hand)--assuming this is a novel we're talking about here, and not a short story or novella. The three POV's might not necessarily need to connect and interweave through plot, if they can be connected by theme. And, I imagine they are already connected by setting, even if tenuously. Maybe try looking at the bigger picture and see if there is something a bit more abstract that can serve to pull all of it together. No matter what, you're probably in for a good deal of editing (as are we all).

 

[Butterfly]

When you say 3rd POV do you mean you are writing from 3 points of view (3 characters), or are you writing in the 3rd person narrative (him, her, they)?

Emma Darwin has some great blog posts about POV and narrators. Have a read through them, perhaps her explanations might give you some alternatives.

This Itch of Writing: the blog: POINT OF VIEW & NARRATORS 1: the basics

This Itch of Writing: the blog: POINT OF VIEW & NARRATORS 2: internal narrators

This Itch of Writing: the blog: POINT OF VIEW & NARRATORS 3: external narrators

This Itch of Writing: the blog: POINT OF VIEW & NARRATORS 4: moving point of view and other stories

If not, perhaps you need to look at how you are structuring your story. Does each POV have their own chapter? If not perhaps you could alternate chapters between POVs, or write in sectional POVs. One section from the first POV, another from the second POV...

Or do you shift POV within a chapter?

 

[LordFalco]

I wrestled with the same problem, i.e., writing into dead ends. The solution for me was to bring all three protagonists together after their intro scenes. That made it a lot easier to keep up with them and track their motivations. Then decide on how each plays into the climax and denouement---which has a bearing on sequels.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Used to happen to me all the time. Now, I spend a lot more time in planning & pay more attention story structure. Saves me a lot of effort and time in the long run.

Have you planned out your story structure? What type of structure are you attempting?

 

[ThinkerX]

I used to write myself into dead-ends more often than not.

Anymore, I don't start writing without at least semi-solid ideas about the middle and the end. I spend a fair bit of time thinking about plot points, about what would motivate character X to go to place Z, and what character Q's reaction to this might be. That said, when it comes to the actual writing, ideas can and do mutate.

 

[cupiscent]

The novel I'm currently revising has three characters with more or less equal billing, and I had trouble in the first draft with entwining their stories. When I started my revisions, the first thing I did was replot to strengthen the spine of the story and do more to braid them all in together - I strengthened the history and relationships between the characters, and made them touch each other at least twice a "cycle" (a round of the three viewpoints), and I worked hard on shifting key elements of story for each character into the storylines of the other two.

My advice would be: finish your first draft. Just write everyone's stories. Then have a look at what you've got. It might be that you can braid them more strongly together in revisions. OR it might be that you've written two (or three) separate stories, and pulling them further apart will give you three stories set in the same world with some slight reference to each other. But you can't know that until you have the whole story to look at.

 

[Penpilot]

Used to happen to me all the time. Now, I spend a lot more time in planning & pay more attention story structure. Saves me a lot of effort and time in the long run.

Have you planned out your story structure? What type of structure are you attempting?

This.

My first novel, I encountered very much the same problem. I had three major POVs and three minor ones, and everything ran off in all directions. It was a mess pulling it all together, and it stayed a mess.

As T.A.S. mentioned, it's all about planning. You don't have to plan every last detail out, but you should have an idea of what journey your characters are taking and how they will all come together.

A one POV book can generally be described as trying to stuff ten pounds of poop into a two pound bag. A three POV book is exponentially harder. It's not 30 pounds, it's a thousand. So if you don't have a plan, and don't have a firm grasp of the structure of your story, it becomes an icky gooey mess.

So yeah, maybe now is a good time to pause, and make a plan. If you don't have an outline, reverse engineer one. Once you have that outline, sit down, look at that outline, and plan out in broad strokes what/where all the pov's are heading toward and how they're going to get there.

 

[Helen]

So what does one do when one gets completely lost in one's story?

Stand back and look at the arc.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

So yeah, maybe now is a good time to pause, and make a plan. If you don't have an outline, reverse engineer one. Once you have that outline, sit down, look at that outline, and plan out in broad strokes what/where all the pov's are heading toward and how they're going to get there.

And, it doesn't necessarily need to be an outline, if outlining isn't your cup of tea.

If say, you were using a three act structure, knowing what your basic story points are can act as a roadmap while you pants everything in between those points.

Inciting Event
Key Event
Hook
First plot point
Etc.....

Those points can be as detailed, or as minimal, as you need.

There's other types of story structure too. Three act is just the most common. Point is, some of us need a story skeleton before we start putting flesh onto our creation.

 

[Tom]

Sometimes getting lost in your story can be a good thing. I've found that if I come to a point where I think I can't continue, with time and patience I actually come up with a better and more compelling story than if I'd stuck to the outline.

A year ago, I realized while writing my novel that my antagonist wasn't as antagonistic as the plot demanded. While I was wondering how to continue on with the story when it was clear my bad guy wasn't that bad, I started playing around with the idea of the Faeries. They'd only been part of the subplot before, as a way to up the tension a bit, but I realized that they were the main antagonists. The story picked right up after that.

I think my advice would be, don't try to fight the dead end. Instead of forcing the story to get back on track, wander around a little. Look at parts of the story that could help you reconnect to the plot. Use your getting lost to your advantage.

All that is gold does not glitter/Not all those who wander are lost...

 

[Guido123]

Wow! There's a whole lot of great advice here; I've got some things to think about. I suppose a re-think of the story so far is a must. My plan has been, perhaps, too vague.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

It would help to have more information about the relation between the characters...if there is any. In my first fantasy novel and the sequel which I am currently writing the four main characters all live in separate villages. I use third person for them in sub-chapters to show what is taking place for each of them at generally the same time. When they are all together at school There are still times where they are in separate classes, thus third person for each of them. I used a natural progression of people being home, then travelling to boarding school, then being together, a lot of stuff happens, then going home.
If your characters meet then there will be cohesion in that way. Let it happen in a natural manner. If they don't meet then you need to establish how their stories are related. You may need to think about where you want your characters to be mentally and physically at the end of the story, then work back from there. Hope this helps.

 

[Jenurik Name]

Do the three storylines have to converge at the same time? My observation is that a lot of authors, within fantasy and without, try to have them all meet at once. They like the elegance of the parallel structure.

It might be more original to have two of them meet before the other, then link up with the third shortly afterward? You'd be refusing to play the game of doing this elaborate, but very transparent, setup and getting the timing right. More often than not, the authors obviously force the storylines together by mixing up the pacing. One character is on the doorstep of the convergence point while the others are lagging behind, so they get a glut of chapters in comparison to character #1. The result is that it feels like the author did it because he felt he had to.

 

[Addison]

I had the same problem with my story and I found a terrific fix. Backwards Outline.

Get a clean notebook and pencil(s), or a bunch of index cards, and start with the last scene. Only write two or three sentences worth, to keep the description short and to the point. As you work backwards you really think about how the plot and characters got there. You realize perhaps you repeated a scene so many times or stated a fact so many times it kills the story. I started the backward outline for my story last week and I'm just closing in on the first act.

Hope this helps. Happy Writing!

 

[spectre]

my English teacher taught us to use one point of view in our writings. While we wrote essays, I believe the lesson was applied to writing in general. I like to flip flop points of view and I think that some times in a story it provides a certain depth even if you only change your point of view for a moment, like when you're in conversation and someone says something like, "Like some people do!" and looks at you. It changes what you're looking at as a reader from say a scene and the character in it and their emotional draw to a situation they've been placed in in the immediate sense so that oppositional and objective perceptions arise in conflict rather than sequence.