Issues with POV?

[Ireth]

Lately I've been having issues with a scene in Tenth Realm. It involves three supporting characters who are currently traveling to speak with the villain's henchman, who has been imprisoned by the good guys, and is awaiting trial for his various crimes. At this point the travelers are around halfway to their destination, about to make camp for the night.

I'd intended for this scene to be a quieter interlude between the tenser scenes before and following, and an opportunity to explore a new POV (the character himself has been around since chapter 1, but hasn't had a POV scene yet), and by so doing, expand on my worldbuilding via his curious nature and inclination to ask questions. But as with all things, there are problems. The main one is a language barrier. Character 1, the intended POV, speaks only Norse. Character 2 speaks Norse and Irish with equal fluency, while character 3 speaks Irish and Welsh.

My intent for the first part is for characters 2 and 3 to have a discussion about various setting pieces, which character 1 would ask about and get more information on. Trouble is, it's only logical for characters 2 and 3 to have that discussion in Irish, which doesn't give character 1 much to understand or ask about. Logically he could ask character 2 to translate, but that would result in a lot of telling and paraphrasing of the conversation, which seems a little awkward to me.

The other solution would be to switch POVs to character 2 and show the conversation directly, but that has its downsides as well -- namely, that we don't get that insight into character 1's curious psyche beyond the questions he'd ask vocally. Character 2 would still be a bit curious, but not nearly so much as character 1, who has never been in Faerie before. Character 3 is native to it, and character 2 has lived there for ten years.

A solution my friend suggested would be to write the scene twice, once from character 1's POV and once from character 2's, and include them both in the story side-by-side. I'm not especially inclined to repeat scenes like that, since my writing is very linear and chronological; I rarely even do overlap between scenes. But it does seem like a good way to get what I want from the scene and the conversation, as well as what stems from it. I'm just not sure I could make it work in a way that doesn't jar with the rest of my tightly linear style. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[SineNomine]

I'd stick with Character 2 there. I don't see any natural way for Character 1's view to work due to the constraints you've laid out. But I think you shouldn't worry too much, inquisitiveness has to be the single easiest trait to have a non-viewpoint character express and express well. I mean, heck, showing and telling are practically the same thing when you have someone who is intensely curious. How deep exactly do you need to get into his psyche, does he become a major player later on or something?

 

[Gurkhal]

If the PoV is inquisitive and all I would allow him to attempt to learn Irish and perhaps have caught a bit by the time that the conversation takes place. That way he may be able to be drawn into it.

 

[ACSmyth]

The problem I'd see with the sort of conversation you're outlining would be the risk of "on the nose" dialogue, and it turning into a veiled infodump. If you change it to C2 POV do you end up with a single-scene POV person, or were you planning for him to get his own POV later?

If you want character 1 as a POV character and not character 2, maybe C2 suggests that C1 is going to stand out/attract unwanted attention if he can't speak any of the language, and he should learn a little to blend in a bit better. C2 starts off with some basic words. C3 cottons on to what he's doing (although he can't understand the Norse bits) and suggests some words too. Maybe they get a bit bawdy and C2/C3 are having a laugh with C1. Teaching him tavern-talk, or whatever. Then one of them suggests a word that's something significant you need the reader to know about but is big/scary/whatever. They go a bit quiet, and C1 catches from their change of manner that it's something different, and presses C2 for an explanation. Then you get your come-down from the tension with some humour, a chance to show the characters' personalities, and then the chance to drop in some more tension at the end of the scene, as C2 explains to C1 the big/scary stuff.

I don't know enough about your actual plot to know if it works, but it might spark something.

 

[wordwalker]

On the other hand, I don't see how this could get repetitive at all. If it's C1's VP, he'll say something, then all he'll hear are "Irish strangeness" while C2 and C3 translate, and C2 gives C1 his or their answer(s). What you have is a normal conversation with C1 and C2, padded by that process and any contrasts between what C2 and C3 say. You can then flesh out the translation lag time with as much as C1 wants to notice about expressions, voices, and any words he recognizes; he could be trying hard to wring extra meaning out of every moment, or could stop thinking of the lag at all and just see C2 giving two people's answers.

And that's if it doesn't turn into learning the language.

As an example of the fun you can have with language fragments, I remember a moment on SG1 when several Earth diplomats were muttering about "the Americans keeping secrets." The two Russians (the ones there who already knew The Secret) then stepped aside and we heard them whispering "somethingrussian russian russian pravda"-- which to some viewers, because we remembered the name of the Soviet newspaper, revealed that they were saying something about "the truth."

Or take the climax of Watership Down, when Bigwig answers Woundwort's last-chance offer with silflay hraka, u embleer rah. After following the book this far, we know exactly how he cussed him out.

 

[TWErvin2]

Disrupting the story flow, being repetitive and throwing the reader off for the sake of a little bit of world building, doesn't sound like a good idea.

With the translation issue, it can be done, but in my limited experience (only had to mess with such twice in my novels), I kept it to a minimum, and had one character listen and then translate, not repeating the information. But I also wrote in first person POV, which is a slightly different situation.

 

[Ireth]

If the PoV is inquisitive and all I would allow him to attempt to learn Irish and perhaps have caught a bit by the time that the conversation takes place. That way he may be able to be drawn into it.

Well, the problem with that is that C1 has only been in Faerie for a week to a week and a half at most, so he really wouldn't have had time to learn that much conversational Irish, even if he was living among bilingual Norse-Gaels like C2 and her family. The MC had a related issue with learning Norse; he only managed to pick up a few words over a matter of days, which was a serious hindrance to his interactions with the unilingual Norse speakers. That issue is resolved later by a spell from the villain, but unfortunately it's not feasible to replicate it for this situation.

The problem I'd see with the sort of conversation you're outlining would be the risk of "on the nose" dialogue, and it turning into a veiled infodump. If you change it to C2 POV do you end up with a single-scene POV person, or were you planning for him to get his own POV later?

If you want character 1 as a POV character and not character 2, maybe C2 suggests that C1 is going to stand out/attract unwanted attention if he can't speak any of the language, and he should learn a little to blend in a bit better. C2 starts off with some basic words. C3 cottons on to what he's doing (although he can't understand the Norse bits) and suggests some words too. Maybe they get a bit bawdy and C2/C3 are having a laugh with C1. Teaching him tavern-talk, or whatever. Then one of them suggests a word that's something significant you need the reader to know about but is big/scary/whatever. They go a bit quiet, and C1 catches from their change of manner that it's something different, and presses C2 for an explanation. Then you get your come-down from the tension with some humour, a chance to show the characters' personalities, and then the chance to drop in some more tension at the end of the scene, as C2 explains to C1 the big/scary stuff.

I don't know enough about your actual plot to know if it works, but it might spark something.

C2 has had one POV scene prior to this, in which she was first called upon to travel with C1 and C3. She was with C2 at the time, and that was when he first revealed his curious side. I thought it would be opportune to expand on that curiosity by giving C2 his own POV scene here. All three characters will get POV scenes later on once they reach their destination and meet with the people they're there to see, as well as afterward.

As for this scene, I'm not sure if C1 standing out will be an issue at all. C1 and C2 are called to be in this situation specifically because they can speak Norse, which C3's kin can't. They're going to translate for the villain's henchman (also a unilingual Norse-speaker, like C1) at his trial, as I said in the OP. Technically C2 could accomplish that on her own, being bilingual, but C1 saw fit to accompany her as a potential bodyguard if they got into trouble, as well as reasoning that the henchman might be more comfortable speaking to one of his own race. (The henchman and C1 are both light-elves; the henchman is a rare evil one, while C1 is good.) C2 is human, and C3 is Fae.

This scene isn't meant to be very tense; I was going for something lighthearted in between tenser scenes as a bit of a reprieve, as the characters themselves will want to think of something other than the task ahead of them. The setting pieces C2 and C3 talk about aren't all that dangerous, though they may end up being significant later, as some details tend to do before one even realizes it. Primarily though, I want them to just share stories of their cultures and thereby get to know each other and each others' worlds, as well as sharing that with the reader. The initial conversation would be a bit of an intro to that.

On the other hand, I don't see how this could get repetitive at all. If it's C1's VP, he'll say something, then all he'll hear are "Irish strangeness" while C2 and C3 translate, and C2 gives C1 his or their answer(s). What you have is a normal conversation with C1 and C2, padded by that process and any contrasts between what C2 and C3 say. You can then flesh out the translation lag time with as much as C1 wants to notice about expressions, voices, and any words he recognizes; he could be trying hard to wring extra meaning out of every moment, or could stop thinking of the lag at all and just see C2 giving two people's answers.

And that's if it doesn't turn into learning the language.

As an example of the fun you can have with language fragments, I remember a moment on SG1 when several Earth diplomats were muttering about "the Americans keeping secrets." The two Russians (the ones there who already knew The Secret) then stepped aside and we heard them whispering "somethingrussian russian russian pravda"-- which to some viewers, because we remembered the name of the Soviet newspaper, revealed that they were saying something about "the truth."

Or take the climax of Watership Down, when Bigwig answers Woundwort's last-chance offer with silflay hraka, u embleer rah. After following the book this far, we know exactly how he cussed him out.

The main issue I'm having is in getting C1 involved in C2 and C3's conversation at all. He's curious, but not impolite. I don't think he'd want to intrude on a conversation if they didn't make an effort to include him in the first place. The three of them are performing different tasks as they make camp (C1 is gathering firewood while the others get a shelter ready), so they're not really in close proximity for a three-way chat. The conversation would more or less be background noise for C1 until he started tuning in.

Kudos for mentioning Watership Down (love that book), but I'm not sure how that technique would work. As far as languages in my story go, I write them all as English, and denote in the narration when the speaker switches from one to another. The "default" language (i.e. the one they're assumed to be speaking unless otherwise noted) depends on the POV character.

Disrupting the story flow, being repetitive and throwing the reader off for the sake of a little bit of world building, doesn't sound like a good idea.

With the translation issue, it can be done, but in my limited experience (only had to mess with such twice in my novels), I kept it to a minimum, and had one character listen and then translate, not repeating the information. But I also wrote in first person POV, which is a slightly different situation.

I've dealt with the translation issue at the start of the novel, when the MC had to speak with C2's family as well as C1's friends. Mostly I said "X and Y jabbered back and forth for a while, and Z translated," with dialogue following. That got awkward quickly, and I realized I needed a cheat. See my response to Gurkhal above. Sadly, that's a one-time thing.

 

[skip.knox]

Leave aside the language issue for a moment. What's this scene for? If it's to get inside Char1's head, there surely are other ways to do this other than a conversation between these three. If it's to learn more about Fairie, see previous clause.

Have you considered giving them something to do? Something small and relatively quiet, but something that perhaps requires cooperation. Or something that Char1 begins but botches, then Char3 tries to correct but has to go through Char2 to do it. Cooking food, setting camp, ... I don't know the context so it's hard to be explicit.

By giving them something to do, you have room for some cozy conflict, misunderstandings, cross-purposes, which in turn can give a reason for translating a phrase or explaining a local custom. You could even use it for some bit of comedy, if appropriate. Or, alternatively, some trivial reason for later mistrust.

 

[Ireth]

Leave aside the language issue for a moment. What's this scene for? If it's to get inside Char1's head, there surely are other ways to do this other than a conversation between these three. If it's to learn more about Fairie, see previous clause.

I was really hoping to do both.

Have you considered giving them something to do? Something small and relatively quiet, but something that perhaps requires cooperation. Or something that Char1 begins but botches, then Char3 tries to correct but has to go through Char2 to do it. Cooking food, setting camp, ... I don't know the context so it's hard to be explicit.

There's an idea I could work with... C1 is a handy woodsman and decent hunter, but he can't cook to save his life (mainly because whenever he tries, people stop him because he sucks, so he has little chance to practice). XD C2 and C3 would have to help with that.

By giving them something to do, you have room for some cozy conflict, misunderstandings, cross-purposes, which in turn can give a reason for translating a phrase or explaining a local custom. You could even use it for some bit of comedy, if appropriate. Or, alternatively, some trivial reason for later mistrust.

Very true. ^^