Ireth
Myth Weaver
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?
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?