Feo Takahari
Auror
I'm making another attempt at writing a story I'd earlier set aside as difficult to write. One of the problems that keeps tripping me up is that much of the story revolves around the relationship between four people who've been each other's only company for many years--they'd realistically have a lot of shared memories and in-jokes, and it's hard to rapidly bring the reader up to speed on all that without risking confusion. Right now, I'm looking at two options:
1): Keep all the shared memories and in-jokes. Write from the perspective of the one character who interacts with the world outside their house (more specifically, with the newly-appointed messenger who brings them food and supplies, replacing a previous messenger who died in, shall we say, an unfortunate incident.) Use that newly appointed messenger's confused queries as a vehicle for explanations of some of what's going on. However, I don't think I can open with the messenger, and he won't be able to ask questions about every little thing, so there'll still be some degree of confusion, particularly in the beginning.
2): Write from the perspective of the messenger. Show only those things he directly perceives, and use his conversations with the other characters to portray the story. However, my original intention was for the story to be about all four characters living in the house, and for the messenger to be a minor character--I have no idea what character arc I'd do for him, and using him as the sole perspective would make it very hard to do arcs for more than two other characters. In other words, I'm afraid I'd be throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.
How might I do better at pulling off 1? If I can't really do it, how might I better tackle 2?
(I realize that there's option 3): write the ten previous years. However, unless I zoomed through it like this, the ten years would take up much, much more of the story than the part I actually want to write. Furthermore, the story I want to write is mocking a particular genre, and I'm afraid the ten previous years, if portrayed at length, would turn it into a straight example of that genre.)
1): Keep all the shared memories and in-jokes. Write from the perspective of the one character who interacts with the world outside their house (more specifically, with the newly-appointed messenger who brings them food and supplies, replacing a previous messenger who died in, shall we say, an unfortunate incident.) Use that newly appointed messenger's confused queries as a vehicle for explanations of some of what's going on. However, I don't think I can open with the messenger, and he won't be able to ask questions about every little thing, so there'll still be some degree of confusion, particularly in the beginning.
2): Write from the perspective of the messenger. Show only those things he directly perceives, and use his conversations with the other characters to portray the story. However, my original intention was for the story to be about all four characters living in the house, and for the messenger to be a minor character--I have no idea what character arc I'd do for him, and using him as the sole perspective would make it very hard to do arcs for more than two other characters. In other words, I'm afraid I'd be throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.
How might I do better at pulling off 1? If I can't really do it, how might I better tackle 2?
(I realize that there's option 3): write the ten previous years. However, unless I zoomed through it like this, the ten years would take up much, much more of the story than the part I actually want to write. Furthermore, the story I want to write is mocking a particular genre, and I'm afraid the ten previous years, if portrayed at length, would turn it into a straight example of that genre.)
Minstrel
