Organizing a chaotic scene

[Ireth]

I'm having a lot of trouble with planning the climax of my WIP. The scene is very chaotic, with lots of things happening at more or less the same time in the span of a few minutes. For demonstration's sake, here's a list of the things that will happen (unless the plot changes before I reach that point):

Spoiler: the novel's climax

1) Protagonists Ariel, Vincent, Dom, Loegaire, and Gweneth meet up with antagonists Finvarra and Madoc and their servants. Also present is a unicorn.
2) Finvarra and Madoc reprimand Ariel and co. for failing in the quest Finvarra and Madoc set them on (to find Madoc's fugitive daughter Meabh), and consider their punishment.
3) Gweneth inadvertently reveals her true identity -- she is Meabh in disguise. The others are all shocked.
4) Madoc demands that Meabh be handed over to him; Ariel and co. refuse his demand and protect Meabh, as she is their friend.
5) Madoc tries to hold Ariel as a hostage, wanting to exchange her freedom for Meabh's.
6) Chaos ensues, and the following all happens at pretty much the same time: Ariel defends herself against Madoc; Vincent and co. rush to help Ariel, while Madoc's servants rush to help him. (Finvarra and his servants stand aside.) Madoc is maimed, and Dom and Loegaire are both gravely injured. Madoc's servants apprehend Meabh. Loegaire is momentarily forgotten in the chaos, and Vincent and Ariel both focus on Dom. At Vincent's plea, the unicorn steps in and heals Dom's wound with its horn, saving his life. (Hopefully not a Deus ex Machina, as minor healings by other unicorns are shown earlier in the novel, and this particular unicorn is not there at random.)
7) Ariel at last notices Loegaire and rushes to help him, but it is too late: he is dead.

There is more that happens afterward, of course, but it's irrelevant to the specific things I'm dealing with. Point six is the main thing I need to figure out. My biggest issue is with the perspective of the characters. I only want to have one character's POV on the scene, but he (or possibly she) couldn't possibly notice everything that's going on. The viewpoint character options are: Ariel, Vincent, or Dom. Gweneth/Meabh is not a viewpoint character at any point, as she only shows up partway through the book, and five POVs are more than I want to try to handle; and I'm a little leery of having Loegaire be a viewpoint character here, since he's going to die.

 

[ThinkerX]

George RR Martin faced this problem more than once in 'Game of Thrones'. He came up with two solutions, which he used at different points.

First - you might have to break down and include a second POV for this scene - you already admit it is too much for one character to take in.

Second - Prioritize. One character somehow spots most of the highlights, and then a secondary character starts in with a verbal description of the rest. The POV character finishes up the sequence, turns around, realizes other stuff was happening at the same time, and asks 'what happened'? Or tell it from Dom's POV and have one of the others fill in the details after he wakes up, or maybe have Ariel replay the events in her head or some such.

Most likely, you are looking at somehow incorporating a second POV.

 

[Penpilot]

Tough. Can't offer anything too specific, but try finding the POV character who's affected most emotionally in the scene. It's like a rollarcoaster, the POV that'll give the reader the best ride. Once you figure that out, shape everything else around that POV.

They may not notice everything, but since you have so many characters, the other characters can fill the POV character in. For example. POV sees Loegaire dying on the ground. At the same time, a different character, not seeing Loegaire, comments on something unseen by the POV character. OR Somthing happens behind the POV character's back and another character could gasps or react in some way, then the POV character can ask what happened.

 

[Ireth]

@ThinkerX: Splitting it between two POVs could work -- I did something similar in the prequel, but I'm not sure how well I actually pulled it off. To me it just seemed weird and clunky, however necessary it was. But hey, practice makes perfect.

Telling it from Dom's POV could definitely work. I wasn't planning on having him actually fall unconscious during the scene -- he'd just be in a LOT of pain -- but it's a good opportunity for a POV-switch of he does. Having a narrator in absolute agony is fun in some ways, but not too practical in others. I'm not too fond of having people give huge clumps of vital information by thinking about them or telling them second-hand, unless it's backstory.

@Penpilot: Hmm, that's a bit tricky. The four viewpoint characters are all pretty much equally emotionally invested in these events, having gone through their quest and experienced all its triumphs and pitfalls together. I'm thinking Ariel might be the most logical choice, as she has a lot at stake (read: her life) when Madoc tries to use her as a hostage, whether or not she's able to fight her way out of it.

 

[ThinkerX]

A possible solution presents itself.

As I understand it, Vincent is Ariels Father and Dom is her uncle. The implication in your synopsis is that Ariel cares for (is in love with) Loegaire. Your possible POV's are Vincent, Dom, and Ariel.

Dom effectively ends up gravely hurt and is too involved in the middle of the action to provide a good description. Of the three, he has the weakest connections to the others as well.

That leaves Vincent and Ariel. But Vincent, unless I'm reading things wrongly, will be focused almost entirely on saving his daughter.

That leaves Ariel. Madoc is probably tough enough to at least partly immobilize her fairly quick like. She can struggle some, but of them all, she is also in the best position to watch what is going on and won't be able to do much about it until Madoc gets distracted enough for her to strike back.

 

[Ireth]

You've pretty much got the relationships nailed down, except that Ariel is only friends with Loegaire, not in love with him at all. He loves her as a father, but she wants to be just his friend, not his daughter. That's a major source of contention between Vincent, Ariel and Loegaire from the very beginning of the story.

About Ariel and Madoc's fight, I would think Ariel has a slight bit of an advantage there, since she'll have an iron knife on her, and that will hurt like heck when Madoc is wounded with it. XD She'll probably try to hurt him pretty quickly, too. I might just have to try writing the scene out in full and see how it all plays out.

 

[ThinkerX]

If Madocs guards are any good at their job, Ariel will almost certainly have to use the iron knife on Madocs flunky first - which opens her up to being grabbed by Madoc before she can get properly positioned to use the knife on him. At most, she gives him a painful scratch, but he is probably tough enough to keep her from doing anything but watching for a bit.

 

[Justme]

The only thing I can think of is prioritizing everything in accordance to the main characters view. This is how the mind handles chaotic situations in the first place, imo. If it's too much to relate to one character then bring in another and add the remainder according to his perspective. There's more than once been a friend come to the aid of a principle character, when things were beyond his control. Note the scene in Star wars when Solo came out of nowhere to save Skywalker's butt, when Vader had him dead to rights.