1 Topic by rhiannon (edited by rhiannon 2016-07-27 16:42:12)

Topic: Worry about Over explaining

I try to follow the John Campbell dicta, and write as though for an audience that exists at the time and place of the story.  It presents a challenge, as though the people of the time would know certain things, but the reader wouldn't, and you'd have to sneak in an explanation.  So let me see if I need more on the following.  There's a being in my story:  a vrocalaca.  I don't define them.  It is a word that can be looked up.  When a werewolf dies, through decapitation and disemboweling, they rise from the dead as a vrocalaca.  A vrocalaca has to wear all over clothing in the sun, or heavy sunscreen.  He drinks blood to live.  He can be skewered or impaled and not die, but being impaled through the heart does it. He is allergic to garlic. Can turn into a flying creature. So who has guessed what a vrocalaca is?  And does it matter if I don't explain it--wouldn't the properties I've mentioned by enough?

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2 Reply by max keanu (edited by max keanu 2016-07-27 18:42:40)

Re: Worry about Over explaining

Use a dialog voice to explain this if you are writing 1st person present. a letter or manuscript read aloud or in an interior monologue also works. If you have two detectives, the inferior detective reads the facts, while the senior detective listens (and thinks in interior monologue). And, don't over explain unless it is very entertaining information; then I'd use insane stream-of-consciousness ramblings of a madman, meth freak or mother-in-law.

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3 Reply by rhiannon (edited by rhiannon 2016-07-27 19:06:06)

Re: Worry about Over explaining

All good ideas, max.  Watson was the one that Holmes had to explain things to.  And if you read it close, it was Watson who engineered that, as he was supposed to be writing the stories.  He often made himself look like a bumpkin, but forgot that was his role, and we see him making observations worthy of Holmes himself.  And Holmes, in writing one of the story, uses subterfuges to confuse the reader--apologizing to Watson that he didn't understand how to write a story, and that Watson's "unnecessary" drama and obfuscation was in fact, necessary to good story writing.

Oh, an what I finally did on the vrocalacas.  I had a character, who is from the human world, say that she didn't find such creatures at all normal, and blurted out the human term for them.

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Re: Worry about Over explaining

One trick would be to have an adult tell what a vrocalaca is to a child, as a bedtime story. 

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w315/Anastazja_2007/funny-pictures-black-cat-devil-baby_zpsjmgjcr43.jpg

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Re: Worry about Over explaining

rhiannon wrote:

I try to follow the John Campbell dicta, and write as though for an audience that exists at the time and place of the story.  It presents a challenge, as though the people of the time would know certain things, but the reader wouldn't, and you'd have to sneak in an explanation.  So let me see if I need more on the following.  There's a being in my story:  a vrocalaca.  I don't define them.  It is a word that can be looked up.  When a werewolf dies, through decapitation and disemboweling, they rise from the dead as a vrocalaca.  A vrocalaca has to wear all over clothing in the sun, or heavy sunscreen.  He drinks blood to live.  He can be skewered or impaled and not die, but being impaled through the heart does it. He is allergic to garlic. Can turn into a flying creature. So who has guessed what a vrocalaca is?  And does it matter if I don't explain it--wouldn't the properties I've mentioned by enough?

In your story, set on a world with these unique creatures that has been invaded by Terrans, the most obvious solution is to have a conversation with your main character and a Terran at some point early on where they ask what she means and she has to explain -- analogous to the Watson/Holmes exchange above.

However, in the version I've been reading, which starts in the middle of the action, this will be more difficult.

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6 Reply by rhiannon (edited by rhiannon 2016-07-29 18:21:13)

Re: Worry about Over explaining

Thanks, Don.  I do have a character (or characters) like that.  Rosalyn, who won't show up in the book you're reading for a while, comments on the weirdness, from her point of view, of what's going on, and has to have things explained to her.  In the "prequel," the Terran colonel who she is having an affair with, does research, although he still has his stubbornly "scientific" explanations for things.  Oh, yes, starting in the middle presents it's own difficulties, but then, you're always starting in the middle.  But her radio conversation with Jeb and her dialogue with Lido helps, and more comes along as the story progresses: a delicate balance, as you don't want to slow down the action too much, but you have to clue the reader in  One thing I've done is to describe "around" something.  What do I mean?  Well, suppose you were writing to an alien audience about race relations in the US.  You wouldn't come out and talk about discrimination in the criminal justice system, but you'd show a cop beating up a black man, just describing the two, not mentioning the race.

Another thing is to embed the explanation in the action.  I don't explain that she shares her ancestor's ability to communicate and command the birds, I just have her do it.  For those who are familiar with the Mabinogeon, the response will be 'oh, yeah.'  But those who don't know the fairy tales will catch on from what's happening.  The forest the fog the wolfen all evoke cultural memories deep in our collective unconscious.  Other things have to be explained:  why didn't Lido stick around to help her?  So she flashes back to an incident that brought about the Treaty between Dragons and Men.  It's a delicate balance.  When she's on the pirate ship, I don't mention it's a pirate ship, just show that.  Don't mention what they're oiling, the reader has to figure out that this is a society which wouldn't have motor-boats.

Also, again thanks for your review, some of your issues simply became Rhiannon's and Lido's issues.

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