I had a plan to write a fairly complex post today, and as usual real life intervened – the current story is going well, a friend asked me to look at a piece of land he fancies, dealing with a project discussion between Amanda, Sarah, Kate and I and possibly Chris and then my computer decided to inform me Windows had detected a hard drive error. Hasty back-up and running checkdisk… took a lot of time. So here am I, not wanting to rush the post I planned, and also not wanting to go to bed at midnight… and also vaguely expecting the computer to crash. Happy camper. Not.
So I thought I’d write a post, kind of peripheral to what I wanted to talk about, which has more to do with the place I found myself in today, both with the story I was working on and real life… You see I am at the end of a multi-thread story… and as most writers find out, sooner or later, all those threads have to weave together, and knot off, or you find yourself in all sorts of trouble…
Firstly they unravel, and secondly you have irritated readers TBAR your books and never buy another. Look single strand books or stories are great, first person is ideal for this, as are short stories. You’re only dealing with the variables affecting one strand. That can be complicted enough. When it turns into hell is when you have (as in the Heirs of Alexandria books) many threads, many points of view… and the finale requires they come together. Rather like the story of my day, which actually had a lot of things happening at once… only you can’t write that easily, especially when they’re happening to a bunch of different characters in seperate settings… The equations – and variables – which ofen affect numerous threads start getting a bit large the old monkey brain. It is rather like playing multiple games of chess, and working out your opponents possible moves, and your responses, and their responses… and you’re playing multiple games at once, and some moves make affecct the moves you can make on other boards… Well. That’s if you’re me. Gradually, you start to close down the moves that can be made, and then… the trick is to reach checkmate if not together, at least in close order.
Because… if you win each, one at a time, you may finish the story, but I assure you, you’re going to lose the reader. It’s a continuity issue, and it can be a bastard. Yes, you’re the author , playing God with imaginary lives and situations… they still have to mesh. The owner of the Kayak has to show up at the right time. So he has to have a reason to be in the right place at that time. And he cannot accidentally run into the search party early. And you cannot invoke more than the mildest coincidence, and pretty rarely even that. And the character needs to say the right thing and leave out the crucial bit of information… and the other character must somehow have that piece but not be there at that juncture… It’s complex. Of course real life is more complex – as I hinted at above, and far more simultaneous, and you can’t do that, but you do need to simulate simultaniety (I’ve wanted to say that for years. Indulge me: ‘simulate simultaniety’. I just had to say it twice
Sounds good…So how do we cope with writing this? Me, I make copious notes to myself (mention Freddy’s obsession with herpetology. Mention French cooking before Freddy’s obsession… etc.), and backfill a fair bit as I go along. And, true confessions, I head-hop a lot when they do come together. When the characters are apart, I try to keep to one POV for long stretches, and stay within one scene. But it does get tough when you have a lot having to happen, seemingly naturally – when multiple character threads intertwine.
It makes my head hurt. It’s a popular thing in a lot of ‘thrillers’ or high action books.
Anyone got any recommendations?
Mine is Dick Francis.
Mad Genius Club 
23 responses to “Weave to Knot”
Mine is Raymond Chandler. In one of the Marlowe novels (I can’t recall which one) he says: “I never saw any of them again, except the cops. No way has ever been invented to say goodbye to them.”
Without going into the full context of the line, I have always taken it as permission to not wrap up every single thread in a story. As a reader, I don’t expect all the questions to be answered and all of the subplots to have resolutions.
That’s the way life is, sometimes we only get part of a story, and I think fiction is stronger when the reader is left with the impression that the world and the characters have a life “outside the frame” of the novel. Leaving unanswered questions gives us the feeling that we are shown only part of an entire world, things happened before the book started, and things will continue to happen after the book ends.
On the other hand, it will also make readers bug you to write a sequel, which can get annoying. Or so I’m told.
Oh it does. Trust me. Especially when you’d like to but have too many other commitments right now.
Deliberately leave a loose thread or two, and make it obvious but not too obvious. That’s the place you’ll tie the hook for the next novel in the series.
It gives the reader that”Ah, HAH!” moment when they finally figure out that the two are connected. And wonder “Now what?” when chapter last bleeds into chapter one..
It’s a balancing act, my friend. Too many loose and they just get mad, not curious! I did that in Dragon’s Ring, particularly. And even just with those careful threads… I got a fair bit of flak!
I always just assumed – given the ending – that there’d actually be a sequel. And that, if not, you’d be able to feel the burning of my wrathy wrath from the far side of the planet. Burny wrathy wrath. With burning.
Heh. There wasn’t one contracted, originally… So you’d better thank Toni
Love Dick Francis, but has he ever written a multiple POV story?
I’ve been known to grab a POV and its thread and rip them right out of a work in progress. “Your side adventures can have a story all it own someday. But right now, all you are doing is distracting me–and giving the reader false clues to the solution and expectations that won’t be met.”
No he does multiple thread stories – where the main character is in each of the seperate threads, but they are quite distinct – and often end with the people in each of those seperate threads in the same place at the same time. Which is hard too… His technique is to use the central character, but it still requires a lot of orchestration.
“Anyone got any recommendations? ”
I’m a frayed knot
That bights.
Will you guys cut that out!
I’m sure, in theory, this thread could be pulled, but I’m afraid – given the way we’re all warped (woof, that tires me and makes me yarn) – it’d just get spliced back in from another line.
This line is getting my hackle up, even though I know kiltieDave’s just doing it to needle us with a red herringbone.
You’re driving me loopy.
That’s because kiltieDave’s knot square.
This is a bit of a problem for one particular WiP of mine. I’m about 90k words into it, and I’m not at all certain that some of the threads should actually be there. I’ve decided to go back through and diagram the snot out of the whole thing, get the threads separated and listed and then do some outlining to see if I can get them all to line back up, but I’m a little scared to get started. I envision a LOT of work involved.
With mine I have to go real basic. _Whose_ story is this? _What_ is the problem? Does this advance the plot or derail it?
Some side track are inevitable, and needed. But they can’t swamp the main story.
That’s part of it, definitely. Given the prologue, it might be one character’s. Given chapter one, it could be another’s. In some ways, it’s the city in which they live, and in others yet unwritten, it’s actually about the whole freakin’ universe, as they’re approaching major upheaval at breakneck speed. It’ll be interesting.
I’ve found myself there. The effort was worth it.
I believe it to be so. My writer mind, on the other hand, has screaming fits whenever I contemplate it. I need to find a silver bullet, just so I can bite it and get the thing over with.
I got half-way through the novel and stopped, pulled the major POV characters aside and diagrammed how they would ally or divide. It got messy, because the first chunk of the book has two major POV characters who then drop out, while a new POV character storms in. Once that got sorted out, things grew easier. The six POV characters (four major, two minor) broke into two pairs, one antagonist, and a neutral party. One character bowed out early (smart reptile!), and it was logical for the remaining five to meet in person to sort out the major conflict. One got poisoned by the bad guy, and that left three for the climax. It narrowed to one for the denouement. Then I went back and made sure that the different threads wove together without dragging the reader down a lizard’s den.
I’ll admit, that complexity may be one reason why the sequel is still only one chapter and an outline.
I was going to say, this can sometimes end up in several books (especially when the aside characters and backstories are INTERESTING).
Well, I did have one initially minor POV character I’d planned to bump off. Instead he announced that he was too street smart for that, thank you, and what did I intend to do about it? His backstory could well be a novella, if there’s ever enough demand (just how does he know so much about Four Claw, anyway?). And two antagonists became allies, much to my chagrin.