Fic Talk > General Discussion
Question of the day thread number 2!
Rose:
--- Quote from: mare on June 25, 2012, 03:39:07 PM ---Tonight's question:
Do you enjoy reading stories where the guys are way out of character?
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Not if it's to the point where I can't recognize them. What's the point then? I mean you may as well call it an original fiction and move on. It's why I always make a point to write the Boys as true to life as I can while trying to keep my own spin on it.
--- Quote from: mare on June 26, 2012, 01:25:00 PM ---Tonight's question:
Do you tend to include a lot of flashbacks or changes in points of view in your writing and if so, how do you go about letting the readers know it's happening?
--- End quote ---
Not a lot, no. I like to explain it in other ways. At times though, it's required so that you don't go about some weird way to show something. Usually I either label the date of when it happened, and go down in italics to show that scene. That, or I have the character musing over the events in his head, in italics. I'm not obvious about it. My big pet peeve is people labeling the POV or going "FLASHBACK" or something. Ugh, it's supposed to be subtle. The reader should know without you basically announcing it lol.
FrickingKaos:
It is a bit tricky for me since I write everything on my phone, but when I want to do a flashback I just space it out a bit from the paragraph and then throw a sentence in reminding the reader it is in the past. If I am switching POV, (usually in 3rd person) I do the same thing since I cannot italicize or use any different fonts.
mare:
I try to use italics when I do a flashback or like Hannah, throw the flashback into a scene where the character can relay what happened and get pulled out of his thoughts. I'm not a fan of using the word flashback lol just like Rose said, the writing should be able to speak for itself. Just like a summary should be able to speak for itself without the use of a banner.
Points of view, I try to do the same as above but usually use the name of who is speaking at the top of the chapter.
RokofAges75:
I'm not a big fan of flashbacks. I've used them before, but I usually prefer to just tell the story in order and find other ways to work in the backstory. When I do use flashbacks, I put them in italics and separate them from the rest of the narrative with an extra line of space. Like a lot of you have said, it drives me nuts when I see flashbacks labeled "~*~FLASHBACK~*~". I prefer to think that my writing can stand on its own and that my readers are intelligent enough to infer that it's a flashback LOL.
As for point of view, most of my stories are written in third person limited point of view from one main character's perspective. Some of them, like By My Side, Secrets of the Heart, and Song for the Undead, change which character the POV is limited to each chapter or scene. In BMS, I didn't do anything special to signal that change because it was only between two characters. In Secrets, as well as Curtain Call, I label the chapter title with which character's perspective it shows. In Undead, we start each chapter with a journal entry written by that character (in first person), then go to the third person narrative showing that character's perspective. Just like with the flashback thing, I'm not a fan of labeling each scene with "~*~Brian's POV~*~" and "~*~Nick's POV~*~" etc. Especially when it happens multiple times in the same chapter. Stop switching POVs already!! LOL
Pengi:
--- Quote from: DelphinaCarter on June 26, 2012, 04:02:40 PM ---It is a bit tricky for me since I write everything on my phone, but when I want to do a flashback I just space it out a bit from the paragraph and then throw a sentence in reminding the reader it is in the past. If I am switching POV, (usually in 3rd person) I do the same thing since I cannot italicize or use any different fonts.
--- End quote ---
You can use HTML tags to change the bold/italics of the text, even on your phone. To make a particular block of text italicized, use this tag <.i> before and <./i> after the block you want italicized. (Remove the . in those tags to make them work), switch out the i with a b to make bold. :)
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