The bubbling pot
I’ve been mulling over ideas for the Bonecity setting at the moment. I have the seeds of a story that I think will introduce the setting for what it is beautifully – yet at the same time I have other ideas that don’t fit in.
This is the bubbling pot in my head. Things come up, choice pieces, tidbits and I snatch them up. But sometimes other things come up that while nice, they do not meld with the rest of what I have gathered – so I throw them into the overflow pot to sort later. From the latest chunks I’ve thrown in there, I can see the beginnings of a story – not for any particular setting I’ve already nutted out, but a standalone piece.
Back to that in another post, however. Here I want to ramble a bit about perspectives relating to reading and watching a movie. I have come up with several ways in that people will meet an unpleasant end. The problem that arises however is that some of them simply do not work well in a litery sense. One of them involved someone being pulled inside of their fridge.
The problem that arises here though is that I don’t want to give(at this point) a definate form to what it is that ‘eliminates’ the characters. Being pulled into a fridge is all very well but unless there is another character there to give the readers a third person view of the action(so to speak) then I would need to descrive the nature of them being pulled in.
This third person would be watching the hapless character that opens the fridge, and watch as somehow they were pulled inside – the fridge door blocking the view of any sort of appendage or mystical black hole. In that case I would be able to describe it from their point of view but as it does not do for other characters to be present in the context of what the story is about, I don’t have that option.
That’s just an example of one of the things I had thought of. It seems that for some things, a third person perspective is required – be it another character or people viewing a scene of the event – to keep the air of mystery about it until it is time for it to be exposed.
Bonecity isn’t so much about thrashing slimy tentacles and endless mouths of teeth. It’s theme is more of decay and unsettling events and sights. Of course that doesn’t count the tentacles out – I love a good tentacular monster with a gaping maw – but I think I have enough places for those without introducing them here at this point!
April 1, 2008 at 3:18 am
Interesting thoughts. However, I don’t quite see your problem. Is it that you want to write from a first person perspective, but don’t want to describe what the person is seeing/ feeling/ thinking at one particular time? It sounds like an omniscient 3rd person view would give you the flexibility you require. That doesn’t mean you need another person there to witness it. If you are going strictly for 1st person, I’m sure you can work out some way to keep the mystery, or reveal something that will enhance the terror and suspense. Why don’t you try writing your fridge scene from a couple of different perspectives and styles and see what you come up with. Sometimes, a very factual, clinical point of view can be quite compelling. This could be accomplished with a first or third person perspective.
April 1, 2008 at 4:05 am
I agree with Sarah on the Omniscient 3rd person bit. But I think you’re limiting yourself to essentially a 1st Person Narrative (the person describing what they are seeing).
If you eliminate the person observing yet write factually as if there was a person watching, you as a writer do not need to have “the fridge door blocking the view of any sort of appendage or mystical black hole.” instead you just don’t describe it as it’s not the point of what you’re writing. As a writer you don’t have to. It’s only when you physically have another character in the room that you’re feeling compelled to describe everything there.