An Observation
So, as I near the ever elusive 50,000 word mark for the second time in my life, I've noticed a few things about my writing that I didn't pick up last year. Mostly the fact that I tend to drive the story using mostly dialogue. (Firefox has a stupid spellchecker if it thinks "dialogue" is a typo, geez.)
If I want something explained, I'm far more apt to have a character ask another about the thing and have an explanation given that way, than just telling the reader about it. Sometimes I can make it seem like a character is observing something without actually talking about it, but I think it's safe to say that 80% of my 50,000 words is people talking. I don't really know if that's bad or not...
Also, I have a decision to make. Right now, my story is neither a slim volume of Chronicles of Narnia, or a sturdy volume of Lord of the Rings. It's kind of a weird, middle between the two where it's neither elegant, nor descriptive. It's just kind of there, and this is where another observation/question comes up.
Do I want to find a way to trim the book down to a smaller version, or expand it into something a little more hefty? Should it be a book that you can pick up and read in a day, or a book that easily takes you a week to get through? On top of that, there are two ways of presenting the story that I can think of. One is a more Narnia-esque approach (and also like The Hobbit), where it almost seems as if there's a storyteller actually relaying the story to you, with such lines as "I'm not sure if any of them knew what they were getting themselves into" and "Certainly, even you would be amazed at the height of the city walls." Where the author is talking about himself and you, the reader, in the same context as the characters. It sort of... bridges a gap that makes the book seem more interactive and fun to read.
Then there's the Lord of the Rings approach where it's like you're witnessing events yourself. Everything is from the position of a viewer watching the events unfold. Never any mention of "I", the storyteller, or "you", the reader. Just the characters and only the characters. And what you know, they know.
There's a few pros and cons that I can think of to each one. Here are the highlights:
With the storyteller/Narnia approach, it seems as if the book is talking to you. It makes the book interactive, as I said before, although it seems to make it slightly more lighthearted, because there's a sense of detachment from the characters. Instead of actually witnessing the characters, you are having the a clearly previous story being recounted for you, with the storyteller adding little bits to explain or liven things up a bit. This is both good and bad, depending on the mood you're trying to aim for. In a nutshell, Storyteller means more interaction and more knowledge of what's going on, at the expense of depth and realism of imagining you're actually there.
With the watcher/LotR approach, you are obviously watching events unfold in "realtime". There is no middle party relaying information to you. You are there watching everything happen as the characters do their stuff. This makes the book far more serious in nature, and doesn't give you any more information than the characters already know. For example, the Storyteller Approach might allude to some quick history of why something is happening that the characters might not know, or might already know, but you, the reader, don't know. The Watcher Approach means that if something happens, you might be as clueless as the characters until a later time, or the characters might already know, and it has just never come up in any conversation, and you're left in the dark, but that would make the experience seem a little more as if you were actually watching the events happen.
In a sense... I'm stuck. I know what to write now. I know what story I want to tell now. I know it's going to span more than one book. But I don't know what approach to take. Do I make it lighthearted in nature with the Storyteller Approach? I love Chronicles of Narnia. They're just really darned fun to read. You pick one up and you're instantly sucked into a story that CS Lewis is actually telling you himself. But you just can't take Narnia as seriously as you can Lord of the Rings, with its Watcher Approach. You pick that book up and you're instantly sucked in the events surrounding the expedition to destroy the One Ring. It's massive, and it's darker, because without the storyteller buffer, you're actually IN the world, rather than reading about it.
I think that the two questions I have are directly linked, as well. The Storyteller Approach seems to encompass the idea of smaller books, less descriptive, more to the point, faster and lighter. The Watcher Approach seems to encompass the idea of larger books, more descriptive, less to the point, longer and heavier. I'm having a really hard time deciding which approach I should take. I really can't think of another. I think books break down into these two categories.
Storyteller would be easier to write. You can fill in the gaps with your own explanations, completely outside what's taking place in the world. There's less to describe, because with you there, the reader probably won't care about what the environment looks like in great detail. Get the basic idea, leave the rest to the imagination, and drive the story forward! Easier to write, I think, but not necessarily a cop-out approach. You still have to figure out how to talk to the reader in a sensible way. Possibly a humorous way. Definitely a way that makes the reader not wish you'd get the heck out of the way.
Watcher would be far harder to write. Any gaps will fracture the story, because you can not be there to discuss something. You must have smooth transitions and keep the story flowing or it's going to feel bumpy and not very encompassing. It's got to be slow enough so that the reader can let the world wrap around them, yet fast enough so that they aren't in the same place for very long. If something happens, it should be something that makes the reader more interested in reading, and not some random event that's used only as a "red herring". Descriptions can be too short, and not provide enough immersion without the presence of a Storyteller, and they can be too long, and stagnate the real story and make the book far longer than it should be.
Ultimately, I'll have to decide which one to pick. When I started out, I was aiming for a few Narnia sized books that you could jump into and slide along with at a nice pace. Now, though, I see that it's turned into my secondary idea, which was to have three Lord of the Rings sized books. A beginning, middle, and end to the story, instead of a collection of several small, interconnected stories that culminate in a spectacular finale. I suppose, with some restructuring, that could still happen, but not without a lot of work.
I think, in the grand scheme of things, I write more like Tolkien than I do Lewis. Big, descriptive books. But I sometimes find myself trying to act like a Storyteller in a book that hasn't been presented that way from the very beginning. It's either one or the other, not both.
So I have some choices to make after NaNoWriMo is finished and if I decide to pursue this hobby. Do I keep the current method of driving the story with dialogue? Or do I cut back on the character interaction, which doesn't actually develop the character, and take a more descriptive approach to driving the storyline. Do I have the characters ask another what's going on, or do I explain it outside of dialogue? I really can't think of a good example. Some things just naturally have to be explained outside of dialogue, like how a creature looks or what it's getting ready to do. Actually, I have the perfect example:
Example One:
Daniel and Renee were soon finished rummaging through the crates.
"Did you find anything worth keeping?" Daniel asked. "I didn't get anything"
"Only an old camera," Renee replied, holding up an old leather case.
Example Two:
Daniel and Renee were soon finished rummaging through the crates. Daniel wound up empty-handed, but Renee managed to unearth an old camera still sealed up in its leather case.
Those examples almost make the non-dialogue approach seem more elegant, hmm. It's a bit shorter than the first example, too. Not by much, but the dialogue driven sections of my story tend to be far longer than the non-dialogue driven sections. So I don't know... I honestly don't know which I prefer. One is leaves actions to the imagination and makes the characters interact with each other, and the other almost has the ability to be a little more elegant in what words you can use to describe the actions, but leaves character interaction wanting.
My other choice is which approach to take, of course.
Example One:
As they descended the side of the mountain, the snow fell thicker than anything you or I have probably ever witnessed. It obscured the nearby forest from sight, and started piling up on the ground. The wind picked up and drove the snow in their faces, constantly pelting them as if they were standing under an ice-cold shower.
Example Two:
As they descended the side of the mountain, the snow fell thicker than it had been since they arrived. It obscured the nearby forest from sight, and started piling up on the ground in great drifts. The wind picked up and drove snow in their faces, constantly pelting them with what felt like frozen needles that drove straight to the bone.
Not a very good example either, maybe... First example is how you might write that paragraph in a way that the reader can directly relate to it. "Oh, I've seen some pretty deep snow... You mean it's more than that?" "I've been under a cold shower before, but ice cold? Ouch!" The second example is how you might write it keeping the reader and writer completely out of the picture and only describing things from the character's perspective. It was snowing more than they'd ever seen since they arrived, and they were feeling the icy needles cut right through their clothing. You can still imagine what's going on, but not in terms you may have experienced directly.
Wow, you know I've spent nearly an hour writing this?! I probably could have been completely done with all 50,000 words by now! Hah... Anyway... That's my predicament. Anyone who has any insights or opinions, please feel free to write a comment as long as this post, so I can hurry up and make a decision! I think when it all comes down to it, I would settle on a Watcher/Dialogue Approach, like I've been writing since November 1st, but, like I said, I'm not sure what the best idea would be.