Post by annemarble on Dec 6, 2022 3:04:34 GMT
I wrote a dark fantasy set in a school (nothing like that school) where young people learn about magic and warfare. Both main characters are fellow students (who are about 18-ish), and they end up betrothed to each other. The hero is Urde, a bullied student who is obsessed with ancient languages and "heretical" beliefs about the immortals, especially Lord of Death. The heroine is Clove, who is the intelligent yet overly protected daughter of the headmaster.
The chapters alternate between their POVs (starting with Urde in the first chapter). They often experience the same events at the same time, so I want to keep both POVs even if it means repeating some of the events. Because I think seeing the scene from a new set of eyes will make it interesting rather than repetitive. (FWIW this is done often in New Adult fiction.)
To make sure it's not repetitive, one idea I had was to go back and make sure I wasn't repeating too much dialogue between the scenes. (And that pains me because I took hours to make sure the lines of dialogue matched. ) But then, I'm also worried that I'm overthinking this. After all, isn't dialogue usually better than narrative? There are only so many times you can say something like, "Urde's father thundered on about ridiculous things like some kind of madman."
Here is an example, and I'm wondering if it's better just to keep their shared dialogue here.
From Urde's POV:
"Urde's father and I have come to an agreement. You and Urde shall be married. We'll hold the ceremony here--"
Clove asked, "How much do you owe? How much is a life worth these days? I hear they come cheap."
So Clove could bring out her claws, even against her own father? I liked that, although I feared that those claws would soon rake through my heart.
From Clove's POV:
"Urde's father and I have come to an agreement. You and Urde shall be married. We'll hold the ceremony here--"
I snapped, "How much do you owe? How much is a life worth these days? I hear they come cheap."
Father pulled out a contract. A contract. As if I were a parcel of textile to be sold. All that talk about how I deserved the freedoms, about how I was more intelligent than most of the boys at this school. Worth nothing now. My body was worth more. I took out my anger on Father. Urde and I were to be married. Soon. How soon?
From Urde's POV:
"Urde's father and I have come to an agreement. You and Urde shall be married. We'll hold the ceremony here--"
Clove asked, "How much do you owe? How much is a life worth these days? I hear they come cheap."
So Clove could bring out her claws, even against her own father? I liked that, although I feared that those claws would soon rake through my heart.
From Clove's POV:
"Urde's father and I have come to an agreement. You and Urde shall be married. We'll hold the ceremony here--"
I snapped, "How much do you owe? How much is a life worth these days? I hear they come cheap."
Father pulled out a contract. A contract. As if I were a parcel of textile to be sold. All that talk about how I deserved the freedoms, about how I was more intelligent than most of the boys at this school. Worth nothing now. My body was worth more. I took out my anger on Father. Urde and I were to be married. Soon. How soon?
P.S. I get to write some pretty horrifying things later in the story because Urde's father kills the current Lord of Death. Whoops! Don't do that. Because then, until a replacement is found, nobody dies, no matter how injured they are. (There is an Incident with a student crushed by a giant statue...) No animals die, so good luck trying to eat.