Yzabel / October 20, 2005

I’m worried about a certain type of scenes: the ones that can’t really be shown through action, simply because the characters need to be in a quiet situation to live them. I’m worried that they may seem boring, compared to the rest—boring, or inappropriate, or looking too much like a lecture.It can’t be helped, really. Depending on the kind of story, at times the characters will learn certain things that can’t be presented otherwise than through another character, a book, a precise source of data… and it’s not during a fight or an escape scene that they’ll find the information they need. For instance, I’ve always disliked stories in which the heroes are thrown into an unknown world or situation, and accept it as if it was perfectly normal (read The Fionavar Tapestry to see what I mean: “Oh, you say you’re a mage coming from another world? And we need to go there with you for the 50th birthday of the King? Okay.”). No kidding, how would I react in such a situation? I’d ask questions. I’d ask a hell of a lot of questions. I’d bother the natives until they tell me why I’m here, what is “here”, how is the world ruled, how this and how that. It’s the kind of questions I’d ask, and I’d ask them expecting an answer longer than just a few words. This would imply sitting and talking, or at least doing it during an event that would be quiet enough for us to talk, such as a walk, riding horses, being in a subway train, or whatever else can work. When answers need to be given, the author must give them. No escape here.So what, will you say, I can very well make this happen little bits by little bits, and distillate information sparingly, like I do with so many things already, but what if the character doesn’t want me to? What if the character stops me and say “hey, wait, I want to know it all, and I want to know it now“? This is what some characters of mine do, really. They’re curious, they like to learn, they’re frightened by what’s unknown, they need the reassurance of a few explanations, right now, on the spot, so that they can go on with their journey without having to bang their heads against a wall to just stop thinking. I’m sure this would be a funny scene to write, but this wouldn’t get us very far, would it?My conclusion so far is that, when such scenes are needed, I have to write them, period—the best thing being to make them the more interesting possible. I can very well fill such a moment with tension; my protagonists (and antagonists) aren’t necessarily meant to hand out information freely, or in a peaceful way, and whoever has ever played role-playing games know that very seldom will someone actually give information without asking anything in turn. There are many ways, I’m sure, to make such a scene interesting to read, or, who knows, containing elements that the reader will later on being able to recall thinking “ah, yes, so this is the item they talked about in chapter 3!”.Besides, if everything was made of pure action, things would be so heated all the time that, by comparison, they wouldn’t seem so exciting anymore.information, scene, writing