I wrote my fist-fight scene yesterday. In response to Dawn’s repsonse, two guys, straight, best friends since high school. I think I ended it well. It was a pretty one-sided fight to begin with, one of the competetors being a recently discharged Marine and the other being a scrawny dope dealer from northern Georgia. One has to swallow their pride, ammends are made, and even though they’re not best friends again after, they’re kind of on speaking terms again.
(I am told) that’s what happens when guys fight over girls. It’s been my personal experience that they get kind of passive agressive and whiny and that the chest thumping is usually verbal instead of physical, but most of the guys I know are not ex-Marines and take most of their agressive instincts out on computer games instead of other people. Either way, the scene was kind of entertaining to write, and I hope it doesn’t read too poorly, either. My poor favorite character in the story just got the crap beaten out of him and I’d like to think it wasn’t in vain.
All of this has absolutely nothing to do with the passage of time in the story. I doubt the fight lasted more than two minutes total, and that includes slung insults. Most fights don’t last longer than that, really very few people (except action movie stunt doubles) have that kind of endurance.
However, the story surrounding it is based heavily on time passing. Each main chapter is a day of the week, with the flashbacks being a set number of years ago (So..Sunday, 10 Years Ago, Monday, 11 Years Ago, Tuesday, 12 Years Ago, etc). On top of that, my people are driving from Georgia to California. And the main story takes place in 1995, while the flash backs…well…do the math ^_^
I don’t know what posessed me to do this, besides the allure of how clever it sounded at the time. I am horrible at showing in my stories how much time has passed. I’ve spent a lot of my plotting time figuring out how far along these people would be in their trip at any given time of day any day of the week. I’ve driven from Georgia to Utah. And from Utah to California. And while they probably wouldn’t pass through Salt Lake on their trip, the rest would be about the same. So I have a good idea of scenery, how long it takes to get from one stopping point to the next, etc.
But last night, as I was pondering the wonder that was my fight scene, I realized that if it wasn’t even noon yet in Southern Utah, then when they hit Las Vegas it wouldn’t be dark already. Not in the middle of summer. Unless they’re driving really really slowly. And if they are, they’re not in Utah by Thursday because they only left on Tuesday.
Next time I write something longer than a short story (which will probably be around November or so…go figure)…I am going to avoid as much passing time outside of narration as possible. Viral happens fast anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
How do you deal with passing time in your stories?
This is one of the hardest things for me, indeed. I don’t like having to figure out time shifts. In my adult mutant novel, there is a long time span in the middle while the love interest is gone fighting in a war.
I struggle with starting my mom’s romance novel because her idea requires them meet in high school but not get to be together until retirement. Talk about epic time spans. I didn’t know how to deal with it until I recently thought of the old having the character telling the story to a younger generation character. I don’t like the naratore style usually but for her story it will work. But it’s still gonna be difficult.