Shit, just when you want to run an add someone comes along with something important to say.. Time And Time Again

Jeffrey, your answer above is clear and concise. Thank you.


I've been writing and rewriting this question for the past 7 hours in an effort to also be clear and concise. To paraphrase Mark Twain, I apologize for the length of my letter. I didn't have time to write a shorter one. In a just a couple of sentences of your critique, you raised a raft of issues, some of which are no doubt interrelated. I'm trying to focus this question on one issue for the moment.

Since CiaranL is also "in the room" - hi Ciaran - let me preface my question by saying that at no time do I desire to confuse or mislead the readers, be obscure, stylistically experimental etc. I wish to tell a convoluted, multi-layered story as clearly possible.

My aim is to show readers something they can never see in real life, though it is present in real life, the divergence between what people are thinking and the words they are saying to each other. Deception and the real versus the fake are major points of my plot as well as a major theme in the work.

I want the reader to be able to observe the deception, manipulations and unspoken misunderstandings of the characters toward one another. I need to know how to effectively use my narrator to do this, without having people tell me I'm making a "mistake" in POV.

You haven't read these sections of the book, as they occur later on, so let me address some of the remarks reviewers have made about the part that you just read. The theme of misperception and deception is initiated in the varying theories about Emma and her disappearance, as well as the lies told by officials and corporations about fracking.

For example, during Gretchen's conversation with the Deputy about Emma's disappearance, I have told the reader that the Deputy is thinking "flaky treehugger" while speaking in a professional manner. One or two reviewers commented that this was a mistake because I was in "Gretchen's point of view" and Gretchen wouldn't know what the Deputy is thinking. I didn't intend to suggest that she did - I the author/narrator want to show the reader that the police are contemptuous toward the people they are supposed to be "serving" by showing what the Deputy was thinking, but not saying. It's a small part of the chapter in itself, but its another brick in the wall of the building of the theme. How should I have written it so that I can show how Gretchen perceives the situation differently than the Deputy. This is going to be an issue all through my book.

Another example. Diane suggests to her co-worker Shelley that she fears Emma killed herself. Shelley disagrees with the theory. I want the reader to know that Shelley's assessment of Emma's probable behavior is based on Shelley's values and her view of Emma, rather than Emma's values and her actual behavior.

There are only two people who actually know what Emma really felt about suicide - Emma herself, who is not present, and the narrator/author. Therefore I, the narrator, want to tell the reader what Emma thought because it is a key to her character, that she places her responsibility to defend what she loves over her personal pain and feelings of failure. This character trait motivates her actions, beyond mere survival, when she finds herself in the 12th century.

A reviewer commented, "Why are you telling us what Emma thinks when we haven't met her yet?'

The reason is, "Because the reader needs to know the truth so that they understand something important about Emma" and since I no longer have scenes with Emma dealing with those feelings (all cut with the rewrite) I have to tell the reader somehow. What is wrong with the way I did it? How should it be done?

Let us just stipulate that I am utterly clear about why I am writing this book, what I want to say and so on. Obviously, it will be up to readers to judge whether it has any value to them. What I want is: that which I deliberately express appears deliberate as well as clear.

I did not think either of the aforementioned sections were confusing, but obviously somebody did, or they would not have mentioned it in the review.

Thanks again.

I'm happy to read Shakespeare's plays, in fact I recently reread Hamlet.
Poker players and actors in your example can convey to an onlooker that they are lying, bluffing etc. I am talking about something much more extensive, knowing what exactly they are thinking, not merely that they are being deceptive. I am using the term deceptive broadly. Sometimes deception has a malevolent purpose. At other times it is defensive.

My main character is chronically deceptive in her dealings with every character in the book but one, because she is pretending that she is the daughter of a merchant from some obscure country and is the sole survivor of a shipwreck, as opposed to a temporally displaced person from the 21stC. Her interior dialogue is at odds with what she is saying or how she is presenting herself to others.

The only person she reveals her identity to is her love interest Philip (an actual historical 12th century aristocrat) Even when she says what she thinks, he often fails to understand her, because she has a 21st century context for her thoughts and feelings, but he hears her light of his time, class and gender. This includes his unshakeable belief, despite her denials, that she is an emissary from God.

This makes me a little nervous. In the first draft I read of this, your character's exact thoughts were so overbearing I felt there was no room for the reader to have any thoughts of his own. You risk insulting the reader's intelligence if you try to explain too much.

I don't read spy novels, but maybe someone can recommend one that contains good examples of how to handle deception. No stars. No charts. Just crits.

Jeffrey the problem is there are scenes where that seriously defeats my purpose. These are mostly scenes between the between Rose and Philip regarding their relationship.

What I'm asking is the best way to to write a scene where the thoughts of more than one character are visible to the reader. That is what is I want, so I want to do it well. It is essential to the story I'm trying to tell.