How best to have a conversation a character does not overhear?
I have a scenario where my main character, who has considerable training and situational awareness has been captured. He has faith that his people will rescue him when the time is right.
He learns that his former instructor, who is also a psychiatrist, is coming to see him. Two scenarios occur to him - either he will be assessed as a potential security risk and dealt with or he is coming to confirm proper treatment. While he is running the probabilities of one scenario over the other and how best to try to skew things in the direction of the latter, a conversation takes place.
This conversation reveals that one of the agents holding him - a very annoying fellow - is the nephew of this psychiatrist. The issue is the MC must not learn this yet but would start paying attention once he realized they were discussing the person he was thinking about.
The relationship is revealed. The others in the room attach no significance to this.
How best to have the MC remain oblivious of this without him being oblivious?
How best to have him remain unaware of that relationship?
What I envision is a situation where the mentor reveals in passing the relationship of which the others are already aware, so MC is only unaware for a while.
It is third person omniscient.
TL;DR
The main character doesn't hear something, but the supporting characters do. In omniscient third person, how would this best be handled?
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1 answer
It depends on your real problem. Does it hurt for the guard to just know him?
If it doesn't hurt for the guard to know the psychiatrist, then in third person omniscient, you can have the guard refer to the psychiatrist and his father by their first names, and the other guard knows this is his habit.
Cast: Roger and Sam are guards, Bill is the psychiatrist, Mike is Roger's father and Bill's brother. But Roger refers to both of them by their first name.
setup: The MC is not watching the guards, he is distracted by his thoughts and looking out the window.
Bill looked at the photograph of the psychiatrist, and gestured with it to Sam. "I haven't seen Bill in eight years; It will be great to see him again."
Sam said, "How do you know this guy? You got a little history I should know about?"
"Idiot. But yeah, he's Mike's brother!"
Mike was Roger's father. Sam knew that and his eyebrows rose in surprise, and Roger laughed a bit. "Maybe I should have led with that."
"What? You never told me Mike had a brother! Why so long between visits?"
"Just the distance factor. He'll be all business on the clock, but maybe we can get some beers later."
"Count me in if you want company. I've got a few stories for him!"
I think this is the kind of conversation that might slip by your MC. First, doctors would usually be referred to by their last name; not a nickname. Bill is a nickname for William; and the MC knows the psychiatrist as "Dr. William Goldman". "Bill" doesn't register.
Second, the word "uncle" is not used. MC cannot be sure the guards are even talking about the psychiatrist, "Bill" could be anybody the guard knows and is going to see later.
Fourth, we depend on 'secret' knowledge shared by the two guards; they are friends and know "Mike" means Roger's father, but the MC doesn't know that or suspect it, and being distracted the MC doesn't see the start where they are clearly talking about the psychiatrist. So the idle conversation between Roger and Sam, including the fact they aren't trying to hide anything, raises no attentional flags and the MC doesn't try to understand it.
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