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You should be able to use memory (or flashbacks, but I dislike them); or tell it from the Jewish girl's POV, but give her a reason to have conversations with a non-Jew, e.g. a teammate, an ambassad...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:42Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43154 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T11:12:49Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43154 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
You should be able to use memory (or flashbacks, but I dislike them); or tell it from the Jewish girl's POV, but give her a reason to have conversations with a non-Jew, e.g. a teammate, an ambassador's daughter she befriends, or an American businessman's daughter. Or son, if you are inclined in that story direction. > Listening to the poor fools on TV, she thought, _How blind a faith!_ She was reminded of her lessons; there was no special virtue in dying for your religion. Even Shabbat should be broken, to save a life, including your own. Should you be forced to choose between sins, avoid the worst one! Having a conversational partner (that doesn't already know the religion) is even better, because they can provide friendly disagreement, misunderstanding and sometimes friendly laughter, along with setting (like walking, or playing a game) all of which provide conflicts and distraction for the reader from a block of exposition on some ritual that is important to her. Another way of accomplishing that might be volunteering at her synagogue to teach children, they may not know anything either. Then your exposition can be framed in a children's story, like on the origin of a ritual. The reader feels like the MC is not talking to them, she is teaching the children. Again (depending on the traditions of Judaism, which I don't know) there might be room for interruption, by children or adults, or other minor conflicts. And the stories can be embellished to make them stories, so it is not "just the facts" of the ritual, but a longer and more entertaining version of it. A lot of this is "show don't tell", which is always longer. But anytime you need to convey some facts to orient the reader, conveying them in an entertaining fashion is going to take more text. I personally embrace that. If the facts take half a page, dilute them into four pages of story, and nobody will even notice they learned something!
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-03-07T22:34:56Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 10