Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How to not confuse readers with simultaneous events?

In an omniscient third person, I have 8 (practically unrelated) events going simultaneously in different parts of a large mansion. I want to present these events as they happen, but I feel jumping ...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Weckar E.‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:28:44Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/46719
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Weckar E.‭ · 2019-12-08T12:28:44Z (about 5 years ago)
In an omniscient third person, I have 8 (practically unrelated) events going simultaneously in different parts of a large mansion. I want to present these events as they happen, but I feel jumping around every two sentences is bound to cause confusion!

Are there any prose or typographical tricks I could use to make this easier on the reader? The idea is to preserve a sense of hectic momentum, so a _little_ confusion would be fine.

Thus far I have tried taking the perspective of an inanimate object that naturally passes through these events at a rapid pace (An overly-aggressively thrown bouncy ball), but I found the scene(s) quickly became about the object rather than the events.

I suppose the exact feeling I want to elicit is a prose equivalent of, in film, the variable time single-shot scene. I realize this is impossible, but I think exploring the options I have would at the very least be educational.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-07-18T09:44:01Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 20