How soon is too soon to introduce the next POV?

[Britva415]

How can they not be aware that they are lying to others?

Granted, it's a greater level of self-deception than simply lying to oneself is, but, one can lie to oneself about lying to others.

Maybe we're on the same page - there is an extent to which lying, whether it's to oneself, or to others, or to oneself about lying to others, cannot be completely subliminal or unconscious. I believe that. However, if that person is the one who is doing the narrating, then, the content of the narration is going to include the substance of all the lies, so, the content of the narration can include zero awareness of the lies.

In third person omniscient... how can you justify doing that with one character but not with others?

The answer to this is exactly the same as "how can you justify close 3p narration at all."

I'll repeat: Unless the 3p narrator is an in-universe character, they are omniscient (they're you), no matter how closely they (you) choose tell the tale.

 

[WCSGarland]

This is the essence of the "show, don't tell" cliché.

Coming out and telling the motives and lies and self deceptions is an infodump.

Showing them, by telling information which allows the reader to deduce / infer / sense them, is not.

Well, actually I think that depends on the narration of the motivations and lies and self deceptions. The storyteller's art in exploring those things with show, don't tell, that is what I aim for.

 

[Britva415]

Anyway, none of this is about the "how soon is too soon" question any longer.

Seven chapters seems totally adequate, under almost any justification at all, or even none. If you can't come up with any reason not to do it, then I think you're free to go ahead and do it. Even if "because I feel like it" is all the affirmative reason you can articulate. (I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying.)

 

[Britva415]

I think that depends on the narration of the motivations and lies and self deceptions.

We're on the same page.

Maybe this is what you meant when you talked about "examining" motivations and lies and self deceptions. Maybe to you "examining" them means narrating them by telling them. To me it means the reader can examine them without the author and the manuscript explicitly telling them, but showing them instead.

 

[WCSGarland]

We're on the same page.

Maybe this is what you meant when you talked about "examining" motivations and lies and self deceptions. Maybe to you "examining" them means narrating them by telling them. To me it means the reader can examine them without the author and the manuscript explicitly telling them, but showing them instead.

Well... what can I say but... sometimes you need to ask the question out loud (in public) to answer it, even if the answer comes from yourself.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Well... what can I say but... sometimes you need to ask the question out loud (in public) to answer it, even if the answer comes from yourself.

Welcome to the wonderful world of talking out loud at people to answer your own question. I do it sometimes, and it's oddly satisfying. I legitimately have had friends sit down and listen to me talk at them for thirty minutes about a story, and they say nothing. I ask them questions, answer them myself, puzzle over it, then come to a conclusion and thank them for their time.

God bless them for their patience

 

[Statius]

Welcome to the wonderful world of talking out loud at people to answer your own question. I do it sometimes, and it's oddly satisfying. I legitimately have had friends sit down and listen to me talk at them for thirty minutes about a story, and they say nothing. I ask them questions, answer them myself, puzzle over it, then come to a conclusion and thank them for their time.

God bless them for their patience

I've done this here occasionally with a post. Like when I posted the 2 paragraphs of my Ria story- the original and the rewrite. The rewrite survived a week before I deleted it and re did it in SOC instead, but it took that posting to get me there. It's not exactly the same scenario but it is equivalent- kinda.